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III.40‑55

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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and I believe it to be free of errors.
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IV.1‑22

(Vol. III) Tacitus
Annals

Book III (end)

 p613  56 1 Tiberius, now that his check to the onrush of informers​1 had earned him a character for moderation, sent a letter to the senate desiring the tribunician power for Drusus. This phrase for the supreme dignity was discovered by Augustus; who was reluctant to take the style of king or dictator, yet desirous of some title indicating his pre-eminence over all other authorities.​2 Later, he selected Marcus Agrippa as his partner in that power, then, on Agrippa's decease,​3 Tiberius Nero; his object being to leave the succession in no doubt. In this way, he considered, he would stifle the misconceived hopes of other aspirants; while, at the same time, he had faith in Nero's self-restraint and in his own greatness. In accordance with this precedent, Tiberius then placed Drusus on the threshold of the empire, although in Germanicus' lifetime he had held his judgment suspended between the pair. — Now, however, after opening his letter with a prayer that Heaven would prospect his counsels to the good of the realm, he devoted a few sentences, free from false embellishments, to the character of the youth:— "He had a wife and three children; and he had reached the age​4 at which, formerly, he himself had been called by the deified Augustus to undertake the same charge. Nor was it in haste, but only after eight years of trial, after mutinies repressed, wars composed, one triumph, and two consulates, that he was now admitted to share a task already familiar."

57 1 The members had foreseen this pronouncement, and their flatteries were therefore well prepared. Invention, however, went no further than to decree effigies of the princes, altars to the gods,  p615 temples, arches, and other time-worn honours. An exception was when Marcus Silanus​5 sought a compliment to the principate in a slight to the consul­ship, and proposed that on public and private monuments the inscription recording the date should bear the names, not of the consuls of the year, but of the persons exercising the tribunician power. Quintus Haterius,​6 who moved that the day's resolutions should be set up in the senate-house in letters of gold, was derided as an old man who could reap nothing from his repulsive adulation save its infamy.

58 1 Meanwhile, after the governor­ship of Junius Blaesus​7 in Africa had been extended, the Flamen Dialis,​8 Servius Maluginensis, demanded the allotment of Asia​9 to himself. "It was a common fallacy," he insisted, "that the flamens of Jove were not allowed to leave Italy; nor was his own legal status different from that of the flamens of Mars and Quirinus. If, then, they had had provinces allotted them, why was the right withheld from the priests of Jove? There was no national decree to be found on the point — nothing in the Books of Ceremonies. The pontiffs had often performed the rites of Jove, if the flamen was prevented by sickness or public business. For seventy-five years after the self-murder of Cornelius Merula​10 no one had been appointed in his room, yet the rites had not been interrupted. But if so many years could elapse without a new creation, and without detriment to the cult, how much more easily could he absent himself for twelve months of proconsular authority?  p617 Personal rivalries had no doubt in former times led the pontiffs to prohibit his order from visiting the provinces: to‑day, by the grace of Heaven, the chief pontiff was also the chief of men,​11 beyond the reach of jealousy, rancour, or private inclinations."

59 1 Since various objections to the argument were raised by the augur Lentulus​12 and others, it was determined, in the upshot, to wait for the verdict of the supreme pontiff himself.

Tiberius postponed his inquiry into the legal standing of the flamen, but modified the ceremonies with which it had been resolved to celebrate the tribunician power of Drusus; criticizing specifically the unprecedented motion of Haterius and the gold lettering so repugnant to Roman custom. A letter, too, from Drusus was read, which, though tuned to a modest key, left an impression of extreme arrogance. "So the world," men said, "had come to this, that even a mere boy, invested with such an honour, would not approach the divinities of Rome, set foot within the senate, or, at the least, take the auspices on his native soil. War, they must assume, or some remote quarter of the world detained him; though at that instant he was perambulating the lakes and beaches of Campania! Such was the initiation of the governor of the human race, these the first lessons derived from the paternal instruction! A grey-haired emperor might, if he pleased, recoil from the view of his fellow-citizens, and plead the fatigue of age and the labours he had accomplished: but, in the case of Drusus, what impediment could there be save pride?"

60 1 Tiberius, however, while tightening his grasp on the solid power of the principate, vouchsafed to the  p619 senate a shadow of the past by submitting the claims of the provinces​13 to the discussion of its members. For throughout the Greek cities there was a growing laxity, and impunity, in the creation of rights of asylum. The temples were filled with the dregs of the slave population; the same shelter was extended to the debtor against his creditor and to the man suspected of a capital offence; nor was any authority powerful enough to quell the factions of a race which protected human felony equally with divine worship. It was resolved, therefore, that the communities in question should send their charters and deputies to Rome. A few abandoned without a struggle the claims they had asserted without a title: many relied on hoary superstitions or on their services to the Roman nation. It was an impressive spectacle which that day afforded, when the senate scrutinized the benefactions of its predecessors, the constitutions of the provinces, even the decrees of kings whose power antedated the arms of Rome, and the rites of the deities themselves, with full liberty as of old to confirm or change.

61 1 The Ephesians were the first to appear. "Apollo and Diana," they stated, "were not, as commonly supposed, born at Delos. In Ephesus there was a river Cenchrius, with a grove Ortygia;​14 where Latona, heavy-wombed and supporting herself by an olive-tree which remained to that day, gave birth to the heavenly twins. The grove had been hallowed by divine injunction; and there Apollo himself, after slaying the Cyclopes, had evaded the anger of Jove. Afterwards Father Liber, victor in the war, had pardoned the suppliant Amazons who had seated themselves at the altar. Then the sanctity  p621 of the temple had been enhanced, with the permission of Hercules, while he held the crown of Lydia; its privileges had not been diminished under the Persian empire; later, they had been preserved by the Macedonians — last by ourselves."

62 1 The Magnesians,​15 who followed, rested their case on the rulings of Lucius Scipio and Lucius Sulla, who, after their defeats of Antiochus and Mithridates respectively,​16 had honoured the loyalty and courage of Magnesia by making the shrine of Leucophryne Diana​17 an inviolable refuge. Next, Aphrodisias and Stratonicea​18 adduced a decree of the dictator Julius in return for their early services to his cause, together with a modern rescript of the deified Augustus, who praised the unchanging fidelity to the Roman nation with which they had sustained the Parthian inroad.​19 Aphrodisias, however, was championing the cult of Venus; Stratonicea, that of Jove and Diana of the Crossways. The statement of Hierocaesarea​20 went deeper into the past: the community owned a Persian Diana​21 with a temple dedicated in the reign of Cyrus; and there were references to Perpenna,​22 Isauricus,​23 and many other commanders who had allowed the same sanctity not only to the temple but to the neighbourhood for two miles round. The Cypriotes followed with an appeal for three shrines — the oldest erected by their  p623 founder Aërias to the Paphian Venus;​24 the second by his son Amathus to the Amathusian Venus; and a third by Teucer, exiled by the anger of his father Telamon, to Jove of Salamis.

63 1 Deputations from other states were heard as well; till the Fathers, weary of the details, and disliking the acrimony of the discussion, empowered the consuls to investigate the titles, in search of any latent flaw, and to refer the entire question back to the senate. Their report was that — apart from the communities I have already named — they were satisfied there was a genuine sanctuary of Aesculapius at Pergamum;​25 other claimants relied on pedigrees too ancient to be clear. "For Smyrna cited an oracle of Apollo, at whose command the town had dedicated a temple to Venus Stratonicis; Tenos,​26 a prophecy from the same source, ordering the consecration of a statue and shrine to Neptune. Sardis touched more familiar ground with a grant from the victorious Alexander; Miletus had equal confidence in King Darius. With these two, however, the divine object of adoration was Diana in the one case, Apollo in the other. The Cretans, again, were claiming for an effigy of the deified Augustus." The senate, accordingly, passed a number of resolutions, scrupulously complimentary, but still imposing a limit; and the applicants were ordered to fix the brass records actually inside the temples, both as a solemn memorial and as a warning not to lapse into secular intrigue under the cloak of religion.

64 1 About the same time, a serious illness of Julia Augusta made it necessary for the emperor to hasten his return​27 to the capital, the harmony between mother and son being still genuine, or  p625 their hatred concealed: for a little earlier, Julia, in dedicating an effigy to the deified Augustus not far from the theatre of Marcellus, had placed Tiberius' name after her own in the inscription;​28 and it was believed that, taking the act as a derogation from the imperial dignity, he had locked it in his breast with grave and veiled displeasure. Now, however, the senate gave orders for a solemn intercession and the celebration of the Great Games — the latter to be exhibited by the pontiffs, the augurs, and the Fifteen, assisted by the Seven and by the Augustal fraternities.​29 Lucius Apronius had moved that the Fetials​30 should also preside at the Games. The Caesar opposed, drawing a distinction between the prerogatives of the various priesthoods, adducing precedents, and pointing out that "the Fetials had never had that degree of dignity, while the Augustals had only been admitted among the others because theirs was a special priesthood of the house for which the intercession was being offered."

65 1 It is not my intention to dwell upon any senatorial motions save those either remarkable for their nobility or of memorable turpitude; in which case they fall within my conception of the first duty of history — to ensure that merit shall not lack its record and to hold before the vicious word and deed the terrors of posterity and infamy. But so tainted was that age, so mean its sycophancy, that not only the great personages of the state, who had to shield their magnificence by their servility, but all senators of consular rank, a large proportion of the ex-praetors, many ordinary members​31 even, vied with  p627 one another in rising to move the most repulsive and extravagant resolutions. The tradition runs that Tiberius, on leaving the curia, had a habit of ejaculating in Greek, "These men! — how ready they are for slavery!" Even he, it was manifest, objecting though he did to public liberty, was growing weary of such grovelling patience in his slaves.

66 1 Then, step by step, they passed from the degrading to the brutal. Gaius Silanus, the proconsul of Asia, accused of extortion by the provincials, was attacked simultaneously by the ex-consul Mamercus Scaurus,​32 the praetor Junius Otho, and the aedile Bruttedius Niger, who flung at him the charge of violating the godhead of Augustus​33 and spurning the majesty of Tiberius, while Mamercus made play with the precedents of antiquity — the indictment of Lucius Cotta by Scipio Africanus,​34 of Servius Galba by Cato the Censor,​35 of Publius Rutilius by Marcus Scaurus.​36 Such, as all men know, were the crimes avenged by Scipio and Cato or the famous Scaurus, the great-grandsire of Mamercus, whom that reproach to his ancestors dishonoured by his infamous activity! Junius Otho's old profession had been to keep a school; afterwards, created a senator by the influence of Sejanus, by his effrontery and audacity he brought further ignominy, if possible, upon the meanness of his beginnings.​37 Bruttedius, amply provided with liberal accomplishments, and bound, if he kept the straight road, to attain all distinctions, was goaded by a spirit of haste, which impelled him to outpace first his equals, then his superiors, and  p629 finally his own ambitions: an infirmity fatal to many, even of the good, who, disdaining the sure and slow, force a premature success, though destruction may accompany the prize.38

67 1 The number of the accusers was swelled by Gellius Publicola and Marcus Paconius, the former the quaestor of Silanus, the latter his legate. No doubt was felt that the defendant was guilty on the counts of cruelty and malversation; but there were many additional circumstances, which would have imperilled even the innocent. Over and above the array of hostile senators were the most fluent advocates of all Asia, selected, as such, to press the charge; and to these was replying a solitary man, devoid of forensic knowledge, and beset by that personal fear which enfeebles even professional eloquence: for Tiberius did not scruple to injure his case, by word, by look, by the fact that he himself was most assiduous in his questions, which it was permissible neither to refute nor to elude, while often an admission had to be made, lest the sovereign should have asked in vain. Further, to allow the examination of his slaves under torture, they had been formally sold to the treasury-agent;​39 and, lest a single friend should come to his help in the hour of peril, charges of treason were subjoined — a binding and inevitable argument for silence. He requested, therefore, an interval of a few days, and threw up his defence, first hazarding a note to the Caesar in which he had mingled reproaches with petitions.

68 1 Tiberius, in order that the measures he was preparing against Silanus might come with the better grace through being supported by a precedent, ordered the bill in which the deified Augustus had  p631 indicted Volesus Messala,​40 another proconsul of Asia, to be read aloud, together with the decree registered against him by the senate. He then asked Lucius Piso for his opinion. After a long preface devoted to the sovereign's clemency, he declared for the outlawry of Silanus from fire and water and his relegation to the isle of Gyarus.​41 So, too, the others; with the exception of Gnaeus Lentulus, who moved that, so far as the property of Silanus had been derived from his mother, it should, as she came of the Atian house,​42 be treated as distinct from the rest and restored to his son.

69 1 Tiberius approved; but Cornelius Dolabella, to pursue the sycophancy further, proposed, after an attack on Silanus' character, that no man of scandalous life and bankrupt reputation should be eligible for a province, the decision in such cases to rest with the emperor. "For delinquencies were punished by the law; but how much more merciful to the delinquent, how much better for the provincial, to provide against all irregularities beforehand!" The Caesar spoke in opposition:— "True, the reports with regard to Silanus were not unknown to him; but judgments could not be based on rumour. Many a man by his conduct in his province had reversed the hopes or fears entertained concerning him: some natures were roused to better things by great position, others became sluggish. It was neither possible for a prince to comprehend everything within his own knowledge, nor desirable that he should be influenced by the intrigues of others. The reason why laws were made retrospective towards the thing done was that things to be were indeterminable. It was on this principle their forefathers  p633 had ruled that, if an offence had preceded, punishment should follow; and they must not now overturn a system wisely invented and always observed. Princes had enough of burdens — enough, even, of power: the rights of the subject shrank as autocracy grew; and, where it was possible to proceed by form of law, it was a mistake to employ the fiat of the sovereign." This democratic doctrines were hailed with a pleasure answering to their rarity on the lips of Tiberius. He himself, tactful and moderate when not swayed by personal anger, added that "Gyarus was a bleak and uninhabited island. Out of consideration for the Junian house and for a man once their peer, they might allow him to retire to Cythnus​43 instead. This was also the desire of Silanus' sister Torquata, a Vestal of old-world saintliness." The proposal was adopted without discussion.44

70 1 Later, an audience was given to the Cyrenaeans, and Caesius Cordus was convicted of extortion on the arraignment of Ancharius Priscus.​45 Lucius Ennius, a Roman knight, found himself indicted for treason on the ground that he had turned a statuette of the emperor to the promiscuous uses of household silver.​46 The Caesar forbade the entry of the case for trial, though Ateius Capito​47 protested openly and with a display of freedom: for "the right of decision ought not to be snatched from the senate, nor should so grave an offence pass without punishment. By all means let the sovereign be easy-tempered in a grievance of his own; but injuries to the state he must not condone!" Tiberius understood  p635 this for what it was, rather than for what it purported to be, and persisted in his veto. The degradation of Capito was unusually marked, since, authority as he was on secular and religious law, he was held to have dishonoured not only the fair fame of the state but his personal good qualities.

71 1 A problem in religion now presented itself: in what temple were the knights to lodge the offering vowed, in connection with Augusta's illness, to Equestrian Fortune? For though shrines to Fortune were plentiful in the city, none carried the epithet in question.​48 It was found that there was a temple of the name at Antium,​49 and that all sacred rites in the country towns of Italy, with all places of worship and divine images, were subject to the jurisdiction and authority of Rome. At Antium, accordingly, the gift was placed.

And since points of religion were under consideration, the Caesar produced his recently deferred answer​50 to the Flamen Dialis, Servius Maluginensis; and read a pontifical decree, according to which the Flamen, whenever attacked by illness, might at the discretion of the supreme pontiff absent himself for more than two nights, so long as it was not on days of public sacrifice nor oftener than twice in one year. The ruling thus laid down in the principate of Augustus showed that a year's absence and a provincial governor­ship were not for the flamens of Jupiter. Attention was also called to a precedent set by the supreme pontiff, Lucius Metellus; who had vetoed the departure of the Flamen, Aulus Postumius.​51 Asia, therefore, was allotted to the consular next in seniority to Maluginensis.

72 1 Nearly at the same time, Marcus Lepidus  p637 asked permission from the senate to strengthen and decorate the Basilica of Paulus,​52 a monument of the Aemilian house, at his own expense. Public munificence was a custom still; nor had Augustus debarred a Taurus, a Philippus, or a Balbus​53 from devoting the trophies of his arms or the overflow of his wealth to the greater splendour of the capital and the glory of posterity: and now Lepidus, a man of but moderate fortune, followed in their steps by renovating the famous edifice of his fathers. On the other hand, the rebuilding of the Theatre of Pompey, destroyed by a casual fire, was undertaken by Caesar, on the ground that no member of the family was equal to the task of restoration: the name of Pompey was, however, to remain. At the same time, he gave high praise to Sejanus, "through whose energy and watchfulness so grave an outbreak had stopped at one catastrophe." The Fathers voted a statue to Sejanus, to be placed in the Theatre of Pompey.​54 Again, a short time afterwards, when he was honouring Junius Blaesus, proconsul of Africa, with the triumphal insignia, he explained that he did so as a compliment to Sejanus, of whom Blaesus was uncle. — None the less the exploits of Blaesus deserved such a distinction.

73 1 For Tacfarinas,​55 in spite of many repulses, having first recruited his forces in the heart of Africa, had reached such a pitch of insolence as to send an embassy to Tiberius, demanding nothing less than a territorial settlement for himself and his army, and threatening in the alternative a war from which there was no extrication. By all accounts, no insult to himself and the nation ever stung the emperor  p639 more than this spectacle of a deserter and bandit aping the procedure of an unfriendly power. "Even Spartacus,​56 after the annihilation of so many consular armies, when his fires were blazing through an Italy unavenged while the commonwealth reeled in the gigantic conflicts with Sertorius and Mithridates, — even Spartacus was not accorded a capitulation upon terms. And now, at the glorious zenith of the Roman nation, was this brigand Tacfarinas to be bought off by a peace and a cession of lands?" He handed over the affair to Blaesus; who, while inducing the other rebels to believe they might sheathe the sword with impunity, was to capture the leader by any means whatsoever. Large numbers came in under the amnesty. Then, the arts of Tacfarinas were met by a mode of warfare akin to his own.

74 1 Since it was noticed that the African, overmatched in solid fighting strength but more expert in the petty knaveries of war, operated with a number of bands, first attacking, then vanishing, and always manoeuvring for an ambuscade, arrangements were made for three forward movements and three columns to execute them. One, in charge of the legate Cornelius Scipio, held the road by which the enemy raided the Leptitanians​57 and then fell back upon the Garamantians. On another side, the younger Blaesus​58 marched with his own division to prevent the hamlets of Cirta​59 from being ravaged with impunity. In the centre, with the flower of the troops, was the commander himself; who, by securing the appropriate positions with fortresses or entrenchments, had rendered the whole district cramped and dangerous for his enemies. Turn where they would, they found some part of the Roman  p641 forces — on the front, on the flank, often in the rear; and numbers were destroyed or entrapped by these methods. Next, he subdivided his tripartite army into yet more numerous detachments, headed by centurions of tested courage. Not even when summer was spent would he fall in with custom by withdrawing his men and quartering them for a winter's rest in the Old Province.​60 Precisely as though he stood on the threshold of a campaign, he arranged his chain of forts, and with flying columns of men familiar with the deserts kept hounding Tacfarinas from one desert camp to another; until at last, after capturing the renegade's brother, he returned; too hastily, however, for the interests of the province, since he left those behind him who were capable of resuscitating the war. Tiberius, however, chose to treat it as ended, and even conferred on Blaesus the privilege of being saluted Imperator by his legions: a time-honoured tribute to generals who, after a successful campaign, were acclaimed by the joyful and spontaneous voice of a conquering army. Several might hold the title simultaneously, nor did it raise them above an equality with their colleagues. It was awarded in a few cases even by Augustus;​61 and now for the last time Tiberius assigned it to Blaesus.

75 1 This year saw the passing of two famous men: one, Asinius Saloninus, distinguished as the grandson of Marcus Agrippa and Asinius Pollio, as the brother of Drusus, and as the destined consort of the Caesar's grandchild;​62 the other, Ateius Capito, on whom I have touched already.​63 By his eminence as a jurist he had won the first position in the state; but his grandfather had been one of Sulla's centurions,  p643 nor had his father risen above a praetor­ship. His consulate had been accelerated by Augustus, so that the prestige of that office should give him an advantage over Antistius Labeo, a commanding figure in the same profession. For that age produced together two of the glories of peace;​64 but, while Labeo's uncompromising independence assured him the higher reputation with the public, the pliancy of Capito was more to the taste of princes. The one, because he halted at the praetor­ship, won respect by his ill-treatment; the other, because he climbed to the consulate, reaped hatred from a begrudged success.

76 1 Junia, too, born niece to Cato, wife of Caius Cassius, sister of Marcus Brutus,​65 looked her last on life, sixty-three full years after the field of Philippi. Her will was busily discussed by the crowd; because in disposing of her great wealth she mentioned nearly every patrician of note in complimentary terms, but omitted the Caesar. The slur was taken in good part, and he offered no objection to the celebration of her funeral with a panegyric at the Rostra and the rest of the customary ceremonies. The effigies of twenty great houses preceded her to the tomb — members of the Manlian and Quinctian families, and names of equal splendour. But Brutus and Cassius shone brighter than all by the very fact that their portraits were unseen.


The Loeb Editor's Notes:

1 They would have had an admirable field of activity if the proposed sumptuary legislation had been carried.

2 He received the title for life in June, 23 B.C., and five years later conferred it on Agrippa, who held it till his death in 12 B.C.

3 The phrase is rather misleading, since it was not till 9 or 6 B.C. that he was given the title for five years; and only upon his adoption by Augustus after the death of Gaius Caesar in 4 A.D. was it renewed.

4 The thirty-fifth year.

5 See above, chap. 24.

6 IV.61.

7 See chap. 35.

8 The fifteen Flamens ("kindlers"), a priesthood of immemorial antiquity, were devoted each to the service of a special cult. Twelve were of secondary importance: of the remaining three the chief was the Flamen of Jupiter (Fl. Dialis). The extraordinary taboos, which must have embittered his existence but have endeared him to the anthropologists, are enumerated by Aulus Gellius (X.15).

9 The case is much the same as in the year before (see chap. 32, note), since Africa is again reserved for Blaesus.

10 In 87 B.C. on the return of Cinna.

11 From 12 B.C. the title was invariably conferred on the emperor, until finally it passed to the bishops of Rome.

12 Cn. Cornelius Lentulus, consul 14 B.C.; proconsul of Asia, 1 B.C.; famous for his wealth (estimated at 400,000,000 sesterces), his stupidity and his slowness of speech (tam pusilli oris quam animi: cum esset avarissimus, nummos citius emittebat quam verba, Sen. De ben. II.27); committed suicide under Tiberius (Suet. Tib. 49).

13 But only of the senatorial provinces.

14 A common poetical name for Delos.

15 Here, and at IV.55, not the Magnesia a Sipylo of II.47, but those of Magnesia on the Maeander.

16 In 190 B.C. and 88 B.C.: see Liv. XXXVII.45 and Epit. LXXX.

17 So named, apparently, from an older town, Leucophrys, on the site of which Magnesia stood.

18 Stratonicea (named after the famous daughter of Demetrius Poliorcetes, wife of Seleucus and Antiochus Soter) lay in Caria: Aphrodisias is placed by Strabo on the Phrygian side of the frontier; by Pliny, on the Carian.

19 Under Q. Labienus and the Parthian prince Pacorus, in 40 B.C. Tacitus' sentence obscures the fact that the decree of Julius referred only to Aphrodisias; that of Augustus only to Stratonicea.

20 In Lydia.

21 Anaïtis.

22 Defeated and captured Aristonicus of Pergamum in 130 B.C.

23 P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus, consul with Caesar in 48 B.C.; proconsul of Asia two years later.

24 See Hist. II.3 (Titus' visit to the shrine). The image (ξυμβολικῶς ἱδρυμένον, Philostr. V. A. III fin.) was apparently a conical stone (though see Max. Tyr. VIII.8: ἡ δὲ ὕλη ἀγνοεῖται).

25 In Mysia; the seat of the famous Hellenistic kingdom bequeathed to the Roman people by attalus Philometor (133 B.C.). The name survives as Bergama.

26 Tino[s] in the Cyclades, which were attached to the province of Asia.

27 See above, chap. 31.

28 Fast. Praenest. (VIII Kal. Mai.):— Signum divo Augusto patri ad theatrum Marcelli Iulia Augusta et Ti. Augustus dedicarunt.

29 The pontifices, augures, and quindecimviri (entrusted with the charge of the Sibylline books and a general supervision of foreign cults), together with the septemviri — originally tresviriepulones (instituted in 196 B.C. to manage the sacred epulae, and now ten in number) constituted the four great priestly colleges. For the Augustales, see I.54.

30 Their functions (now largely obsolete) were concerned with international formalities — declarations of war, conclusions of treaties, etc. See, for instance, Livy, I.24; ib. 32; XXX.43; Gell. XVI.4.

31 Probably senators who had not held a curule office: the term was obscure even to Varro (Gell. III.18).

32 I.13; III.23 and 31; VI.9 and 29.

33 By perjury: see I.73.

34 Between 132 and 129 B.C. (Cic. pro Mur. 28).

35 149 B.C. (Cic. Brut. 23).

36 116 B.C. (Cic. Brut. 30).

37 It is difficult to believe in the compound propolluebat, though the conjecture inserted in the text has no claim to certainty: other suggestions are occullebat (Madvig), porro polluebat (Lipsius), ultro polluebat (Ritter). As to Otho, it is known from the elder Seneca that he rose to be a rhetorician of some eminence. The tribune, Junius Otho, of VI.47, is his son.

38 It is inferred from Juv. X.81 sqq. that he was one of those to whom the fall of Sejanus proved fatal.

39 See II.30.

40 L. Valerius Messala Volesus, proconsul of Asia ca. 12 A.D. Seneca couples him with Phalaris and Hannibal as a type of bloodthirstiness (de ira 5).

41 A rock-bound islet in the Aegean, which served, with others, as a Roman St. Helena (see Juv. I.73, Mayor). The modern name is Giura (Jura), and στὰ Γιοῦρα is, or was, a Romaïc equivalent of βάλλ’ ἐς κόρακας (Coraës on Isocr. Aeginet. init.).

42 The gens of Augustus' mother — daughter of M. Atius Balbus and Caesar's sister Julia.

43 A larger island, south of Ceos (commonly Θερμιά, but now again officially Κύθνος).

44 Since no objection to the proposal could be expected, the division (discessio) was taken without asking the opinion of members in the usual rotation: see Gell. XIV.7, § 9 and § 13 (after Varro and Ateius Capito).

45 See chap. 38: the intervening year had been allowed for the collection of evidence. — Cyrene (in conjunction with Crete, a senatorial province) was the strip of territory between Egypt and "Africa."

46 By melting it down into plate.

47 See below, chap. 75.

48 One vowed in 180 B.C., to commemorate an exploit of the Roman cavalry (Liv. XL.40), and extant nearly 90 years later, had presumably perished.

49 Porto d'Anzio.

50 See chap. 58.

51 In 242 B.C.: he was, however, a flamen of Mars (Liv. Epit. XIX).

52 Begun in 50 B.C. by the grandfather of Lepidus; completed and dedicated by his father; burnt down in 14 B.C., and restored by Augustus and friends of the family.

53 Suet. Aug. 29:— With the encouragement of Augustus, multa . . . a multis extructa sunt, sicut a Marcio Philippo aedes Herculis Musarum . . . a Cornelio Balbo theatrum, a Statilio Tauro amphitheatrum (the first to be constructed of stone).

54 Hence the epigram of Cremutius Cordus:— Tunc vere theatrum perire (Sen. cons. ad Marc. 22).

55 See chap. 32.

56 Leader of the slaves and gladiators in the Servile War (73‑71 B.C.). Of his half-dozen victories only two were, in strictness, over consular armies.

57 Leptis Minor (Lamta) — Leptis Major (Labda) lying too far east to be reached by Tacfarinas, though it would be nearer the Garamantes (in Fezzan).

Thayer's Note: Maybe Leptis Major after all, where a monumental inscription records the name of a Scipio; see the article Lepcis Magna, Cardo at Livius, with its photograph of the inscription. See also the interesting illustrated page Garamantes on the same site.

58 See I.19.

59 The principal town in Numidia: later Constantina, now Constantine.

60 The original province of Africa (annexed in 146 B.C.) had comprised merely the shrunken territories still held by Carthage immediately before her fall. Tripoli was a later accretion: then, after Thapsus (46 B.C.), the Cirta district, together with most of Numidia, became a separate command ("New Africa"), which in 25 B.C. was incorporated with the "Old Province."

61 But not, apparently, after the formal institution of the principate in 27 B.C.

62 He was the son of Asinius Gallus and Vipsania (daughter of Agrippa and first wife of Tiberius) and was to have married a daughter of Germanicus.

63 I.76 and 79; above, chap. 70.

64 Their names are famous in Roman jurisprudence as the founders of the two opposing schools of Sabiniani (followers of Capito) and Proculiani (followers of Labeo).

65 Cato's sister, Servilia, was married first to M. Junius Brutus, then to D. Junius Silanus. Caesar's assassin, Brutus, sprang from the first union; Cassius' wife, Tertia (Tertulla), from the second.


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