4. Tacitus, Annals, 2.53.3, 2.54.1-2.54.2, 2.54.4, 2.55.1, 2.55.6, 2.71.1, 2.82-2.83, 3.4, 3.4.2, 4.15.3, 4.52.2, 4.53.1, 6.25.3, 11.15, 11.26-11.28, 11.30-11.31, 11.35, 12.1, 12.3-12.7, 12.26.2, 12.66, 12.68, 13.3.2, 13.5, 13.12.1, 13.15.2, 13.19, 13.21, 13.58, 14.1.1, 14.3-14.13, 14.3.3, 14.4.1, 14.4.3, 14.6.1, 14.10.1-14.10.2, 14.12.1-14.12.2, 14.61, 15.23.4, 15.68-15.69, 15.71-15.72, 15.74, 16.11, 16.21.1-16.21.2, 16.22.3 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
Tagged with subjects: • Agrippina • Agrippina (Elder) • Agrippina (Younger) • Agrippina (wife of Germanicus) • Agrippina Minor • Agrippina Queen • Agrippina the Elder • Agrippina the Younger • Agrippina the Younger, Empress • Agrippina the Younger, Nero murders • Agrippina the Younger, and Augustus • Agrippina the Younger, and Claudius • Agrippina the Younger, and Nero • Agrippina the Younger, and Proculus • Agrippina the Younger, and Senate • Agrippina the Younger, consultation of astrologers by • Agrippina the Younger, imitation of Livia by • Agrippina the Younger, murder of • Agrippina the Younger, power and influence of • Agrippina the Younger, trials, involvement in • Agrippina the Younger, usurping of government functions by • Agrippina the Younger, veneration of • Augustus, and Agrippina the Younger • Claudius, and Agrippina the Younger • Nero (emperor), relationship with Agrippina the Younger • Nero, and Agrippina the Younger • Nero,, denounces Agrippina • Senate, and Agrippina the Younger • Seneca, and Agrippina the Younger • Tacitus, on Agrippina the Elder • Tacitus, on Agrippina the Younger • Tiberius, and Agrippina the Elder • flaminica, Agrippina as
Found in books: Blum and Biggs (2019) 196, 199, 201, 203, 205, 208; Bowen and Rochberg (2020) 305; Bruun and Edmondson (2015) 190; Davies (2004) 180; Edelmann-Singer et al (2020) 100, 106; Eidinow and Driediger-Murphy (2019) 166; Fertik (2019) 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 165, 180; Galinsky (2016) 58; Hachlili (2005) 185; Jenkyns (2013) 36, 79; Kazantzidis and Spatharas (2018) 269, 271; Keane (2015) 71; Peppard (2011) 79, 80; Poulsen and Jönsson (2021) 15, 169, 178, 183, 197, 203, 204, 205, 206, 209, 213, 214, 215, 216, 227, 243; Rutledge (2012) 25, 34, 135, 154, 166; Rüpke (2011) 130, 152; Shannon-Henderson (2019) 101, 114, 128, 134, 165, 183, 194, 195, 196, 219, 220, 266, 267, 278, 279, 281, 286, 291, 292, 295, 296, 297, 299, 300, 340, 341; Talbert (1984) 118, 161, 162, 218, 389, 514; Tuori (2016) 155, 158
2.82. At Romae, postquam Germanici valetudo percrebuit cunctaque ut ex longinquo aucta in deterius adferebantur, dolor ira, et erumpebant questus. ideo nimirum in extremas terras relegatum, ideo Pisoni permissam provinciam; hoc egisse secretos Augustae cum Plancina sermones. vera prorsus de Druso seniores locutos: displicere regtibus civilia filiorum ingenia, neque ob aliud interceptos quam quia populum Romanum aequo iure complecti reddita libertate agitaverint. hos vulgi sermones audita mors adeo incendit ut ante edictum magistratuum, ante senatus consultum sumpto iustitio desererentur fora, clauderentur domus. passim silentia et gemitus, nihil compositum in ostentationem; et quamquam neque insignibus lugentium abstinerent, altius animis maerebant. forte negotiatores vivente adhuc Germanico Syria egressi laetiora de valetudine eius attulere. statim credita, statim vulgata sunt: ut quisque obvius, quamvis leviter audita in alios atque illi in plures cumulata gaudio transferunt. cursant per urbem, moliuntur templorum foris; iuvat credulitatem nox et promptior inter tenebras adfirmatio. nec obstitit falsis Tiberius donec tempore ac spatio vanescerent: et populus quasi rursum ereptum acrius doluit. 2.83. Honores ut quis amore in Germanicum aut ingenio validus reperti decretique: ut nomen eius Saliari carmine caneretur; sedes curules sacerdotum Augustalium locis superque eas querceae coronae statuerentur; ludos circensis eburna effigies praeiret neve quis flamen aut augur in locum Germanici nisi gentis Iuliae crearetur. arcus additi Romae et apud ripam Rheni et in monte Syriae Amano cum inscriptione rerum gestarum ac mortem ob rem publicam obisse. sepulchrum Antiochiae ubi crematus, tribunal Epidaphnae quo in loco vitam finierat. statuarum locorumve in quis coleretur haud facile quis numerum inierit. cum censeretur clipeus auro et magni- tudine insignis inter auctores eloquentiae, adseveravit Tiberius solitum paremque ceteris dicaturum: neque enim eloquentiam fortuna discerni et satis inlustre si veteres inter scriptores haberetur. equester ordo cuneum Germanici appellavit qui iuniorum dicebatur, instituitque uti turmae idibus Iuliis imaginem eius sequerentur. pleraque manent: quaedam statim omissa sunt aut vetustas oblitteravit.
3.4. Dies quo reliquiae tumulo Augusti inferebantur modo per silentium vastus, modo ploratibus inquies; plena urbis itinera, conlucentes per campum Martis faces. illic miles cum armis, sine insignibus magistratus, populus per tribus concidisse rem publicam, nihil spei reliquum clamitabant, promptius apertiusque quam ut meminisse imperitantium crederes. nihil tamen Tiberium magis penetravit quam studia hominum accensa in Agrippinam, cum decus patriae, solum Augusti sanguinem, unicum antiquitatis specimen appellarent versique ad caelum ac deos integram illi subolem ac superstitem iniquorum precarentur.
3.4. Eodem anno Galliarum civitates ob magnitudinem aeris alieni rebellionem coeptavere, cuius extimulator acerrimus inter Treviros Iulius Florus, apud Aeduos Iulius Sacrovir. nobilitas ambobus et maiorum bona facta eoque Romana civitas olim data, cum id rarum nec nisi virtuti pretium esset. ii secretis conloquiis, ferocissimo quoque adsumpto aut quibus ob egestatem ac metum ex flagitiis maxima peccandi necessitudo, componunt Florus Belgas, Sacrovir propiores Gallos concire. igitur per conciliabula et coetus seditiosa disserebant de continuatione tributorum, gravitate faenoris, saevitia ac superbia praesidentium, et discordare militem audito Germanici exitio. egregium resumendae libertati tempus, si ipsi florentes quam inops Italia, quam inbellis urbana plebes, nihil validum in exercitibus nisi quod externum, cogitarent.
11.26. Iam Messalina facilitate adulteriorum in fastidium versa ad incognitas libidines profluebat, cum abrumpi dissimulationem etiam Silius, sive fatali vaecordia an imminentium periculorum remedium ipsa pericula ratus, urgebat: quippe non eo ventum ut senectam principis opperirentur. insontibus innoxia consilia, flagitiis manifestis subsidium ab audacia petendum. adesse conscios paria metuentis. se caelibem, orbum, nuptiis et adoptando Britannico paratum. mansuram eandem Messalinae potentiam, addita securitate, si praevenirent Claudium, ut insidiis incautum, ita irae properum. segniter eae voces acceptae, non amore in maritum, sed ne Silius summa adeptus sperneret adulteram scelusque inter ancipitia probatum veris mox pretiis aestimaret. nomen tamen matrimonii concupivit ob magnitudinem infamiae cuius apud prodigos novissima voluptas est. nec ultra expectato quam dum sacrificii gratia Claudius Ostiam proficisceretur, cuncta nuptiarum sollemnia celebrat. 11.27. Haud sum ignarus fabulosum visum iri tantum ullis mortalium securitatis fuisse in civitate omnium gnara et nihil reticente, nedum consulem designatum cum uxore principis, praedicta die, adhibitis qui obsignarent, velut suscipiendorum liberorum causa convenisse, atque illam audisse auspicum verba, subisse, sacrificasse apud deos; discubitum inter convivas, oscula complexus, noctem denique actam licentia coniugali. sed nihil compositum miraculi causa, verum audita scriptaque senioribus tradam. 11.28. Igitur domus principis inhorruerat, maximeque quos penes potentia et, si res verterentur, formido, non iam secretis conloquiis, sed aperte fremere, dum histrio cubiculum principis insultaverit, dedecus quidem inlatum, sed excidium procul afuisse: nunc iuvenem nobilem dignitate formae, vi mentis ac propinquo consulatu maiorem ad spem accingi; nec enim occultum quid post tale matrimonium superesset. subibat sine dubio metus reputantis hebetem Claudium et uxori devinctum multasque mortes iussu Messalinae patratas: rursus ipsa facilitas imperatoris fiduciam dabat, si atrocitate criminis praevaluissent, posse opprimi damnatam ante quam ream; sed in eo discrimen verti, si defensio audiretur, utque clausae aures etiam confitenti forent. 11.31. Tum potissimum quemque amicorum vocat, primumque rei frumentariae praefectum Turranium, post Lusium Getam praetorianis impositum percontatur. quis fatentibus certatim ceteri circumstrepunt, iret in castra, firmaret praetorias cohortis, securitati ante quam vindictae consuleret. satis constat eo pavore offusum Claudium ut identidem interrogaret an ipse imperii potens, an Silius privatus esset. at Messalina non alias solutior luxu, adulto autumno simulacrum vindemiae per domum celebrabat. urgeri prela, fluere lacus; et feminae pellibus accinctae adsultabant ut sacrificantes vel insanientes Bacchae; ipsa crine fluxo thyrsum quatiens, iuxtaque Silius hedera vinctus, gerere cothurnos, iacere caput, strepente circum procaci choro. ferunt Vettium Valentem lascivia in praealtam arborem conisum, interrogantibus quid aspiceret, respondisse tempestatem ab Ostia atrocem, sive coeperat ea species, seu forte lapsa vox in praesagium vertit.
11.35. Mirum inter haec silentium Claudi, Vitellius ignaro propior: omnia liberto oboediebant. patefieri domum adulteri atque illuc deduci imperatorem iubet. ac primum in vestibulo effigiem patris Silii consulto senatus abolitam demonstrat, tum quidquid avitum Neronibus et Drusis in pretium probri cessisse. incensumque et ad minas erumpentem castris infert, parata contione militum; apud quos praemonente Narcisso pauca verba fecit: nam etsi iustum dolorem pudor impediebat. continuus dehinc cohortium clamor nomina reorum et poenas flagitantium; admotusque Silius tribunali non defensionem, non moras temptavit, precatus ut mors acceleraretur. eadem constantia et inlustres equites Romani cupido maturae necis fuit. et Titium Proculum, custodem a Silio Messalinae datum et indicium offerentem, Vettium Valentem confessum et Pompeium Vrbicum ac Saufeium Trogum ex consciis tradi ad supplicium iubet. Decrius quoque Calpurnianus vigilum praefectus, Sulpicius Rufus ludi procurator, Iuncus Vergilianus senator eadem poena adfecti.
12.1. Caede Messalinae convulsa principis domus, orto apud libertos certamine, quis deligeret uxorem Claudio, caelibis vitae intoleranti et coniugum imperiis obnoxio. nec minore ambitu feminae exarserant: suam quaeque nobilitatem formam opes contendere ac digna tanto matrimonio ostentare. sed maxime ambigebatur inter Lolliam Paulinam M. Lollii consularis et Iuliam Agrippinam Germanico genitam: huic Pallas, illi Callistus fautores aderant; at Aelia Paetina e familia Tuberonum Narcisso fovebatur. ipse huc modo, modo illuc, ut quemque suadentium audierat, promptus, discordantis in consilium vocat ac promere sententiam et adicere rationes iubet.
12.1. Per idem tempus legati Parthorum ad expetendum, ut rettuli, Meherdaten missi senatum ingrediuntur mandataque in hunc modum incipiunt: non se foederis ignaros nec defectione a familia Arsacidarum venire, set filium Vononis, nepotem Phraatis accersere adversus dominationem Gotarzis nobilitati plebique iuxta intolerandam. iam fratres, iam propinquos, iam longius sitos caedibus exhaustos; adici coniuges gravidas, liberos parvos, dum socors domi, bellis infaustus ignaviam saevitia tegat. veterem sibi ac publice coeptam nobiscum amicitiam, et subveniendum sociis virium aemulis cedentibusque per reverentiam. ideo regum obsides liberos dari ut, si domestici imperii taedeat, sit regressus ad principem patresque, quorum moribus adsuefactus rex melior adscisceretur.
12.3. Praevaluere haec adiuta Agrippinae inlecebris: ad eum per speciem necessitudinis crebro ventitando pellicit patruum ut praelata ceteris et nondum uxor potentia uxoria iam uteretur. nam ubi sui matrimonii certa fuit, struere maiora nuptiasque Domitii, quem ex Cn. Ahenobarbo genuerat, et Octaviae Caesaris filiae moliri; quod sine scelere perpetrari non poterat, quia L. Silano desponderat Octaviam Caesar iuvenemque et alia clarum insigni triumphalium et gladiatorii muneris magnificentia protulerat ad studia vulgi. sed nihil arduum videbatur in animo principis, cui non iudicium, non odium erat nisi indita et iussa.
12.3. Sed Iazuges obsidionis impatientes et proximos per campos vagi necessitudinem pugnae attulere, quia Lugius Hermundurusque illic ingruerant. igitur degressus castellis Vannius funditur proelio, quamquam rebus adversis laudatus quod et pugnam manu capessiit et corpore adverso vulnera excepit. ceterum ad classem in Danuvio opperientem perfugit; secuti mox clientes et acceptis agris in Pannonia locati sunt. regnum Vangio ac Sido inter se partivere, egregia adversus nos fide, subiectis, suone an servitii ingenio, dum adipiscerentur dominationes, multa caritate, et maiore odio, postquam adepti sunt. 12.4. At Caesar cognita morte legati, ne provincia sine rectore foret, A. Didium suffecit. is propere vectus non tamen integras res invenit, adversa interim legionis pugna, cui Manlius Valens praeerat; auctaque et apud hostis eius rei fama, quo venientem ducem exterrerent, atque illo augente audita, ut maior laus compositis et, si duravissent, venia iustior tribueretur. Silures id quoque damnum intulerant lateque persultabant, donec adcursu Didii pellerentur. sed post captum Caratacum praecipuus scientia rei militaris Venutius, e Brigantum civitate, ut supra memoravi, fidusque diu et Romanis armis defensus, cum Cartimanduam reginam matrimonio teneret; mox orto discidio et statim bello etiam adversus nos hostilia induerat. sed primo tantum inter ipsos certabatur, callidisque Cartimandua artibus fratrem ac propinquos Venutii intercepit. inde accensi hostes, stimulante ignominia, ne feminae imperio subderentur, valida et lecta armis iuventus regnum eius invadunt. quod nobis praevisum, et missae auxilio cohortes acre proelium fecere, cuius initio ambiguo finis laetior fuit. neque dispari eventu pugnatum a legione, cui Caesius Nasica praeerat; nam Didius senectute gravis et multa copia honorum per ministros agere et arcere hostem satis habebat. haec, quamquam a duobus pro praetoribus pluris per annos gesta, coniunxi ne divisa haud perinde ad memoriam sui valerent: ad temporum ordinem redeo. 12.4. Igitur Vitellius, nomine censoris servilis fallacias obtegens ingruentiumque dominationum provisor, quo gratiam Agrippinae pararet, consiliis eius implicari, ferre crimina in Silanum, cuius sane decora et procax soror, Iunia Calvina, haud multum ante Vitellii nurus fuerat. hinc initium accusationis; fratrumque non incestum, sed incustoditum amorem ad infamiam traxit. et praebebat Caesar auris, accipiendis adversus generum suspicionibus caritate filiae promptior. at Silanus insidiarum nescius ac forte eo anno praetor, repente per edictum Vitellii ordine senatorio movetur, quamquam lecto pridem senatu lustroque condito. simul adfinitatem Claudius diremit, adactusque Silanus eiurare magistratum, et reliquus praeturae dies in Eprium Marcellum conlatus est. 12.5. C. Pompeio Q. Veranio consulibus pactum inter Claudium et Agrippinam matrimonium iam fama, iam amore inlicito firmabatur; necdum celebrare sollemnia nuptiarum audebant, nullo exemplo deductae in domum patrui fratris filiae: quin et incestum ac, si sperneretur, ne in malum publicum erumperet metuebatur. nec ante omissa cunctatio quam Vitellius suis artibus id perpetrandum sumpsit. percontatusque Caesarem an iussis populi, an auctoritati senatus cederet, ubi ille unum se civium et consensui imparem respondit, opperiri intra palatium iubet. ipse curiam ingreditur, summamque rem publicam agi obtestans veniam dicendi ante alios exposcit orditurque: gravissimos principis labores, quis orbem terrae capessat, egere adminiculis ut domestica cura vacuus in commune consulat. quod porro honestius censoriae mentis levamentum quam adsumere coniugem, prosperis dubiisque sociam, cui cogitationes intimas, cui parvos liberos tradat, non luxui aut voluptatibus adsuefactus, sed qui prima ab iuventa legibus obtemperavisset. 12.5. Nam Vologeses casum invadendae Armeniae obvenisse ratus, quam a maioribus suis possessam externus rex flagitio obtineret, contrahit copias fratremque Tiridaten deducere in regnum parat, ne qua pars domus sine imperio ageret. incessu Parthorum sine acie pulsi Hiberi, urbesque Armeniorum Artaxata et Tigranocerta iugum accepere. deinde atrox hiems et parum provisi commeatus et orta ex utroque tabes perpellunt Vologesen omittere praesentia. vacuamque rursus Armeniam Radamistus invasit, truculentior quam antea, tamquam adversus defectores et in tempore rebellaturos. atque illi quamvis servitio sueti patientiam abrumpunt armisque regiam circumveniunt. 12.6. Eodem anno saepius audita vox principis, parem vim rerum habendam a procuratoribus suis iudicatarum ac si ipse statuisset. ac ne fortuito prolapsus videretur, senatus quoque consulto cautum plenius quam antea et uberius. nam divus Augustus apud equestris qui Aegypto praesiderent lege agi decretaque eorum proinde haberi iusserat ac si magistratus Romani constituissent; mox alias per provincias et in urbe pleraque concessa sunt quae olim a praetoribus noscebantur: Claudius omne ius tradidit, de quo toties seditione aut armis certatum, cum Semproniis rogationibus equester ordo in possessione iudiciorum locaretur, aut rursum Serviliae leges senatui iudicia redderent, Mariusque et Sulla olim de eo vel praecipue bellarent. sed tunc ordinum diversa studia, et quae vicerant publice valebant. C. Oppius et Cornelius Balbus primi Caesaris opibus potuere condiciones pacis et arbitria belli tractare. Matios posthac et Vedios et cetera equitum Romanorum praevalida nomina referre nihil attinuerit, cum Claudius libertos quos rei familiari praefecerat sibique et legibus adaequaverit. 12.6. Postquam haec favorabili oratione praemisit multaque patrum adsentatio sequebatur, capto rursus initio, quando maritandum principem cuncti suaderent, deligi oportere feminam nobilitate puerperiis sanctimonia insignem. nec diu anquirendum quin Agrippina claritudine generis anteiret: datum ab ea fecunditatis experimentum et congruere artes honestas. id vero egregium, quod provisu deum vidua iungeretur principi sua tantum matrimonia experto. audivisse a parentibus, vidisse ipsos abripi coniuges ad libita Caesarum: procul id a praesenti modestia. statueretur immo documentum, quo uxorem imperator acciperet. at enim nova nobis in fratrum filias coniugia: sed aliis gentibus sollemnia, neque lege ulla prohibita; et sobrinarum diu ignorata tempore addito percrebuisse. morem accommodari prout conducat, et fore hoc quoque in iis quae mox usurpentur. 12.7. Haud defuere qui certatim, si cunctaretur Caesar, vi acturos testificantes erumperent curia. conglobatur promisca multitudo populumque Romanum eadem orare clamitat. nec Claudius ultra expectato obvius apud forum praebet se gratantibus, senatumque ingressus decretum postulat quo iustae inter patruos fratrumque filias nuptiae etiam in posterum statuerentur. nec tamen repertus est nisi unus talis matrimonii cupitor, Alledius Severus eques Romanus, quem plerique Agrippinae gratia impulsum ferebant. versa ex eo civitas et cuncta feminae oboediebant, non per lasciviam, ut Messalina, rebus Romanis inludenti. adductum et quasi virile servitium: palam severitas ac saepius superbia; nihil domi impudicum, nisi dominationi expediret. cupido auri immensa obtentum habebat, quasi subsidium regno pararetur.
12.66. In tanta mole curarum valetudine adversa corripitur, refovendisque viribus mollitia caeli et salubritate aquarum Sinuessam pergit. tum Agrippina, sceleris olim certa et oblatae occasionis propera nec ministrorum egens, de genere veneni consultavit, ne repentino et praecipiti facinus proderetur; si lentum et tabidum delegisset, ne admotus supremis Claudius et dolo intellecto ad amorem filii rediret. exquisitum aliquid placebat, quod turbaret mentem et mortem differret. deligitur artifex talium vocabulo Locusta, nuper veneficii damnata et diu inter instrumenta regni habita. eius mulieris ingenio paratum virus, cuius minister e spadonibus fuit Halotus, inferre epulas et explorare gustu solitus.
12.68. Vocabatur interim senatus votaque pro incolumitate principis consules et sacerdotes nuncupabant, cum iam exanimis vestibus et fomentis obtegeretur, dum quae res forent firmando Neronis imperio componuntur. iam primum Agrippina, velut dolore victa et solacia conquirens, tenere amplexu Britannicum, veram paterni oris effigiem appellare ac variis artibus demorari ne cubiculo egrederetur. Antoniam quoque et Octaviam sorores eius attinuit, et cunctos aditus custodiis clauserat, crebroque vulgabat ire in melius valetudinem principis, quo miles bona in spe ageret tempusque prosperum ex monitis Chaldaeorum adventaret.
13.5. Eodem anno crebris populi flagitationibus immodestiam publicanorum arguentis dubitavit Nero an cuncta vectigalia omitti iuberet idque pulcherrimum donum generi mortalium daret. sed impetum eius, multum prius laudata magnitudine animi, attinuere senatores, dissolutionem imperii docendo, si fructus quibus res publica sustineretur deminuerentur: quippe sublatis portoriis sequens ut tributorum abolitio expostularetur. plerasque vectigalium societates a consulibus et tribunis plebei constitutas acri etiam tum populi Romani libertate; reliqua mox ita provisa ut ratio quaestuum et necessitas erogationum inter se congrueret. temperandas plane publicanorum cupidines, ne per tot annos sine querela tolerata novis acerbitatibus ad invidiam verterent.
13.5. Nec defuit fides, multaque arbitrio senatus constituta sunt: ne quis ad causam orandam mercede aut donis emeretur, ne designatis quaestoribus edendi gladiatores necessitas esset. quod quidem adversante Agrippina, tamquam acta Claudii subverterentur, obtinuere patres, qui in Palatium ob id vocabantur ut adstaret additis a tergo foribus velo discreta, quod visum arceret, auditus non adimeret. quin et legatis Armeniorum causam gentis apud Neronem orantibus escendere suggestum imperatoris et praesidere simul parabat, nisi ceteris pavore defixis Seneca admonuisset venienti matri occurreret. ita specie pietatis obviam itum dedecori.
13.19. Nihil rerum mortalium tam instabile ac fluxum est quam fama potentiae non sua vi nixae. statim relictum Agrippinae limen: nemo solari, nemo adire praeter paucas feminas, amore an odio incertas. ex quibus erat Iunia Silana, quam matrimonio C. Sili a Messalina depulsam supra rettuli, insignis genere forma lascivia, et Agrippinae diu percara, mox occultis inter eas offensionibus, quia Sextium Africanum nobilem iuvenem a nuptiis Silanae deterruerat Agrippina, impudicam et vergentem annis dictitans, non ut Africanum sibi seponeret, sed ne opibus et orbitate Silanae maritus poteretur. illa spe ultionis oblata parat accusatores ex clientibus suis, Iturium et Calvisium, non vetera et saepius iam audita deferens, quod Britannici mortem lugeret aut Octaviae iniurias evulgaret, sed destinavisse eam Rubellium Plautum, per maternam originem pari ac Nero gradu a divo Augusto, ad res novas extollere coniugioque eius et imperio rem publicam rursus invadere. haec Iturius et Calvisius Atimeto, Domitiae Neronis amitae liberto, aperiunt—qui laetus oblatis (quippe inter Agrippinam et Domitiam infensa aemulatio exercebatur) Paridem histrionem, libertum et ipsum Domitiae, impulit ire propere crimenque atrociter deferre.' "
13.21. Sic lenito principis metu et luce orta itur ad Agrippinam ut nosceret obiecta dissolveretque vel poenas lueret. Burrus iis mandatis Seneca coram fungebatur; aderant et ex libertis arbitri sermonis. deinde a Burro, postquam crimina et auctores exposuit, minaciter actum. et Agrippina ferociae memor 'non miror' inquit 'Silanam, num- quam edito partu, matrum adfectus ignotos habere; neque enim proinde a parentibus liberi quam ab impudica adulteri mutantur. nec si Iturius et Calvisius adesis omnibus fortunis novissimam suscipiendae accusationis operam anui rependunt, ideo aut mihi infamia parricidii aut Caesari conscientia subeunda est. nam Domitiae inimicitiis gratias agerem, si benevolentia mecum in Neronem meum certaret: nunc per concubinum Atimetum et histrionem Paridem quasi scaenae fabulas componit. Baiarum suarum piscinas extollebat, cum meis consiliis adoptio et proconsulare ius et designatio consulatus et cetera apiscendo imperio praepararentur. aut existat qui cohortis in urbe temptatas, qui provinciarum fidem labefactatam, denique servos vel libertos ad scelus corruptos arguat. vivere ego Britannico potiente rerum poteram? ac si Plautus aut quis alius rem publicam iudicaturus obtinuerit, desunt scilicet mihi accusatores qui non verba impatientia caritatis aliquando incauta, sed ea crimina obiciant quibus nisi a filio absolvi non possim.' commotis qui aderant ultroque spiritus eius mitigantibus, conloquium filii exposcit, ubi nihil pro innocentia, quasi diffideret, nec de beneficiis, quasi exprobraret, disseruit, sed ultionem in delatores et praemia amicis obtinuit." '
13.58. Eodem anno Ruminalem arborem in comitio, quae octingentos et triginta ante annos Remi Romulique infantiam texerat, mortuis ramalibus et arescente trunco deminutam prodigii loco habitum est, donec in novos fetus revivesceret.
14.3. Igitur Nero vitare secretos eius congressus, abscedentem in hortos aut Tusculanum vel Antiatem in agrum laudare quod otium capesseret. postremo, ubicumque haberetur, praegravem ratus interficere constituit, hactenus consultans, veneno an ferro vel qua alia vi. placuitque primo venenum. sed inter epulas principis si daretur, referri ad casum non poterat tali iam Britannici exitio; et ministros temptare arduum videbatur mulieris usu scelerum adversus insidias intentae; atque ipsa praesumendo remedia munierat corpus. ferrum et caedes quonam modo occultaretur nemo reperiebat; et ne quis illi tanto facinori delectus iussa sperneret metuebat. obtulit ingenium Anicetus libertus, classi apud Misenum praefectus et pueritiae Neronis educator ac mutuis odiis Agrippinae invisus. ergo navem posse componi docet cuius pars ipso in mari per artem soluta effunderet ignaram: nihil tam capax fortuitorum quam mare; et si naufragio intercepta sit, quem adeo iniquum ut sceleri adsignet quod venti et fluctus deliquerint? additurum principem defunctae templum et aras et cetera ostentandae pietati.
14.3. Stabat pro litore diversa acies, densa armis virisque, intercursantibus feminis; in modum Furiarum veste ferali, crinibus deiectis faces praeferebant; Druidaeque circum, preces diras sublatis ad caelum manibus fundentes, novitate aspectus perculere militem ut quasi haerentibus membris immobile corpus vulneribus praeberent. dein cohortationibus ducis et se ipsi stimulantes ne muliebre et fanaticum agmen pavescerent, inferunt signa sternuntque obvios et igni suo involvunt. praesidium posthac impositum victis excisique luci saevis superstitionibus sacri: nam cruore captivo adolere aras et hominum fibris consulere deos fas habebant. haec agenti Suetonio repentina defectio provinciae nuntiatur. 14.4. Eodem anno Romae insignia scelera, alterum senatoris, servili alterum audacia, admissa sunt. Domitius Balbus erat praetorius, simul longa senecta, simul orbitate et pecunia insidiis obnoxius. ei propinquus Valerius Fabianus, capessendis honoribus destinatus, subdidit testamentum adscitis Vinicio Rufino et Terentio Lentino equitibus Romanis. illi Antonium Primum et Asinium Marcellum sociaverant. Antonius audacia promptus, Marcellus Asinio Pollione proavo clarus neque morum spernendus habebatur nisi quod paupertatem praecipuum malorum credebat. igitur Fabianus tabulas sociis quos memoravi et aliis minus inlustribus obsignat. quod apud patres convictum et Fabianus Antoniusque cum Rufino et Terentio lege Cornelia damtur. Marcellum memoria maiorum et preces Caesaris poenae magis quam infamiae exemere. 14.4. Placuit sollertia, tempore etiam iuta, quando Quinquatruum festos dies apud Baias frequentabat. illuc matrem elicit, ferendas parentium iracundias et placandum animum dictitans quo rumorem reconciliationis efficeret acciperetque Agrippina facili feminarum credulitate ad gaudia. venientem dehinc obvius in litora (nam Antio adventabat) excepit manu et complexu ducitque Baulos. id villae nomen est quae promunturium Misenum inter et Baianum lacum flexo mari adluitur. stabat inter alias navis ornatior, tamquam id quoque honori matris daretur: quippe sueverat triremi et classiariorum remigio vehi. ac tum invitata ad epulas erat ut occultando facinori nox adhiberetur. satis constitit extitisse proditorem et Agrippinam auditis insidiis, an crederet ambiguam, gestamine sellae Baias pervectam. ibi blandimentum sublevavit metum: comiter excepta superque ipsum conlocata. iam pluribus sermonibus modo familiaritate iuvenili Nero et rursus adductus, quasi seria consociaret, tracto in longum convictu, prosequitur abeuntem, artius oculis et pectori haerens, sive explenda simulatione, seu periturae matris supremus aspectus quamvis ferum animum retinebat. 14.5. Haud dispari crimine Fabricius Veiento conflictatus est, quod multa et probrosa in patres et sacerdotes compo- suisset iis libris quibus nomen codicillorum dederat. adiciebat Tullius Geminus accusator venditata ab eo munera principis et adipiscendorum honorum ius. quae causa Neroni fuit suscipiendi iudicii, convictumque Veientonem Italia depulit et libros exuri iussit, conquisitos lectitatosque donec cum periculo parabantur: mox licentia habendi oblivionem attulit. 14.5. Noctem sideribus inlustrem et placido mari quietam quasi convincendum ad scelus dii praebuere. nec multum erat progressa navis, duobus e numero familiarium Agrippinam comitantibus, ex quis Crepereius Gallus haud procul gubernaculis adstabat, Acerronia super pedes cubitantis reclinis paenitentiam filii et reciperatam matris gratiam per gaudium memorabat, cum dato signo ruere tectum loci multo plumbo grave, pressusque Crepereius et statim exanimatus est: Agrippina et Acerronia eminentibus lecti parietibus ac forte validioribus quam ut oneri cederent protectae sunt. nec dissolutio navigii sequebatur, turbatis omnibus et quod plerique ignari etiam conscios impediebant. visum dehinc remigibus unum in latus inclinare atque ita navem submergere: sed neque ipsis promptus in rem subitam consensus, et alii contra nitentes dedere facultatem lenioris in mare iactus. verum Acerronia, imprudentia dum se Agrippinam esse utque subveniretur matri principis clamitat, contis et remis et quae fors obtulerat navalibus telis conficitur: Agrippina silens eoque minus adgnita (unum tamen vulnus umero excepit) do, deinde occursu lenunculorum Lucrinum in lacum vecta villae suae infertur. 14.6. Igitur accepto patrum consulto, postquam cuncta scelerum suorum pro egregiis accipi videt, exturbat Octaviam, sterilem dictitans; exim Poppaeae coniungitur. ea diu paelex et adulteri Neronis, mox mariti potens, quendam ex ministris Octaviae impulit servilem ei amorem obicere. destinaturque reus cognomento Eucaerus, natione Alexandrinus, canere tibiis doctus. actae ob id de ancillis quaestiones et vi tormentorum victis quibusdam ut falsa adnuerent, plures perstitere sanctitatem dominae tueri; ex quibus una instanti Tigellino castiora esse muliebria Octaviae respondit quam os eius. movetur tamen primo civilis discidii specie domumque Burri, praedia Plauti, infausta dona accipit: mox in Campaniam pulsa est addita militari custodia. inde crebri questus nec occulti per vulgum, cui minor sapientia et ex mediocritate fortunae pauciora pericula sunt. his tamquam Nero paenitentia flagitii coniugem revocarit Octaviam. 14.6. Illic reputans ideo se fallacibus litteris accitam et honore praecipuo habitam, quodque litus iuxta non ventis acta, non saxis impulsa navis summa sui parte veluti terrestre machinamentum concidisset; observans etiam Acerroniae necem, simul suum vulnus aspiciens, solum insidiarum remedium esse, si non intellegerentur; misitque libertum Agerinum qui nuntiaret filio benignitate deum et fortuna eius evasisse gravem casum; orare ut quamvis periculo matris exterritus visendi curam differret; sibi ad praesens quiete opus. atque interim securitate simulata medicamina vulneri et fomenta corpori adhibet; testamentum Acerroniae requiri bonaque obsignari iubet, id tantum non per simulationem. 14.7. At Neroni nuntios patrati facinoris opperienti adfertur evasisse ictu levi sauciam et hactenus adito discrimine ne auctor dubitaretur. tum pavore exanimis et iam iamque adfore obtestans vindictae properam, sive servitia armaret vel militem accenderet, sive ad senatum et populum pervaderet, naufragium et vulnus et interfectos amicos obiciendo: quod contra subsidium sibi? nisi quid Burrus et Seneca; quos expergens statim acciverat, incertum an et ante gnaros. igitur longum utriusque silentium, ne inriti dissuaderent, an eo descensum credebant ut, nisi praeveniretur Agrippina, pereundum Neroni esset. post Seneca hactenus promptius ut respiceret Burrum ac sciscitaretur an militi imperanda caedes esset. ille praetorianos toti Caesarum domui obstrictos memoresque Germanici nihil adversus progeniem eius atrox ausuros respondit: perpetraret Anicetus promissa. qui nihil cunctatus poscit summam sceleris. ad eam vocem Nero illo sibi die dari imperium auctoremque tanti muneris libertum profitetur: iret propere duceretque promptissimos ad iussa. ipse audito venisse missu Agrippinae nuntium Agerinum, scaenam ultro criminis parat gladiumque, dum mandata perfert, abicit inter pedes eius, tum quasi deprehenso vincla inici iubet, ut exitium principis molitam matrem et pudore deprehensi sceleris sponte mortem sumpsisse confingeret.' "14.8. Interim vulgato Agrippinae periculo, quasi casu evenisset, ut quisque acceperat, decurrere ad litus. hi molium obiectus, hi proximas scaphas scandere; alii quantum corpus sinebat vadere in mare; quidam manus protendere; questibus, votis, clamore diversa rogitantium aut incerta respondentium omnis ora compleri; adfluere ingens multitudo cum luminibus, atque ubi incolumem esse pernotuit, ut ad gratandum sese expedire, donec aspectu armati et minitantis agminis disiecti sunt. Anicetus villam statione circumdat refractaque ianua obvios servorum abripit, donec ad foris cubiculi veniret; cui pauci adstabant, ceteris terrore inrumpentium exterritis. cubiculo modicum lumen inerat et ancillarum una, magis ac magis anxia Agrippina quod nemo a filio ac ne Agerinus quidem: aliam fore laetae rei faciem; nunc solitudinem ac repentinos strepitus et extremi mali indicia. abeunte dehinc ancilla 'tu quoque me deseris' prolocuta respicit Anicetum trierarcho Herculeio et Obarito centurione classiario comitatum: ac, si ad visendum venisset, refotam nuntiaret, sin facinus patraturus, nihil se de filio credere; non imperatum parricidium. circumsistunt lectum percussores et prior trierarchus fusti caput eius adflixit. iam in mortem centurioni ferrum destringenti protendens uterum 'ventrem feri' exclamavit multisque vulneribus confecta est." "14.9. Haec consensu produntur. aspexeritne matrem exanimem Nero et formam corporis eius laudaverit, sunt qui tradiderint, sunt qui abnuant. cremata est nocte eadem convivali lecto et exequiis vilibus; neque, dum Nero rerum potiebatur, congesta aut clausa humus. mox domesticorum cura levem tumulum accepit, viam Miseni propter et villam Caesaris dictatoris quae subiectos sinus editissima prospectat. accenso rogo libertus eius cognomento Mnester se ipse ferro transegit, incertum caritate in patronam an metu exitii. hunc sui finem multos ante annos crediderat Agrippina contempseratque. nam consulenti super Nerone responderunt Chaldaei fore ut imperaret matremque occideret; atque illa 'occidat' inquit, 'dum imperet.'" '14.11. Adiciebat crimina longius repetita, quod consortium imperii iuraturasque in feminae verba praetorias cohortis idemque dedecus senatus et populi speravisset, ac postquam frustra habita sit, infensa militi patribusque et plebi dissuasisset donativum et congiarium periculaque viris inlustribus struxisset. quanto suo labore perpetratum ne inrumperet curiam, ne gentibus externis responsa daret. temporum quoque Claudianorum obliqua insectatione cuncta eius dominationis flagitia in matrem transtulit, publica fortuna extinctam referens. namque et naufragium narrabat: quod fortuitum fuisse quis adeo hebes inveniretur ut crederet? aut a muliere naufraga missum cum telo unum qui cohortis et classis imperatoris perfringeret? ergo non iam Nero, cuius immanitas omnium questus antibat, sed Seneca adverso rumore erat quod oratione tali confessionem scripsisset. 14.12. Miro tamen certamine procerum decernuntur supplicationes apud omnia pulvinaria, utque Quinquatrus quibus apertae insidiae essent ludis annuis celebrarentur; aureum Minervae simulacrum in curia et iuxta principis imago statuerentur; dies natalis Agrippinae inter nefastos esset. Thrasea Paetus silentio vel brevi adsensu priores adulationes transmittere solitus exiit tum senatu ac sibi causam periculi fecit, ceteris libertatis initium non praebuit. prodigia quoque crebra et inrita intercessere: anguem enixa mulier et alia in concubitu mariti fulmine exanimata; iam sol repente obscu- ratus et tactae de caelo quattuordecim urbis regiones. quae adeo sine cura deum eveniebant ut multos post annos Nero imperium et scelera continuaverit. ceterum quo gravaret invidiam matris eaque demota auctam lenitatem suam testificaretur, feminas inlustris Iuniam et Calpurniam, praetura functos Valerium Capitonem et Licinium Gabolum sedibus patriis reddidit, ab Agrippina olim pulsos. etiam Lolliae Paulinae cineres reportari sepulcrumque extrui permisit; quosque ipse nuper relegaverat, Iturium et Calvisium poena exolvit. nam Silana fato functa erat, longinquo ab exilio Tarentum regressa labante iam Agrippina, cuius inimicitiis conciderat, vel mitigata. 14.13. Tamen cunctari in oppidis Campaniae, quonam modo urbem ingrederetur, an obsequium senatus, an studia plebis reperiret anxius: contra deterrimus quisque, quorum non alia regia fecundior extitit, invisum Agrippinae nomen et morte eius accensum populi favorem disserunt: iret intrepidus et venerationem sui coram experiretur; simul praegredi exposcunt. et promptiora quam promiserant inveniunt, obvias tribus, festo cultu senatum, coniugum ac liberorum agmina per sexum et aetatem disposita, extructos, qua incederet, spectaculorum gradus, quo modo triumphi visuntur. hinc superbus ac publici servitii victor Capitolium adiit, grates exolvit seque in omnis libidines effudit quas male coercitas qualiscumque matris reverentia tardaverat.
14.61. Exim laeti Capitolium scandunt deosque tandem venerantur. effigies Poppaeae proruunt, Octaviae imagines gestant umeris, spargunt floribus foroque ac templis statuunt. †itur etiam in principis laudes repetitum venerantium†. iamque et Palatium multitudine et clamoribus complebant, cum emissi militum globi verberibus et intento ferro turbatos disiecere. mutataque quae per seditionem verterant et Poppaeae honos repositus est. quae semper odio, tum et metu atrox ne aut vulgi acrior vis ingrueret aut Nero inclinatione populi mutaretur, provoluta genibus eius, non eo loci res suas agi ut de matrimonio certet, quamquam id sibi vita potius, sed vitam ipsam in extremum adductam a clientelis et servitiis Octaviae quae plebis sibi nomen indiderint, ea in pace ausi quae vix bello evenirent. arma illa adversus principem sumpta; ducem tantum defuisse qui motis rebus facile reperiretur, omitteret modo Campaniam et in urbem ipsa pergeret ad cuius nutum absentis tumultus cierentur. quod alioquin suum delictum? quam cuiusquam offensionem? an quia veram progeniem penatibus Caesarum datura sit? malle populum Romanum tibicinis Aegyptii subolem imperatorio fastigio induci? denique, si id rebus conducat, libens quam coactus acciret dominam, vel consuleret securitati. iusta ultione et modicis remediis primos motus consedisse: at si desperent uxorem Neronis fore Octaviam, illi maritum daturos.
15.68. Proximum constantiae exemplum Sulpicius Asper centurio praebuit, percontanti Neroni cur in caedem suam conspiravisset breviter respondens non aliter tot flagitiis eius subveniri potuisse: tum iussam poenam subiit. nec ceteri centuriones in perpetiendis suppliciis degeneravere: at non Faenio Rufo par animus, sed lamentationes suas etiam in testamentum contulit. Opperiebatur Nero ut Vestinus quoque consul in crimen traheretur, violentum et infensum ratus: sed ex coniuratis consilia cum Vestino non miscuerant, quidam vetustis in eum simultatibus, plures quia praecipitem et insociabilem credebant. ceterum Neroni odium adversus Vestinum ex intima sodalitate coeperat, dum hic ignaviam principis penitus cognitam despicit, ille ferociam amici metuit, saepe asperis facetiis inlusus, quae ubi multum ex vero traxere, acrem sui memoriam relinquunt. accesserat repens causa quod Vestinus Statiliam Messalinam matrimonio sibi iunxerat, haud nescius inter adulteros eius et Caesarem esse. 15.69. Igitur non crimine, non accusatore existente, quia speciem iudicis induere non poterat, ad vim dominationis conversus Gerellanum tribunum cum cohorte militum immittit iubetque praevenire conatus consulis, occupare velut arcem eius, opprimere delectam iuventutem, quia Vestinus imminentis foro aedis decoraque servitia et pari aetate habebat. cuncta eo die munia consulis impleverat conviviumque celebrabat, nihil metuens an dissimulando metu, cum ingressi milites vocari eum a tribuno dixere. ille nihil demoratus exsurgit et omnia simul properantur: clauditur cubiculo, praesto est medicus, abscinduntur venae, vigens adhuc balneo infertur, calida aqua mersatur, nulla edita voce qua semet miseraretur. circumdati interim custodia qui simul discubuerant, nec nisi provecta nocte omissi sunt, postquam pavorem eorum, ex mensa exitium opperientium, et imaginatus et inridens Nero satis supplicii luisse ait pro epulis consularibus.
15.71. Sed compleri interim urbs funeribus, Capitolium victimis; alius filio, fratre alius aut propinquo aut amico interfectis, agere grates deis, ornare lauru domum, genua ipsius advolvi et dextram osculis fatigare. atque ille gaudium id credens Antonii Natalis et Cervarii Proculi festinata indicia impunitate remuneratur. Milichus praemiis ditatus conservatoris sibi nomen, Graeco eius rei vocabulo, adsumpsit. e tribunis Gavius Silvanus quamvis absolutus sua manu cecidit; Statius Proxumus veniam quam ab imperatore acceperat vanitate exitus corrupit. exuti dehinc tribunatuPompeius, Cornelius Martialis, Flavius Nepos Statius Domitius, quasi principem non quidem odissent sed tamen existimarentur. Novio Prisco per amicitiam Senecae et Glitio Gallo atque Annio Pollioni infamatis magis quam convictis data exilia. Priscum Artoria Flaccilla coniunx comitata est, Gallum Egnatia Maximilla, magnis primum et integris opibus, post ademptis; quae utraque gloriam eius auxere. pellitur et Rufrius Crispinus occasione coniurationis, sed Neroni invisus quod Poppaeam quondam matrimonio tenuerat. Verginium Flavum et Musonium Rufum claritudo nominis expulit: nam Verginius studia iuvenum eloquentia, Musonius praeceptis sapientiae fovebat. Cluvidieno Quieto, Iulio Agrippae, Blitio Catulino, Petronio Prisco, Iulio Altino velut in agmen et numerum, Aegaei maris insulae permittuntur. at Caedicia uxor Scaevini et Caesennius Maximus Italia prohibentur, reos fuisse se tantum poena experti. Acilia mater Annaei Lucani sine absolutione, sine supplicio dissimulata.
15.74. Tum decreta dona et grates deis decernuntur, propriusque honos Soli, cui est vetus aedes apud circum in quo facinus parabatur, qui occulta coniurationis numine retexisset; utque circensium Cerealium ludicrum pluribus equorum cursibus celebraretur mensisque Aprilis Neronis cognomentum acciperet; templum Saluti extrueretur eo loci *ex quo Scaevinus ferrum prompserat. ipse eum pugionem apud Capitolium sacravit inscripsitque Iovi Vindici: in praesens haud animadversum; post arma Iulii Vindicis ad auspicium et praesagium futurae ultionis trahebatur. reperio in commentariis senatus Cerialem Anicium consulem designatum pro sententia dixisse ut templum divo Neroni quam maturrime publica pecunia poneretur. quod quidem ille decernebat tamquam mortale fastigium egresso et venerationem hominum merito, sed ipse prohibuit, ne interpretatione quorundam ad omen malum sui exitus verteretur: nam deum honor principi non ante habetur quam agere inter homines desierit.
16.11. Ergo nuntiat patri abicere spem et uti necessitate: simul adfertur parari cognitionem senatus et trucem sententiam. nec defuere qui monerent magna ex parte heredem Caesarem nuncupare atque ita nepotibus de reliquo consu- lere. quod aspernatus, ne vitam proxime libertatem actam novissimo servitio foedaret, largitur in servos quantum aderat pecuniae; et si qua asportari possent, sibi quemque deducere, tres modo lectulos ad suprema retineri iubet. tunc eodem in cubiculo, eodem ferro abscindunt venas, properique et singulis vestibus ad verecundiam velati balineis inferuntur, pater filiam, avia neptem, illa utrosque intuens, et certatim precantes labenti animae celerem exitum, ut relinquerent suos superstites et morituros. servavitque ordinem fortuna, ac seniores prius, tum cui prima aetas extinguuntur. accusati post sepulturam decretumque ut more maiorum punirentur, et Nero intercessit, mortem sine arbitro permittens: ea caedibus peractis ludibria adiciebantur.' '. None | 2.53.3. \xa0The following year found Tiberius consul for a\xa0third time; Germanicus, for a second. The latter, however, entered upon that office in the Achaian town of Nicopolis, 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, later, in the Ionian Sea. He spent a\xa0few 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. For Augustus, as I\xa0have said, was his great-uncle, Antony his grandfather; and before his eyes lay the whole great picture of disaster and of triumph. â\x80\x94 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. 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. <
2.54.1. \xa0From Athens he visited Euboea, and crossed over to Lesbos; where Agrippina, in her last confinement, gave birth to Julia. 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, 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 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 â\x80\x94 though ignorant generally of writing and of metre â\x80\x94\xa0delivers 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. 2.54.2. \xa0From Athens he visited Euboea, and crossed over to Lesbos; where Agrippina, in her last confinement, gave birth to Julia. 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, 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 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 â\x80\x94 though ignorant generally of writing and of metre â\x80\x94\xa0delivers 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. <
2.55.1. \xa0Meanwhile 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. For these were the men who had leagued themselves with Mithridates against Sulla, with Antony against the deified Augustus!" 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 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.
2.55.6. \xa0Meanwhile 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. For these were the men who had leagued themselves with Mithridates against Sulla, with Antony against the deified Augustus!" 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 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. <
2.71.1. \xa0For 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:â\x80\x94 "If I\xa0were dying by the course of nature, I\xa0should have a justified grievance against Heaven itself for snatching me from parents, children, and country, by a premature end in the prime of life. Now, cut off as I\xa0am by the villainy of Piso and Plancina, I\xa0leave 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\xa0finished the most pitiable of lives by the vilest of deaths. If any were ever stirred by the hopes I\xa0inspired, by kindred blood, â\x80\x94 even by envy of me while I\xa0lived, â\x80\x94 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 â\x80\x94 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 â\x80\x94\xa0or no forgiveness!" His friends touched the dying hand and swore to forgo life sooner than revenge.
2.82. \xa0But 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\xa0storm of complaints burst out:â\x80\x94 "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; 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." 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. Credulity throve â\x80\x94 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. < 2.83. \xa0Affection and ingenuity vied in discovering and decreeing honours to Germanicus: his name was to be chanted in the Saliar Hymn; curule chairs surmounted by oaken crowns were to be set for him wherever the Augustal priests had right of place; his effigy in ivory was to lead the procession at the Circus Games, and no flamen 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, 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\xa0funeral monument in Epidaphne, 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, 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 soâ\x80\x91called "junior section" in their part of the theatre after Germanicus, and ruled that on the fifteenth of July the cavalcade should ride behind his portrait. Many of these compliments remain: others were discontinued immediately, or have lapsed with the years. <
3.4. \xa0The day on which the remains were consigned to the mausoleum of Augustus was alternately a desolation of silence and a turmoil of laments. The city-streets were full, the Campus Martius alight with torches. There the soldier in harness, the magistrate lacking his insignia, the burgher in his tribe, iterated the cry that "the commonwealth had fallen and hope was dead" too freely and too openly for it to be credible that they remembered their governors. Nothing, however, sank deeper into Tiberius\' breast than the kindling of men\'s enthusiasm for Agrippina â\x80\x94 "the glory of her country, the last scion of Augustus, the peerless pattern of ancient virtue." So they styled her; and, turning to heaven and the gods, prayed for the continuance of her issue â\x80\x94 "and might they survive their persecutors!" <
4.15.3. \xa0The same year brought still another bereavement to the emperor, by removing one of the twin children of Drusus, and an equal affliction in the death of a friend. This was Lucilius Longus, his comrade in evil days and good, and the one member of the senate to share his isolation at Rhodes. Hence, in spite of his modest antecedents, a censorian funeral and a statue erected in the Forum of Augustus at the public expense were decreed to him by the Fathers, before whom, at that time, all questions were still dealt with; so much so, that Lucilius Capito, the procurator of Asia, was obliged, at the indictment of the province, to plead his cause before them, the emperor asserting forcibly that "any powers he had given to him extended merely to the slaves and revenues of the imperial domains; if he had usurped the governor\'s authority and used military force, it was a flouting of his orders: the provincials must be heard." The case was accordingly tried and the defendant condemned. In return for this act of retribution, as well as for the punishment meted out to Gaius Silanus the year before, the Asiatic cities decreed a temple to Tiberius, his mother, and the senate. Leave to build was granted, and Nero returned thanks on that score to the senate and his grandfather â\x80\x94 a\xa0pleasing sensation to his listeners, whose memory of Germanicus was fresh enough to permit the fancy that his were the features they saw and the accents to which they listened. The youth had, in fact, a modesty and beauty worthy of a prince: endowments the more attractive from the peril of their owner, since the hatred of Sejanus for him was notorious. <
4.52.2. \xa0But in Rome, the imperial house was already shaken; and now, to open the train of events leading to the destruction of Agrippina, her second cousin, Claudia Pulchra, was put on trial, with Domitius Afer as accuser. Fresh from a praetorship, with but a modest standing in the world, and hurrying towards a reputation by way of any crime, he indicted her for unchastity, for adultery with Furnius, for practices by poison and spell against the life of the sovereign. Agrippina, fierce-tempered always and now inflamed by the danger of her kinswoman, flew to Tiberius, and, as chance would have it, found him sacrificing to his father. This gave the occasion for a reproachful outburst:â\x80\x94 "It was not," she said, "for the same man to offer victims to the deified Augustus and to persecute his posterity. Not into speechless stone had that divine spirit been transfused: she, his authentic effigy, the issue of his celestial blood, was aware of her peril and assumed the garb of mourning. It was idle to make a pretext of Pulchra, the only cause of whose destruction was that in utter folly she had chosen Agrippina as the object of her affection, forgetful of Sosia, who was struck down for the same offence." Her words elicited one of the rare deliverances of that impenetrable breast. He seized her, and admonished her in a line of Greek that she was not necessarily "A\xa0woman injured, if she lacked a throne." Pulchra and Furnius were condemned. Afer took rank with the great advocates: his genius had found publicity, and there had followed a pronouncement from the Caesar, styling him "an orator by natural right." Later, whether as conductor of the prosecution or as mainstay of the defence, he enjoyed a fame which stood higher for eloquence than for virtue. Yet even of that eloquence age took heavy toll, sapping as it did his mental power and leaving his incapacity for silence. <
4.53.1. \xa0Meanwhile Agrippina, obstinately nursing her anger, and attacked by physical illness, was visited by the emperor. For long her tears fell in silence; then she began with reproaches and entreaties:â\x80\x94 "He must aid her loneliness and give her a husband; she had still the requisite youth, and the virtuous had no consolation but in marriage â\x80\x94 the state had citizens who would stoop to receive the wife of Germanicus and his children." The Caesar, however, though he saw all that was implied in the request, was reluctant to betray either fear or resentment, and therefore, in spite of her insistence, left her without an answer. â\x80\x94 This incident, not noticed by the professed historians, I\xa0found in the memoirs of her daughter Agrippina (mother of the emperor Nero), who recorded for the after-world her life and the vicissitudes of her house.
6.25.3. \xa0This tragedy had not yet faded from memory, when news came of Agrippina; who, after the death of Sejanus, had continued, I\xa0take it, to live, because sustained by hope, and then, as there was no abatement of cruelty, had perished by her own will; unless food was withheld, so that her death should present features which might be taken for those of suicide. The point certain is that Tiberius broke out in abominable calumnies, accusing her of unchastity and adultery with Asinius Gallus, by whose death she had been driven to tire of life. Yet Agrippina, impatient of equality and athirst for power, had sunk female frailty in masculine ambition. She had died, the Caesar pursued, on the very day on which, two years earlier, Sejanus had expiated his crimes, a fact which ought to be transmitted to memory; and he mentioned with pride that she had not been strangled or thrown on to the Gemonian Stairs. Thanks were returned for the mercy, and it was decreed that on the eighteenth of October, the day of both the killings, an offering should be consecrated to Jupiter for all years to come. <
11.26. \xa0By now the ease of adultery had cloyed on Messalina and she was drifting towards untried debaucheries, when Silius himself, blinded by his fate, or convinced perhaps that the antidote to impending danger was actual danger, began to press for the mask to be dropped:â\x80\x94 "They were not reduced to waiting upon the emperor\'s old age: deliberation was innocuous only to the innocent; detected guilt must borrow help from hardihood. They had associates with the same motives for fear. He himself was celibate, childless, prepared for wedlock and to adopt Britannicus. Messalina would retain her power unaltered, with the addition of a mind at ease, could they but forestall Claudius, who, if slow to guard against treachery, was prompt to anger." She took his phrases with a coolness due, not to any tenderness for her husband, but to a misgiving that Silius, with no heights left to scale, might spurn his paramour and come to appreciate at its just value a crime sanctioned in the hour of danger. Yet, for the sake of that transcendent infamy which constitutes the last delight of the profligate, she coveted the name of wife; and, waiting only till Claudius left for Ostia to hold a sacrifice, she celebrated the full solemnities of marriage. <' "11.27. \xa0It will seem, I\xa0am aware, fabulous that, in a city cognizant of all things and reticent of none, any human beings could have felt so much security; far more so, that on a specified day, with witnesses to seal the contract, a consul designate and the emperor's wife should have met for the avowed purposes of legitimate marriage; that the woman should have listened to the words of the auspices, have assumed the veil, have sacrificed in the face of Heaven; that both should have dined with the guests, have kissed and embraced, and finally have spent the night in the licence of wedlock. But I\xa0have added no touch of the marvellous: all that I\xa0record shall be the oral or written evidence of my seniors. <" '11.28. \xa0A\xa0shudder, then, had passed through the imperial household. In particular, the holders of power with all to fear from a reversal of the established order, gave voice to their indignation, no longer in private colloquies, but without disguise:â\x80\x94 "Whilst an actor profaned the imperial bedchamber, humiliation might have been inflicted, but destruction had still been in the far distance. Now, with his stately presence, his vigour of mind, and his impending consulate, a youthful noble was girding himself to a greater ambition â\x80\x94 for the sequel of such a marriage was no mystery!" Fear beyond doubt came over them when they considered the hebetude of Claudius, his bondage to his wife, and the many murders perpetrated at the fiat of Messalina. Yet, again, the very pliancy of the emperor gave ground for confidence that, if they carried the day thanks to the atrocity of the charge, they might crush her by making her condemnation precede her trial. But the critical question, they realized, was whether Claudius would give a hearing to her defence, and whether they would be able to close his ears even to her confession. <
11.30. \xa0As the next step, Calpurnia â\x80\x94 for so the woman was called â\x80\x94 secured a private audience, and, falling at the Caesar\'s knee, exclaimed that Messalina had wedded Silius. In the same breath, she asked Cleopatra, who was standing by ready for the question, if she had heard the news; and, on her sign of assent, requested that Narcissus should be summoned. He, entreating forgiveness for the past, in which he had kept silence to his master on the subject of Vettius, Plautius, and their like, said that not even now would he reproach the lady with her adulteries, far less reclaim the palace, the slaves, and other appurteces of the imperial rank. No, these Silius might enjoy â\x80\x94 but let him restore the bride and cancel the nuptial contract! "Are you aware," he demanded, "of your divorce? For the nation, the senate, and the army, have seen the marriage of Silius; and, unless you act with speed, the new husband holds Rome!" < 11.31. \xa0The Caesar now summoned his principal friends; and, in the first place, examined Turranius, head of the corn-department; then the praetorian commander Lusius Geta. They admitted the truth; and from the rest of the circle came a din of voices:â\x80\x94 "He must visit the camp, assure the fidelity of the guards, consult his security before his vengeance." Claudius, the fact is certain, was so bewildered by his terror that he inquired intermittently if he was himself emperor â\x80\x94 if Silius was a private citizen. But Messalina had never given voluptuousness a freer rein. Autumn was at the full, and she was celebrating a mimic vintage through the grounds of the house. Presses were being trodden, vats flowed; while, beside them, skin-girt women were bounding like Bacchanals excited by sacrifice or delirium. She herself was there with dishevelled tresses and waving thyrsus; at her side, Silius with an ivy crown, wearing the buskins and tossing his head, while around him rose the din of a wanton chorus. The tale runs that Vettius Valens, in some freak of humour, clambered into a tall tree, and to the question, "What did he spy?" answered: "A\xa0frightful storm over Ostia" â\x80\x94 whether something of the kind was actually taking shape, or a chance-dropped word developed into a prophecy. <
11.35. \xa0Throughout the proceedings Claudius maintained a strange silence, Vitellius wore an air of unconsciousness: all things moved at the will of the freedman. He ordered the adulterer\'s mansion to be thrown open and the emperor to be conducted to it. First he pointed out in the vestibule an effigy â\x80\x94 banned by senatorial decree â\x80\x94 of the elder Silius; then he demonstrated how the heirlooms of the Neros and the Drusi had been requisitioned as the price of infamy. As the emperor grew hot and broke into threats, he led him to the camp, where a mass-meeting of the troops had been prearranged. After a preliminary address by Narcissus, he spoke a\xa0few words: for, just as his resentment was, shame denied it utterance. There followed one long cry from the cohorts demanding the names and punishment of the criminals. Set before the tribunal, Silius attempted neither defence nor delay, and asked for an acceleration of death. His firmness was imitated by a\xa0number of Roman knights of the higher rank. Titius Proculus, appointed by Silius as "custodian" of Messalina, and now proffering evidence, was ordered for execution, together with Vettius Valens, who confessed, and their accomplices Pompeius Urbicus and Saufeius Trogus. The same penalty was inflicted also on Decrius Calpurnianus, prefect of the city-watch; on Sulpicius Rufus, procurator of the school of gladiators; and on the senator Juncus Vergilianus. <
12.1. \xa0The execution of Messalina shook the imperial household: for there followed a conflict among the freedmen, who should select a consort for Claudius, with his impatience of celibacy and his docility under wifely government. Nor was competition less fierce among the women: each paraded for comparison her nobility, her charms, and her wealth, and advertised them as worthy of that exalted alliance. The question, however, lay mainly between Lollia Paulina, daughter of the consular Marcus Lollius, and Julia Agrippina, the issue of Germanicus. The latter had the patronage of Pallas; the former, of Callistus; while Aelia Paetina, a Tubero by family, was favoured by Narcissus. The emperor, who leaned alternately to one or the other, according to the advocate whom he had heard the last, called the disputants into council, and ordered each to express his opinion and to add his reasons. <' "
12.3. \xa0His arguments prevailed, with help from the allurements of Agrippina. In a succession of visits, cloaked under the near relationship, she so effectually captivated her uncle that she displaced her rivals and anticipated the position by exercising the powers of a wife. For, once certain of her marriage, she began to amplify her schemes, and to intrigue for a match between Domitius, her son by Gnaeus Ahenobarbus, and the emperor's daughter Octavia. That result was not to be achieved without a crime, as the Caesar had plighted Octavia to Lucius Silanus, and had introduced the youth (who had yet other titles to fame) to the favourable notice of the multitude by decorating him with the triumphal insignia and by a magnificent exhibition of gladiators. Still, there seemed to be no insuperable difficulty in the temper of a prince who manifested neither approval nor dislike except as they were imposed upon him by orders. <" '12.4. \xa0Vitellius, therefore, able to screen his servile knaveries behind the title of Censor, and with a prophetic eye for impending tyrannies, wooed the good graces of Agrippina by identifying himself with her scheme and by producing charges against Silanus, whose sister â\x80\x94 fair and wayward, it is true â\x80\x94 had until recently been his own daughter-inâ\x80\x91law. This gave him the handle for his accusation, and he put an infamous construction on a fraternal love which was not incestuous but unguarded. The Caesar lent ear, affection for his daughter increasing his readiness to harbour doubts of her prospective husband. Silanus, ignorant of the plot, and, as it happened, praetor for the year, was suddenly by an edict of Vitellius removed from the senatorial order, though the list had long been complete and the lustrum closed. At the same time, Claudius cancelled the proposed alliance: Silanus was compelled to resign his magistracy, and the remaining day of his praetorship was conferred on Eprius Marcellus. < 12.5. \xa0In the consulate of Gaius Pompeius and Quintus Veranius, the union plighted between Claudius and Agrippina was already being rendered doubly sure by rumour and by illicit love. As yet, however, they lacked courage to celebrate the bridal solemnities, no precedent existing for the introduction of a brother\'s child into the house of her uncle. Moreover, the relationship was incest; and, if that fact were disregarded, it was feared that the upshot would be a national calamity. Hesitation was dropped only when Vitellius undertook to bring about the desired result by his own methods. He began by asking the Caesar if he would yield to the mandate of the people? â\x80\x94 to the authority of the senate? On receiving the answer that he was a citizen among citizens, and incompetent to resist their united will, he ordered him to wait inside the palace. He himself entered the curia. Asseverating that a vital interest of the country was in question, he demanded leave to speak first, and began by stating that "the extremely onerous labours of the sovereign, which embraced the management of a world, stood in need of support, so that he might pursue his deliberations for the public good, undisturbed by domestic anxiety. And what more decent solace to that truly censorian spirit than to take a wife, his partner in weal and woe, to whose charge might be committed his inmost thoughts and the little children of a prince unused to dissipation or to pleasure, but to submission to the law from his early youth?" < 12.6. \xa0As this engagingly worded preface was followed by flattering expressions of assent from the members, he took a fresh starting-point:â\x80\x94 "Since it was the universal advice that the emperor should marry, the choice ought to fall on a woman distinguished by nobility of birth, by experience of motherhood, and by purity of character. No long inquiry was needed to convince them that in the lustre of her family Agrippina came foremost: she had given proof of her fruitfulness, and her moral excellences harmonized with the rest. But the most gratifying point was that, by the dispensation of providence, the union would be between a widow and a prince with experience of no marriage-bed but his own. They had heard from their fathers, and they had seen for themselves, how wives were snatched away at the whim of the Caesars: such violence was far removed from the orderliness of the present arrangement. They were, in fact, to establish a precedent by which the emperor would accept his consort from the Roman people! â\x80\x94 Still, marriage with a brother\'s child, it might be said, was a novelty in Rome. â\x80\x94 But it was normal in other countries, and prohibited by no law; while marriage with cousins and second cousins, so long unknown, had with the progress of time become frequent. Usage accommodated itself to the claims of utility, and this innovation too would be among the conventions of toâ\x80\x91morrow." <' "12.7. \xa0Members were not lacking to rush from the curia, with emulous protestations that, if the emperor hesitated, they would proceed by force. A\xa0motley crowd flocked together, and clamoured that such also was the prayer of the Roman people. Waiting no longer, Claudius met them in the Forum, and offered himself to their felicitations, then entered the senate, and requested a decree legitimizing for the future also the union of uncles with their brothers' daughters. None the less, only a single enthusiast for that form of matrimony was discovered â\x80\x94 the Roman knight Alledius Severus, whose motive was generally said to have been desire for the favour of Agrippina. â\x80\x94 From this moment it was a changed state, and all things moved at the fiat of a woman â\x80\x94 but not a woman who, as Messalina, treated in wantonness the Roman Empire as a toy. It was a tight-drawn, almost masculine tyranny: in public, there was austerity and not infrequently arrogance; at home, no trace of unchastity, unless it might contribute to power. A\xa0limitless passion for gold had the excuse of being designed to create a bulwark of despotism. <" '
12.26.2. \xa0Thanks, however, were returned to the sovereign; a\xa0more refined flattery was bestowed on Domitius; and the law was carried providing for his adoption into the Claudian family and the designation of Nero. Agrippina herself was dignified by the title of Augusta. When the transaction was over, no one was so devoid of pity as not to feel compunction for the lot of Britannicus. Stripped little by little of the services of the very slaves, the boy turned into derision the officious importunities of his stepmother, whose hypocrisy he understood. For report credits him with no lack of intelligence, possibly with truth, or possibly through the sympathy inspired by his dangers he has retained a reputation which was never put to the proof. <
12.66. \xa0Under the weight of anxiety, his health broke down, and he left for Sinuessa, to renovate his strength by the gentle climate and the medicinal springs. At once, Agrippina â\x80\x94 long resolved on murder, eager to seize the proffered occasion, and at no lack for assistants â\x80\x94 sought advice upon the type of poison. With a rapid and drastic drug, the crime, she feared, would be obvious: if she decided for a slow and wasting preparation, Claudius, face to face with his end and aware of her treachery, might experience a return of affection for his son. What commended itself was something recondite, which would derange his faculties while postponing his dissolution. An artist in this domain was selected â\x80\x94 a\xa0woman by the name of Locusta, lately sentenced on a poisoning charge, and long retained as part of the stock-in-trade of absolutism. Her ingenuity supplied a potion, administered by the eunuch Halotus, whose regular duty was to bring in and taste the dishes. <' "
12.68. \xa0Meanwhile, the senate was convened, and consuls and priests formulated their vows for the imperial safety, at a moment when the now lifeless body was being swathed in blankets and warming bandages, while the requisite measures were arranged for securing the accession of Nero. In the first place, Agrippina, heart-broken apparently and seeking to be comforted, held Britannicus to her breast, styled him the authentic portrait of his father, and, by this or the other device, precluded him from leaving his room. His sisters, Antonia and Octavia, she similarly detained. She had barred all avenues of approach with pickets, and ever and anon she issued notices that the emperor's indisposition was turning favourably: all to keep the troops in good hope, and to allow time for the advent of the auspicious moment insisted upon by the astrologers. <" "
13.3.2. \xa0On the day of the obsequies, the prince opened his panegyric of Claudius. So long as he rehearsed the antiquity of his family, the consulates and the triumphs of his ancestors, he was taken seriously by himself and by others. Allusions, also, to his literary attainments and to the freedom of his reign from reverses abroad had a favourable hearing. But when the orator addressed himself to his foresight and sagacity, no one could repress a smile; though the speech, as the composition of Seneca, exhibited the degree of polish to be expected from that famous man, whose pleasing talent was so well suited to a contemporary audience. The elderly observers, who make a pastime of comparing old days and new, remarked that Nero was the first master of the empire to stand in need of borrowed eloquence. For the dictator Caesar had rivalled the greatest orators; and Augustus had the ready and fluent diction appropriate to a monarch. Tiberius was, in addition, a master of the art of weighing words â\x80\x94 powerful, moreover, in the expression of his views, or, if ambiguous, ambiguous by design. Even Caligula's troubled brain did not affect his power of speech; and, when Claudius had prepared his harangues, elegance was not the quality that was missed. But Nero, even in his childish years, turned his vivacious mind to other interests: he carved, painted, practised singing or driving, and occasionally in a set of verses showed that he had in him the rudiments of culture. <" "
13.5. \xa0Nor was the pledge dishonoured, and many regulations were framed by the free decision of the senate. No advocate was to sell his services as a pleader for either fee or bounty; quaestors designate were to be under no obligation to produce a gladiatorial spectacle. The latter point, though opposed by Agrippina as a subversion of the acts of Claudius, was carried by the Fathers, whose meetings were specially convened in the Palatium, so that she could station herself at a newly-added door in their rear, shut off by a curtain thick enough to conceal her from view but not to debar her from hearing. In fact, when an Armenian deputation was pleading the national cause before Nero, she was preparing to ascend the emperor's tribunal and to share his presidency, had not Seneca, while others stood aghast, admonished the sovereign to step down and meet his mother: an assumption of filial piety which averted a scandal. <" "13.
12.1. \xa0For the rest, maternal authority had weakened little by little. For Nero had slipped into a love affair with a freedwoman by the name of Acte, and at the same time had taken into his confidence Marcus Otho and Claudius Senecio, two handsome youths; the former of consular family, the latter a son of one of the imperial freedmen. At first, without the knowledge of his mother, then in defiance of her opposition, they had crept securely into the prince's favour as the partners of his dissipation and of his questionable secrets; while even his older friends showed no reluctance that a girl of that standing should gratify, without injury to anyone, the cravings of the emperor: for, whether from some whim of fate or because the illicit is stronger than the licit, he abhorred his wife Octavia, in spite of her high descent and proved honour; and there was always the risk that, if he were checked in this passion, his instincts would break out at the expense of women of rank." "
13.15.2. \xa0Perturbed by her attitude, and faced with the approach of the day on which Britannicus completed his fourteenth year, Nero began to revolve, now his mother's proclivity to violence, now the character of his rival, â\x80\x94 lately revealed by a test which, trivial as it was, had gained him wide sympathy. During the festivities of the Saturnalia, while his peers in age were varying their diversions by throwing dice for a king, the lot had fallen upon Nero. On the others he imposed various orders, not likely to put them to the blush: but, when he commanded Britannicus to rise, advance into the centre, and strike up a song â\x80\x94 this, in the hope of turning into derision a boy who knew little of sober, much less of drunken, society â\x80\x94 his victim firmly began a poem hinting at his expulsion from his father's house and throne. His bearing awoke a pity the more obvious that night and revelry had banished dissimulation. Nero, once aware of the feeling aroused, redoubled his hatred; and with Agrippina's threats becoming instant, as he had no grounds for a criminal charge against his brother and dared not openly order his execution, he tried secrecy and gave orders for poison to be prepared, his agent being Julius Pollio, tribune of a praetorian cohort, and responsible for the detention of the condemned poisoner Locusta, whose fame as a criminal stood high. For that no one about the person of Britannicus should regard either right or loyalty was a point long since provided for. The first dose the boy received from his own tutors, but his bowels were opened, and he passed the drug, which either lacked potency or contained a dilution to prevent immediate action. Nero, however, impatient of so much leisure in crime, threatened the tribune and ordered the execution of the poisoner, on the ground that, with their apprehensions of scandal and their preparations for defence, they were delaying his release from anxiety. They now promised that death should be as abrupt as if it were the summary work of steel; and a potion â\x80\x94 its rapidity guaranteed by a private test of the ingredients â\x80\x94 was concocted hard by the Caesar's bedroom. <" "
13.19. \xa0Nothing in the list of mortal things is so unstable and so fleeting as the fame attached to a power not based on its own strength. Immediately Agrippina's threshold was forsaken: condolences there were none; visits there were none, except from a\xa0few women, whether out of love or hatred is uncertain. Among them was Junia Silana, driven by Messalina from her husband Silanus, as I\xa0related above. Eminent equally in blood, beauty, and voluptuousness, she was long the bosom friend of Agrippina. Then came a private quarrel between the pair: for Agrippina had deterred the young noble Sextius Africanus from marriage with Silana by describing her as a woman of no morals and uncertain age; not with the intention of reserving Africanus for herself, but to keep a wealthy and childless widow from passing into the possession of a husband. With the prospect of revenge presenting itself, Silana now suborned two of her clients, Iturius and Calvisius, to undertake the accusation; her charge being not the old, oft-heard tale that Agrippina was mourning the death of Britannicus or publishing the wrongs of Octavia, but that she had determined to encourage Rubellius Plautus into revolution â\x80\x94 on the maternal side he was a descendant of the deified Augustus in the same degree as Nero â\x80\x94 and as the partner of his couch and then of his throne to make her way once more into the conduct of affairs. The charges were communicated by Iturius and Calvisius to Atimetus, a freedman of Nero's aunt Domitia. Overjoyed at this windfall â\x80\x94 for competition was bitter between Agrippina and Domitia â\x80\x94 Atimetus incited the actor Paris, also a freedman of Domitia, to go on the instant and present the charge in the darkest colours. <" '
13.21. \xa0When the emperor\'s fears had been thus calmed, at break of day a visit was paid to Agrippina; who was to listen to the charges, and rebut them or pay the penalty. The commission was carried out by Burrus under the eye of Seneca: a\xa0number of freedmen also were present as witnesses to the conversation. Then, after recapitulating the charges and their authors, Burrus adopted a threatening attitude. Agrippina summoned up her pride:â\x80\x94 "I\xa0am not astonished," she said, "that Silana, who has never known maternity, should have no knowledge of a mother\'s heart: for parents do not change their children as a wanton changes her adulterers. Nor, if Iturius and Calvisius, after consuming the last morsel of their estates, pay their aged mistress the last abject service of undertaking a delation, is that a reason why my own fair fame should be darkened by the blood of my son or the emperor\'s conscience by that of his mother? For as to Domitia â\x80\x94 I\xa0should thank her for her enmity, if she were competing with me in benevolence to my Nero, instead of staging this comedy with the help of her bedfellow Atimetus and her mummer Paris. In the days when my counsels were preparing his adoption, his proconsular power, his consulate in prospect, and the other steps to his sovereignty, she was embellishing the fish-ponds of her beloved Baiae. â\x80\x94 Or let a man stand forth to convict me of tampering with the guards in the capital â\x80\x94 of shaking the allegiance of the provinces â\x80\x94 or, finally, of seducing either slave or freedman into crime! Could\xa0I have lived with Britannicus on the throne? And if Plautus or another shall acquire the empire and sit in judgement, am\xa0I to assume there is a dearth of accusers prepared to indict me, no longer for the occasional hasty utterances of an ill-regulated love, but for guilt from which only a son can absolve?" The listeners were moved, but she demanded an interview with her son. There she neither spoke in support of her innocence, as though she could entertain misgivings, nor on the theme of her services, as though she would cast them in his teeth, but procured vengeance upon her accusers and recognition for her friends. <
13.58. \xa0In the same year, the tree in the Comitium, known as the Ruminalis, which eight hundred and thirty years earlier had sheltered the infancy of Remus and Romulus, through the death of its boughs and the withering of its stem, reached a stage of decrepitude which was regarded as a portent, until it renewed its verdure in fresh shoots.
14.1.1. \xa0In the consular year of Gaius Vipstanius and Gaius Fonteius, Nero postponed no further the long-contemplated crime: for a protracted term of empire had consolidated his boldness, and day by day he burned more hotly with love for Poppaea; who, hopeless of wedlock for herself and divorce for Octavia so long as Agrippina lived, plied the sovereign with frequent reproaches and occasional raillery, styling him "the ward, dependent on alien orders, who was neither the empire\'s master nor his own. For why was her wedding deferred? Her face, presumably, and her grandsires with their triumphs, did not give satisfaction â\x80\x94 or was the trouble her fecundity and truth of heart? No, it was feared that, as a wife at all events, she might disclose the wrongs of the Fathers, the anger of the nation against the pride and greed of his mother! But, if Agrippina could tolerate no daughter-inâ\x80\x91law but one inimical to her son, then let her be restored to her married life with Otho: she would go to any corner of earth where she could hear the emperor\'s ignominy rather than view it and be entangled in his perils." To these and similar attacks, pressed home by tears and adulterous art, no opposition was offered: all men yearned for the breaking of the mother\'s power; none credited that the hatred of the son would go the full way to murder.
14.3. \xa0Nero, therefore, began to avoid private meetings with her; when she left for her gardens or the estates at Tusculum and Antium, he commended her intention of resting; finally, convinced that, wherever she might be kept, she was still an incubus, he decided to kill her, debating only whether by poison, the dagger, or some other form of violence. The first choice fell on poison. But, if it was to be given at the imperial table, then the death could not be referred to chance, since Britannicus had already met a similar fate. At the same time, it seemed an arduous task to tamper with the domestics of a woman whose experience of crime had made her vigilant for foul play; and, besides, she had herself fortified her system by taking antidotes in advance. Cold steel and bloodshed no one could devise a method of concealing: moreover, there was the risk that the agent chosen for such an atrocity might spurn his orders. Mother wit came to the rescue in the person of Anicetus the freedman, preceptor of Nero\'s boyish years, and detested by Agrippina with a vigour which was reciprocated. Accordingly, he pointed out that it was possible to construct a ship, part of which could be artificially detached, well out at sea, and throw the unsuspecting passenger overboard:â\x80\x94 "Nowhere had accident such scope as on salt water; and, if the lady should be cut off by shipwreck, who so captious as to read murder into the delinquency of wind and wave? The sovereign, naturally, would assign the deceased a temple and the other displays of filial piety." <
14.4.1. \xa0This ingenuity commended itself: the date, too, was in its favour, as Nero was in the habit of celebrating the festival of Minerva at Baiae. Thither he proceeded to lure his mother, observing from time to time that outbreaks of parental anger had to be tolerated, and that he must show a forgiving spirit; his aim being to create a rumour of reconciliation, which Agrippina, with the easy faith of her sex in the agreeable, would probably accept. â\x80\x94 In due course, she came. He went down to the beach to meet her (she was arriving from Antium), took her hand, embraced her, and escorted her to Bauli, the name of a villa washed by the waters of a cove between the promontory of Misenum and the lake of Baiae. Here, among others, stood a more handsomely appointed vessel; apparently one attention the more to his mother, as she had been accustomed to use a trireme with a crew of marines. Also, she had been invited to dinner for the occasion, so that night should be available for the concealment of the crime. It is well established that someone had played the informer, and that Agrippina, warned of the plot, hesitated whether to believe or not, but made the journey to Baiae in a litter. There her fears were relieved by the blandishments of a cordial welcome and a seat above the prince himself. At last, conversing freely, â\x80\x94 one moment boyishly familiar, the next grave-browed as though making some serious communication, â\x80\x94 Nero, after the banquet had been long protracted, escorted her on her way, clinging more closely than usual to her breast and kissing her eyes; possibly as a final touch of hypocrisy, or possibly the last look upon his doomed mother gave pause even to that brutal spirit.
14.4.3. \xa0This ingenuity commended itself: the date, too, was in its favour, as Nero was in the habit of celebrating the festival of Minerva at Baiae. Thither he proceeded to lure his mother, observing from time to time that outbreaks of parental anger had to be tolerated, and that he must show a forgiving spirit; his aim being to create a rumour of reconciliation, which Agrippina, with the easy faith of her sex in the agreeable, would probably accept. â\x80\x94 In due course, she came. He went down to the beach to meet her (she was arriving from Antium), took her hand, embraced her, and escorted her to Bauli, the name of a villa washed by the waters of a cove between the promontory of Misenum and the lake of Baiae. Here, among others, stood a more handsomely appointed vessel; apparently one attention the more to his mother, as she had been accustomed to use a trireme with a crew of marines. Also, she had been invited to dinner for the occasion, so that night should be available for the concealment of the crime. It is well established that someone had played the informer, and that Agrippina, warned of the plot, hesitated whether to believe or not, but made the journey to Baiae in a litter. There her fears were relieved by the blandishments of a cordial welcome and a seat above the prince himself. At last, conversing freely, â\x80\x94 one moment boyishly familiar, the next grave-browed as though making some serious communication, â\x80\x94 Nero, after the banquet had been long protracted, escorted her on her way, clinging more closely than usual to her breast and kissing her eyes; possibly as a final touch of hypocrisy, or possibly the last look upon his doomed mother gave pause even to that brutal spirit. <' "14.4. \xa0This ingenuity commended itself: the date, too, was in its favour, as Nero was in the habit of celebrating the festival of Minerva at Baiae. Thither he proceeded to lure his mother, observing from time to time that outbreaks of parental anger had to be tolerated, and that he must show a forgiving spirit; his aim being to create a rumour of reconciliation, which Agrippina, with the easy faith of her sex in the agreeable, would probably accept. â\x80\x94 In due course, she came. He went down to the beach to meet her (she was arriving from Antium), took her hand, embraced her, and escorted her to Bauli, the name of a villa washed by the waters of a cove between the promontory of Misenum and the lake of Baiae. Here, among others, stood a more handsomely appointed vessel; apparently one attention the more to his mother, as she had been accustomed to use a trireme with a crew of marines. Also, she had been invited to dinner for the occasion, so that night should be available for the concealment of the crime. It is well established that someone had played the informer, and that Agrippina, warned of the plot, hesitated whether to believe or not, but made the journey to Baiae in a litter. There her fears were relieved by the blandishments of a cordial welcome and a seat above the prince himself. At last, conversing freely, â\x80\x94 one moment boyishly familiar, the next grave-browed as though making some serious communication, â\x80\x94 Nero, after the banquet had been long protracted, escorted her on her way, clinging more closely than usual to her breast and kissing her eyes; possibly as a final touch of hypocrisy, or possibly the last look upon his doomed mother gave pause even to that brutal spirit. < 14.5. \xa0A\xa0starlit night and the calm of an unruffled sea appeared to have been sent by Heaven to afford proof of guilt. The ship had made no great way, and two of Agrippina's household were in attendance, Crepereius Gallus standing not far from the tiller, while Acerronia, bending over the feet of the recumbent princess, recalled exultantly the penitence of the son and the re-entry of the mother into favour. Suddenly the signal was given: the canopy above them, which had been heavily weighted with lead, dropped, and Crepereius was crushed and killed on the spot. Agrippina and Acerronia were saved by the height of the couch-sides, which, as it happened, were too solid to give way under the impact. Nor did the break-up of the vessel follow: for confusion was universal, and even the men accessory to the plot were impeded by the large numbers of the ignorant. The crew then decided to throw their weight on one side and so capsize the ship; but, even on their own part, agreement came too slowly for a sudden emergency, and a counter-effort by others allowed the victims a gentler fall into the waves. Acerronia, however, incautious enough to raise the cry that she was Agrippina, and to demand aid for the emperor's mother, was despatched with poles, oars, and every nautical weapon that came to hand. Agrippina, silent and so not generally recognised, though she received one wound in the shoulder, swam until she was met by a\xa0few fishing-smacks, and so reached the Lucrine lake, whence she was carried into her own villa. <" "
14.6.1. \xa0There she reflected on the evident purpose of the treacherous letter of invitation and the exceptional honour with which she had been treated, and on the fact that, hard by the shore, a vessel, driven by no gale and striking no reef, had collapsed at the top like an artificial structure on land. She reviewed as well the killing of Acerronia, glanced simultaneously at her own wound, and realized that the one defence against treachery was to leave it undetected. Accordingly she sent the freedman Agermus to carry word to her son that, thanks to divine kindness and to his fortunate star, she had survived a grave accident; but that, however great his alarm at his mother's danger, she begged him to defer the attention of a visit: for the moment, what she needed was rest. Meanwhile, with affected unconcern, she applied remedies to her wound and fomentations to her body: Acerronia's will, she gave instructions was to be sought, and her effects sealed up, â\x80\x94 the sole measure not referable to dissimulation." '14.6. \xa0There she reflected on the evident purpose of the treacherous letter of invitation and the exceptional honour with which she had been treated, and on the fact that, hard by the shore, a vessel, driven by no gale and striking no reef, had collapsed at the top like an artificial structure on land. She reviewed as well the killing of Acerronia, glanced simultaneously at her own wound, and realized that the one defence against treachery was to leave it undetected. Accordingly she sent the freedman Agermus to carry word to her son that, thanks to divine kindness and to his fortunate star, she had survived a grave accident; but that, however great his alarm at his mother's danger, she begged him to defer the attention of a visit: for the moment, what she needed was rest. Meanwhile, with affected unconcern, she applied remedies to her wound and fomentations to her body: Acerronia's will, she gave instructions was to be sought, and her effects sealed up, â\x80\x94 the sole measure not referable to dissimulation. <" "14.7. \xa0Meanwhile, as Nero was waiting for the messengers who should announce the doing of the deed, there came the news that she had escaped with a wound from a light blow, after running just sufficient risk to leave no doubt as to its author. Half-dead with terror, he protested that any moment she would be here, hot for vengeance. And whether she armed her slaves or inflamed the troops, or made her way to the senate and the people, and charged him with the wreck, her wound, and the slaying of her friends, what counter-resource was at his own disposal? Unless there was hope in Seneca and Burrus! He had summoned them immediately: whether to test their feeling, or as cognizant already of the secret, is questionable. â\x80\x94 There followed, then, a long silence on the part of both: either they were reluctant to dissuade in vain, or they believed matters to have reached a point at which Agrippina must be forestalled or Nero perish. After a time, Seneca so far took the lead as to glance at Burrus and inquire if the fatal order should be given to the military. His answer was that the guards, pledged as they were to the Caesarian house as a whole, and attached to the memory of Germanicus, would flinch from drastic measures against his issue: Anicetus must redeem his promise. He, without any hesitation, asked to be given full charge of the crime. The words brought from Nero a declaration that that day presented him with an empire, and that he had a freedman to thank for so great a boon: Anicetus must go with speed and take an escort of men distinguished for implicit obedience to orders. He himself, on hearing that Agermus had come with a message from Agrippina, anticipated it by setting the stage for a charge of treason, threw a sword at his feet while he was doing his errand, then ordered his arrest as an assassin caught in the act; his intention being to concoct a tale that his mother had practised against the imperial life and taken refuge in suicide from the shame of detection. < 14.8. \xa0In the interval, Agrippina\'s jeopardy, which was attributed to accident, had become generally known; and there was a rush to the beach, as man after man learned the news. Some swarmed up the sea-wall, some into the nearest fishing-boats: others were wading middle-deep into the surf, a\xa0few standing with outstretched arms. The whole shore rang with lamentations and vows and the din of conflicting questions and vague replies. A\xa0huge multitude streamed up with lights, and, when the knowledge of her safety spread, set out to offer congratulations; until, at the sight of an armed and threatening column, they were forced to scatter. Anicetus drew a cordon around the villa, and, breaking down the entrance, dragged off the slaves as they appeared, until he reached the bedroom-door. A\xa0few servants were standing by: the rest had fled in terror at the inrush of men. In the chamber was a dim light and a single waiting-maid; and Agrippina\'s anxiety deepened every instant. Why no one from her son â\x80\x94 nor even Agermus? Had matters prospered, they would have worn another aspect. Now, nothing but solitude, hoarse alarms, and the symptoms of irremediable ill! Then the maid rose to go. "Dost thou too forsake me?" she began, and saw Anicetus behind her, accompanied by Herculeius, the trierarch, and Obaritus, a centurion of marines. "If he had come to visit the sick, he might take back word that she felt refreshed. If to do murder, she would believe nothing of her son: matricide was no article of their instructions." The executioners surrounded the couch, and the trierarch began by striking her on the head with a club. The centurion was drawing his sword to make an end, when she proffered her womb to the blow. "Strike here," she exclaimed, and was despatched with repeated wounds. < 14.9. \xa0So far the accounts concur. Whether Nero inspected the corpse of his mother and expressed approval of her figure is a statement which some affirm and some deny. She was cremated the same night, on a dinner-couch, and with the humblest rites; nor, so long as Nero reigned, was the earth piled over the grave or enclosed. Later, by the care of her servants, she received a modest tomb, hard by the road to Misenum and that villa of the dictator Caesar which looks from its dizzy height to the bay outspread beneath. As the pyre was kindled, one of her freedmen, by the name of Mnester, ran a sword through his body, whether from love of his mistress or from fear of his own destruction remains unknown. This was that ending to which, years before, Agrippina had given her credence, and her contempt. For to her inquiries as to the destiny of Nero the astrologers answered that he should reign, and slay his mother; and "Let him slay," she had said, "so that he reign." <' "
14.10.1. \xa0But only with the completion of the crime was its magnitude realized by the Caesar. For the rest of the night, sometimes dumb and motionless, but not rarely starting in terror to his feet with a sort of delirium, he waited for the daylight which he believed would bring his end. Indeed, his first encouragement to hope came from the adulation of the centurions and tribunes, as, at the suggestion of Burrus, they grasped his hand and wished him joy of escaping his unexpected danger and the criminal enterprise of his mother. His friends in turn visited the temples; and, once the example had been given, the Campanian towns in the neighbourhood attested their joy by victims and deputations. By a contrast in hypocrisy, he himself was mournful, repining apparently at his own preservation and full of tears for the death of a parent. But because the features of a landscape change less obligingly than the looks of men, and because there was always obtruded upon his gaze the grim prospect of that sea and those shores, â\x80\x94 and there were some who believed that he could hear a trumpet, calling in the hills that rose around, and lamentations at his mother's grave, â\x80\x94 he withdrew to Naples and forwarded to the senate a letter, the sum of which was that an assassin with his weapon upon him had been discovered in Agermus, one of the confidential freedmen of Agrippina, and that his mistress, conscious of her guilt, had paid the penalty of meditated murder." "14.10.2. \xa0But only with the completion of the crime was its magnitude realized by the Caesar. For the rest of the night, sometimes dumb and motionless, but not rarely starting in terror to his feet with a sort of delirium, he waited for the daylight which he believed would bring his end. Indeed, his first encouragement to hope came from the adulation of the centurions and tribunes, as, at the suggestion of Burrus, they grasped his hand and wished him joy of escaping his unexpected danger and the criminal enterprise of his mother. His friends in turn visited the temples; and, once the example had been given, the Campanian towns in the neighbourhood attested their joy by victims and deputations. By a contrast in hypocrisy, he himself was mournful, repining apparently at his own preservation and full of tears for the death of a parent. But because the features of a landscape change less obligingly than the looks of men, and because there was always obtruded upon his gaze the grim prospect of that sea and those shores, â\x80\x94 and there were some who believed that he could hear a trumpet, calling in the hills that rose around, and lamentations at his mother's grave, â\x80\x94 he withdrew to Naples and forwarded to the senate a letter, the sum of which was that an assassin with his weapon upon him had been discovered in Agermus, one of the confidential freedmen of Agrippina, and that his mistress, conscious of her guilt, had paid the penalty of meditated murder. <" '14.10. \xa0But only with the completion of the crime was its magnitude realized by the Caesar. For the rest of the night, sometimes dumb and motionless, but not rarely starting in terror to his feet with a sort of delirium, he waited for the daylight which he believed would bring his end. Indeed, his first encouragement to hope came from the adulation of the centurions and tribunes, as, at the suggestion of Burrus, they grasped his hand and wished him joy of escaping his unexpected danger and the criminal enterprise of his mother. His friends in turn visited the temples; and, once the example had been given, the Campanian towns in the neighbourhood attested their joy by victims and deputations. By a contrast in hypocrisy, he himself was mournful, repining apparently at his own preservation and full of tears for the death of a parent. But because the features of a landscape change less obligingly than the looks of men, and because there was always obtruded upon his gaze the grim prospect of that sea and those shores, â\x80\x94 and there were some who believed that he could hear a trumpet, calling in the hills that rose around, and lamentations at his mother's grave, â\x80\x94 he withdrew to Naples and forwarded to the senate a letter, the sum of which was that an assassin with his weapon upon him had been discovered in Agermus, one of the confidential freedmen of Agrippina, and that his mistress, conscious of her guilt, had paid the penalty of meditated murder. <" "14.11. \xa0He appended a list of charges drawn from the remoter past:â\x80\x94 "She had hoped for a partnership in the empire; for the praetorian cohorts to swear allegiance to a woman; for the senate and people to submit to a like ignominy. Then, her ambition foiled, she had turned against the soldiers, the Fathers and the commons; had opposed the donative and the largess, and had worked for the ruin of eminent citizens. At what cost of labour had he succeeded in preventing her from forcing the door of the senate and delivering her answers to foreign nations!" He made an indirect attack on the Claudian period also, transferring every scandal of the reign to the account of his mother, whose removal he ascribed to the fortunate star of the nation. For even the wreck was narrated: though where was the folly which could believe it accidental, or that a ship-wrecked woman had despatched a solitary man with a weapon to cut his way through the guards and navies of the emperor? The object, therefore, of popular censure was no longer Nero â\x80\x94 whose barbarity transcended all protest â\x80\x94 but Seneca, who in composing such a plea had penned a confession. <' "14.
12.1. \xa0However, with a notable spirit of emulation among the magnates, decrees were drawn up: thanksgivings were to be held at all appropriate shrines; the festival of Minerva, on which the conspiracy had been brought to light, was to be celebrated with annual games; a\xa0golden statue of the goddess, with an effigy of the emperor by her side, was to be erected in the curia, and Agrippina's birthday included among the inauspicious dates. Earlier sycophancies Thrasea Paetus had usually allowed to pass, either in silence or with a curt assent: this time he walked out of the senate, creating a source of danger for himself, but implanting no germ of independence in his colleagues. Portents, also, frequent and futile made their appearance: a\xa0woman gave birth to a serpent, another was killed by a thunderbolt in the embraces of her husband; the sun, again, was suddenly obscured, and the fourteen regions of the capital were struck by lightning â\x80\x94 events which so little marked the concern of the gods that Nero continued for years to come his empire and his crimes. However, to aggravate the feeling against his mother, and to furnish evidence that his own mildness had increased with her removal, he restored to their native soil two women of high rank, Junia and Calpurnia, along with the ex-praetors Valerius Capito and Licinius Gabolus â\x80\x94 all of them formerly banished by Agrippina. He sanctioned the return, even, of the ashes of Lollia Paulina, and the erection of a tomb: Iturius and Calvisius, whom he had himself relegated some little while before, he now released from the penalty. As to Silana, she had died a natural death at Tarentum, to which she had retraced her way, when Agrippina, by whose enmity she had fallen, was beginning to totter or to relent." "14.12.2. \xa0However, with a notable spirit of emulation among the magnates, decrees were drawn up: thanksgivings were to be held at all appropriate shrines; the festival of Minerva, on which the conspiracy had been brought to light, was to be celebrated with annual games; a\xa0golden statue of the goddess, with an effigy of the emperor by her side, was to be erected in the curia, and Agrippina's birthday included among the inauspicious dates. Earlier sycophancies Thrasea Paetus had usually allowed to pass, either in silence or with a curt assent: this time he walked out of the senate, creating a source of danger for himself, but implanting no germ of independence in his colleagues. Portents, also, frequent and futile made their appearance: a\xa0woman gave birth to a serpent, another was killed by a thunderbolt in the embraces of her husband; the sun, again, was suddenly obscured, and the fourteen regions of the capital were struck by lightning â\x80\x94 events which so little marked the concern of the gods that Nero continued for years to come his empire and his crimes. However, to aggravate the feeling against his mother, and to furnish evidence that his own mildness had increased with her removal, he restored to their native soil two women of high rank, Junia and Calpurnia, along with the ex-praetors Valerius Capito and Licinius Gabolus â\x80\x94 all of them formerly banished by Agrippina. He sanctioned the return, even, of the ashes of Lollia Paulina, and the erection of a tomb: Iturius and Calvisius, whom he had himself relegated some little while before, he now released from the penalty. As to Silana, she had died a natural death at Tarentum, to which she had retraced her way, when Agrippina, by whose enmity she had fallen, was beginning to totter or to relent. <" '14.12. \xa0However, with a notable spirit of emulation among the magnates, decrees were drawn up: thanksgivings were to be held at all appropriate shrines; the festival of Minerva, on which the conspiracy had been brought to light, was to be celebrated with annual games; a\xa0golden statue of the goddess, with an effigy of the emperor by her side, was to be erected in the curia, and Agrippina's birthday included among the inauspicious dates. Earlier sycophancies Thrasea Paetus had usually allowed to pass, either in silence or with a curt assent: this time he walked out of the senate, creating a source of danger for himself, but implanting no germ of independence in his colleagues. Portents, also, frequent and futile made their appearance: a\xa0woman gave birth to a serpent, another was killed by a thunderbolt in the embraces of her husband; the sun, again, was suddenly obscured, and the fourteen regions of the capital were struck by lightning â\x80\x94 events which so little marked the concern of the gods that Nero continued for years to come his empire and his crimes. However, to aggravate the feeling against his mother, and to furnish evidence that his own mildness had increased with her removal, he restored to their native soil two women of high rank, Junia and Calpurnia, along with the ex-praetors Valerius Capito and Licinius Gabolus â\x80\x94 all of them formerly banished by Agrippina. He sanctioned the return, even, of the ashes of Lollia Paulina, and the erection of a tomb: Iturius and Calvisius, whom he had himself relegated some little while before, he now released from the penalty. As to Silana, she had died a natural death at Tarentum, to which she had retraced her way, when Agrippina, by whose enmity she had fallen, was beginning to totter or to relent. <" "14.13. \xa0And yet he dallied in the towns of Campania, anxious and doubtful how to make his entry into Rome. Would he find obedience in the senate? enthusiasm in the crowd? Against his timidity it was urged by every reprobate â\x80\x94 and a court more prolific of reprobates the world has not seen â\x80\x94 that the name of Agrippina was abhorred and that her death had won him the applause of the nation. Let him go without a qualm and experience on the spot the veneration felt for his position! At the same time, they demanded leave to precede him. They found, indeed, an alacrity which surpassed their promises: the tribes on the way to meet him; the senate in festal dress; troops of wives and of children disposed according to their sex and years, while along his route rose tiers of seats of the type used for viewing a triumph. Then, flushed with pride, victor over the national servility, he made his way to the Capitol, paid his grateful vows, and abandoned himself to all the vices, till now retarded, though scarcely repressed, by some sort of deference to his mother. <
14.61. \xa0At once exulting crowds scaled the Capitol, and Heaven at last found itself blessed. They hurled down the effigies of Poppaea, they carried the statues of Octavia shoulder-high, strewed them with flowers, upraised them in the forum and the temples. Even the emperor\'s praises were essayed with vociferous loyalty. Already they were filling the Palace itself with their numbers and their cheers, when bands of soldiers emerged and scattered them in disorder with whipcuts and levelled weapons. All the changes effected by the outbreak were rectified, and the honours of Poppaea were reinstated. She herself, always cruel in her hatreds, and now rendered more so by her fear that either the violence of the multitude might break out in a fiercer storm or Nero follow the trend of popular feeling, threw herself at his knees:â\x80\x94 "Her affairs," she said, "were not in a position in which she could fight for her marriage, though it was dearer to her than life: that life itself had been brought to the verge of destruction by those retainers and slaves of Octavia who had conferred on themselves the name of the people and dared in peace what would scarcely happen in war. Those arms had been lifted against the sovereign; only a leader had been lacking, and, once the movement had begun, a leader was easily come by, â\x80\x94 the one thing necessary was an excursion from Campania, a personal visit to the capital by her whose distant nod evoked the storm! And apart from this, what was Poppaea\'s transgression? in what had she offended anyone? Or was the reason that she was on the point of giving an authentic heir to the hearth of the Caesars? Did the Roman nation prefer the progeny of an Egyptian flute-player to be introduced to the imperial throne? â\x80\x94 In brief, if policy so demanded, then as an act of grace, but not of compulsion, let him send for the lady who owned him â\x80\x94 or else take thought for his security! A\xa0deserved castigation and lenient remedies had allayed the first commotion; but let the mob once lose hope of seeing Octavia Nero\'s wife and they would soon provide her with a husband!" < 15.2
3.4. \xa0In the consulate of Memmius Regulus and Verginius Rufus, Nero greeted a daughter, presented to him by Poppaea, with more than human joy, named the child Augusta, and bestowed the same title on Poppaea. The scene of her delivery was the colony of Antium, where the sovereign himself had seen the light. The senate had already commended the travail of Poppaea to the care of Heaven and formulated vows in the name of the state: they were now multiplied and paid. Public thanksgivings were added, and a Temple of Fertility was decreed, together with a contest on the model of the Actian festival; while golden effigies of the Two Fortunes were to be placed on the throne of Capitoline Jove, and, as the Julian race had its Circus Games at Bovillae, so at Antium should the Claudian and Domitian houses. But all was transitory, as the infant died in less than four months. Then fresh forms of adulation made their appearance, and she was voted the honour of deification, a place in the pulvinar, a temple, and a priest. The emperor, too, showed himself as incontinent in sorrow as in joy. It was noted that when the entire senate streamed towards Antium shortly after the birth, Thrasea, who was forbidden to attend, received the affront, prophetic of his impending slaughter, without emotion. Shortly afterwards, they say, came a remark of the Caesar, in which he boasted to Seneca that he was reconciled to Thrasea; and Seneca congratulated the Caesar: an incident which increased the fame, and the dangers, of those eminent men. <' "
15.68. \xa0The next example of intrepidity was furnished by Sulpicius Asper; who to Nero's question, why he had conspired to murder him, rejoined curtly that it was the only service that could be rendered to his many infamies. He then underwent the ordained penalty. The other centurions, as well, met their fate without declining from their traditions; but such resolution was not for Faenius Rufus, who imported his lamentations even into his will. Nero was waiting for the consul Vestinus to be also incriminated, regarding him as a violent character and an enemy. But the conspirators had not shared their plans with Vestinus â\x80\x94 some through old animosities, the majority because they considered him headstrong and impossible as a partner. Nero's hatred of him had grown out of intimate companionship â\x80\x94 Vestinus understanding perfectly, and despising, the pusillanimity of the sovereign; the sovereign afraid of the masterful friend who so often mocked him with that rough humour which, if it draws too largely on truth, leaves pungent memories behind. An additional, and recent, motive was that Vestinus had contracted a marriage with Statilia Messalina, though well aware that the Caesar also was among her paramours. <" '15.69. \xa0Accordingly, with neither a charge nor an accuser forthcoming, Nero, precluded from assuming the character of judge, turned to plain despotic force, and sent out the tribune Gerellanus with a cohort of soldiers, under orders to "forestall the attempts of the consul, seize what might be termed his citadel, and suppress his chosen corps of youths": Vestinus maintained a house overlooking the forum, and a retinue of handsome slaves of uniform age. On that day, he had fulfilled the whole of his consular functions, and was holding a dinner-party, either apprehending nothing or anxious to dissemble whatever he apprehended, when soldiers entered and said the tribune was asking for him. He rose without delay, and all was hurried through in a moment. He shut himself in his bedroom, the doctor was at hand, the arteries were cut: still vigorous, he was carried into the bath and plunged in hot water, without letting fall a word of self-pity. In the meantime, the guests who had been at table with him were surrounded by guards; nor were they released till a late hour of the night, when Nero, laughing at the dismay, which he had been picturing in his mind\'s eye, of the diners who were awaiting destruction after the feast, observed that they had paid dearly enough for their consular banquet. <' "
15.71. \xa0Meanwhile, however, the city was filled with funerals, and the Capitol with burnt offerings. Here, for the killing of a son; there, for that of a brother, a kinsman, or a friend; men were addressing their thanks to Heaven, bedecking their mansions with bays, falling at the knees of the sovereign, and persecuting his hand with kisses. And he, imagining that this was joy, recompensed the hurried informations of Antonius Navalis and Cervarius Proculus by a grant of immunity. Milichus, grown rich on rewards, assumed in its Greek form the title of Saviour. of the tribunes, Gavius Silanus, though acquitted, fell by his own hand; Statius Proxumus stultified the pardon he had received from the emperor by the folly of his end. Then .\xa0.\xa0. Pompeius, Cornelius Martialis, Flavius Nepos, and Statius Domitius, were deprived of their rank, on the ground that, without hating the Caesar, they had yet the reputation of doing so. Novius Priscus, as a friend of Seneca, Glitius Gallus and Annius Pollio as discredited if hardly convicted, were favoured with sentences of exile. Priscus was accompanied by his wife Artoria Flaccilla, Gallus by Egnatia Maximilla, the mistress of a great fortune, at first left intact but afterwards confiscated â\x80\x94 two circumstances which redounded equally to her fame. Rufrius Crispinus was also banished: the conspiracy supplied the occasion, but he was detested by Nero as a former husband of Poppaea. To Verginius Flavus and Musonius Rufus expulsion was brought by the lustre of their names; for Verginius fostered the studies of youth by his eloquence, Musonius by the precepts of philosophy. As though to complete the troop and a round number, Cluvidienus Quietus, Julius Agrippa, Blitius Catulinus, Petronius Priscus, and Julius Altinus were allowed the Aegean islands. But Scaevinus' wife Caedicia and Caesennius Maximus were debarred from Italy, and by their punishment â\x80\x94 and that alone â\x80\x94 discovered that they had been on trial. Lucan's mother Acilia was ignored, without acquittal and without penalty. Now that all was over, Nero held a meeting of the troops, and made a distribution of two thousand sesterces a man, remitting in addition the price of the grain ration previously supplied to them at the current market rate. Then, as if to recount the achievements of a war, he convoked the senate and bestowed triumphal distinctions on the consular Petronius Turpilianus, the praetor designate Cocceius Nerva, and the praetorian prefect Tigellinus: Nerva and Tigellinus he exalted so far that, not content with triumphal statues in the Forum, he placed their effigies in the palace itself. Consular insignia were decreed to Nymphidius &
15.74. \xa0offerings and thanks were then voted to Heaven, the Sun, who had an old temple in the Circus, where the crime was to be staged, receiving special honour for revealing by his divine power the secrets of the conspiracy. The Circensian Games of Ceres were to be celebrated with an increased number of horse-races; the month of April was to take the name of Nero; a temple of Safety was to be erected on the site\xa0.\xa0.\xa0. from which Scaevinus had taken his dagger. That weapon the emperor himself consecrated in the Capitol, and inscribed it:â\x80\x94 To\xa0Jove the Avenger. At the time, the incident passed unnoticed: after the armed rising of the other"avenger," Julius Vindex, it was read as a token and a presage of coming retribution. I\xa0find in the records of the senate that Anicius Cerialis, consul designate, gave it as his opinion that a temple should be built to Nero the Divine, as early as possible and out of public funds. His motion, it is true, merely implied that the prince had transcended mortal eminence and earned the worship of mankind; but it was vetoed by that prince, because by other interpreters it might be wrested into an omen of, and aspiration for, his decease; for the honour of divine is not paid to the emperor until he has ceased to live and move among men.
16.11. \xa0Accordingly, she carried word to her father to abandon hope and accept the inevitable. At the same time, news came that arrangements were being made for a trial in the senate and a merciless verdict. Nor were there wanting those who advised him to name the Caesar as a principal heir, and thus safeguard the residue for his grandchildren. Rejecting the proposal, however, so as not to sully a life, passed in a near approach to freedom, by an act of servility at the close, he distributed among his slaves what money was available: all portable articles he ordered them to remove for their own uses, reserving only three couches for the final scene. Then, in the same chamber, with the same piece of steel, they severed their veins; and hurriedly, wrapped in the single garment which decency prescribed, they were carried to the baths, the father gazing on his daughter, the grandmother on her grandchild and she on both; all praying with rival earnestness for a quick end to the failing breath, so that they might leave their kith and kin still surviving, and assured of death. Fate observed the proper order; and the two eldest passed away the first, then Pollitta in her early youth. They were indicted after burial; the verdict was that they should be punished in the fashion of our ancestors; and Nero, interposing, allowed them to die unsupervised. Such were the comedies that followed, when the deed of blood was done. <
16.21.1. \xa0After the slaughter of so many of the noble, Nero in the end conceived the ambition to extirpate virtue herself by killing Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus. To both he was hostile from of old, and against Thrasea there were additional motives; for he had walked out of the senate, as I\xa0have mentioned, during the discussion on Agrippina, and at the festival of the Juvenalia his services had not been conspicuous â\x80\x94 a\xa0grievance which went the deeper that in Patavium, his native place, the same Thrasea had sung in tragic costume at the .\xa0.\xa0. Games instituted by the Trojan Antenor. Again, on the day when sentence of death was all but passed on the praetor Antistius for his lampoons on Nero, he proposed, and carried, a milder penalty; and, after deliberately absenting himself from the vote of divine honours to Poppaea, he had not assisted at her funeral. These memories were kept from fading by Cossutianus Capito. For, apart from his character with its sharp trend to crime, he was embittered against Thrasea, whose influence, exerted in support of the Cilician envoys prosecuting Capito for extortion, had cost him the verdict. 16.21.2. \xa0After the slaughter of so many of the noble, Nero in the end conceived the ambition to extirpate virtue herself by killing Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus. To both he was hostile from of old, and against Thrasea there were additional motives; for he had walked out of the senate, as I\xa0have mentioned, during the discussion on Agrippina, and at the festival of the Juvenalia his services had not been conspicuous â\x80\x94 a\xa0grievance which went the deeper that in Patavium, his native place, the same Thrasea had sung in tragic costume at the .\xa0.\xa0. Games instituted by the Trojan Antenor. Again, on the day when sentence of death was all but passed on the praetor Antistius for his lampoons on Nero, he proposed, and carried, a milder penalty; and, after deliberately absenting himself from the vote of divine honours to Poppaea, he had not assisted at her funeral. These memories were kept from fading by Cossutianus Capito. For, apart from his character with its sharp trend to crime, he was embittered against Thrasea, whose influence, exerted in support of the Cilician envoys prosecuting Capito for extortion, had cost him the verdict. <
16.22.3. \xa0He preferred other charges as well:â\x80\x94 "At the beginning of the year, Thrasea evaded the customary oath; though the holder of a quindecimviral priesthood, he took no part in the national vows; he had never offered a sacrifice for the welfare of the emperor or for his celestial voice. Once a constant and indefatigable member, who showed himself the advocate or the adversary of the most commonplace resolutions of the Fathers, for three years he had not set foot within the curia; and but yesterday, when his colleagues were gathering with emulous haste to crush Silanus and Vetus, he had preferred to devote his leisure to the private cases of his clients. Matters were come already to a schism and to factions: if many made the same venture, it was war! \'As once,\' he said, \'this discord-loving state prated of Caesar and Cato, so now, Nero, it prates of yourself and Thrasea. And he has his followers â\x80\x94\xa0his satellites, rather â\x80\x94 who affect, not as yet the contumacity of his opinions, but his bearing and his looks, and whose stiffness and austerity are designed for an impeachment of your wantonness. To him alone your safety is a thing uncared for, your talents a thing unhonoured. The imperial happiness he cannot brook: can he not even be satisfied with the imperial bereavements and sorrows? Not to believe Poppaea deity bespeaks the same temper that will not swear to the acts of the deified Augustus and the deified Julius. He contemns religion, he abrogates law. The journal of the Roman people is scanned throughout the provinces and armies with double care for news of what Thrasea has not done! Either let us pass over to his creed, if it is the better, or let these seekers after a new world lose their chief and their instigator. It is the sect that produced the Tuberones and the Favonii â\x80\x94 names unloved even in the old republic. In order to subvert the empire, they make a parade of liberty: the empire overthrown, they will lay hands on liberty itself. You have removed Cassius to little purpose, if you intend to allow these rivals of the Bruti to multiply and flourish! A\xa0word in conclusion: write nothing yourself about Thrasea â\x80\x94 leave the senate to decide between us!\'\xa0" Nero fanned still more the eager fury of Cossutianus, and reinforced him with the mordant eloquence of Eprius Marcellus. <' '. None |
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