3. Tacitus, Annals, 1.4, 2.26.4, 2.27-2.32, 2.32.3, 2.41.2, 2.42.1, 2.53.1-2.53.3, 2.73.2, 2.83, 3.4.2, 3.6, 3.6.2, 3.57, 3.63, 5.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
Tagged with subjects: • Drusus • Drusus (Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus) • Drusus (brother of Tiberius) • Drusus (d. • Drusus (d. A.D. • Drusus (son of Germanicus) • Drusus (son of Tiberius) • Drusus (son of Tiberius), death of • Drusus Caesar • Drusus the Elder • Drusus the Younger • Libo Drusus • Libo Drusus (M. Scribonius Libo Drusus) • Libo Drusus, Marcus Scribonius • portrait, Drusus
Found in books: Ando and Ruepke (2006) 61, 62; Blum and Biggs (2019) 195, 198, 199, 205, 206, 208, 209; Borg (2008) 297; Cadwallader (2016) 263; Fertik (2019) 157, 161; Green (2014) 105; Poulsen and Jönsson (2021) 230, 232, 234; Rutledge (2012) 270, 294; Shannon-Henderson (2019) 54, 55, 58, 59, 60, 64, 65, 67, 70, 100, 126, 129, 140, 149, 151, 152, 160, 163, 165, 183; Tacoma (2020) 34; Talbert (1984) 331, 388; Xinyue (2022) 190
1.4. Eo in metu arguere Germanicum omnes quod non ad superiorem exercitum pergeret, ubi obsequia et contra rebellis auxilium: satis superque missione et pecunia et mollibus consultis peccatum. vel si vilis ipsi salus, cur filium parvulum, cur gravidam coniugem inter furentis et omnis humani iuris violatores haberet? illos saltem avo et rei publicae redderet. diu cunctatus aspertem uxorem, cum se divo Augusto ortam neque degenerem ad pericula testaretur, postremo uterum eius et communem filium multo cum fletu complexus, ut abiret perpulit. incedebat muliebre et miserabile agmen, profuga ducis uxor, parvulum sinu filium gerens, lamentantes circum amicorum coniuges quae simul trahebantur nec minus tristes qui manebant.' '
1.4. Igitur verso civitatis statu nihil usquam prisci et integri moris: omnes exuta aequalitate iussa principis aspectare, nulla in praesens formidine, dum Augustus aetate validus seque et domum et pacem sustentavit. postquam provecta iam senectus aegro et corpore fatigabatur aderatque finis et spes novae, pauci bona libertatis in cassum disserere, plures bellum pavescere, alii cupere. pars multo maxima inminentis dominos variis rumoribus differebant: trucem Agrippam et ignominia accensum non aetate neque rerum experientia tantae moli parem, Tiberium Neronem maturum annis, spectatum bello, sed vetere atque insita Claudiae familiae superbia, multaque indicia saevitiae, quamquam premantur, erumpere. hunc et prima ab infantia eductum in domo regnatrice; congestos iuveni consulatus, triumphos; ne iis quidem annis quibus Rhodi specie secessus exul egerit aliud quam iram et simulationem et secretas libidines meditatum. accedere matrem muliebri inpotentia: serviendum feminae duobusque insuper adulescentibus qui rem publicam interim premant quandoque distrahant.
2.27. Sub idem tempus e familia Scriboniorum Libo Drusus defertur moliri res novas. eius negotii initium, ordinem, finem curatius disseram, quia tum primum reperta sunt quae per tot annos rem publicam exedere. Firmius Catus senator, ex intima Libonis amicitia, iuvenem inprovi- dum et facilem iibus ad Chaldaeorum promissa, magorum sacra, somniorum etiam interpretes impulit, dum proavum Pompeium, amitam Scriboniam, quae quondam Augusti coniunx fuerat, consobrinos Caesares, plenam imaginibus domum ostentat, hortaturque ad luxum et aes alienum, socius libidinum et necessitatum, quo pluribus indiciis inligaret. 2.28. Vt satis testium et qui servi eadem noscerent repperit, aditum ad principem postulat, demonstrato crimine et reo per Flaccum Vescularium equitem Romanum, cui propior cum Tiberio usus erat. Caesar indicium haud aspernatus congressus abnuit: posse enim eodem Flacco internuntio sermones commeare. atque interim Libonem ornat praetura, convictibus adhibet, non vultu alienatus, non verbis commotior (adeo iram condiderat); cunctaque eius dicta factaque, cum prohibere posset, scire malebat, donec Iunius quidam, temptatus ut infernas umbras carminibus eliceret, ad Fulcinium Trionem indicium detulit. celebre inter accusatores Trionis ingenium erat avidumque famae malae. statim corripit reum, adit consules, cognitionem senatus poscit. et vocantur patres, addito consultandum super re magna et atroci. 2.29. Libo interim veste mutata cum primoribus feminis circumire domos, orare adfinis, vocem adversum pericula poscere, abnuentibus cunctis, cum diversa praetenderent, eadem formidine. die senatus metu et aegritudine fessus, sive, ut tradidere quidam, simulato morbo, lectica delatus ad foris curiae innisusque fratri et manus ac supplices voces ad Tiberium tendens immoto eius vultu excipitur. mox libellos et auctores recitat Caesar ita moderans ne lenire neve asperare crimina videretur. 2.31. Responsum est ut senatum rogaret. cingebatur interim milite domus, strepebant etiam in vestibulo ut audiri, ut aspici possent, cum Libo ipsis quas in novissimam voluptatem adhibuerat epulis excruciatus vocare percussorem, prensare servorum dextras, inserere gladium. atque illis, dum trepidant, dum refugiunt, evertentibus adpositum cum mensa lumen, feralibus iam sibi tenebris duos ictus in viscera derexit. ad gemitum conlabentis adcurrere liberti, et caede visa miles abstitit. accusatio tamen apud patres adseveratione eadem peracta, iuravitque Tiberius petiturum se vitam quamvis nocenti, nisi voluntariam mortem properavisset. 2.32. Bona inter accusatores dividuntur, et praeturae extra ordinem datae iis qui senatorii ordinis erant. tunc Cotta Messalinus, ne imago Libonis exequias posterorum comitaretur, censuit, Cn. Lentulus, ne quis Scribonius cognomentum Drusi adsumeret. supplicationum dies Pomponii Flacci sententia constituti, dona Iovi, Marti, Concordiae, utque iduum Septembrium dies, quo se Libo interfecerat, dies festus haberetur, L. Piso et Gallus Asinius et Papius Mutilus et L. Apronius decrevere; quorum auctoritates adulationesque rettuli ut sciretur vetus id in re publica malum. facta et de mathematicis magisque Italia pellendis senatus consulta; quorum e numero L. Pituanius saxo deiectus est, in P. Marcium consules extra portam Esquilinam, cum classicum canere iussissent, more prisco advertere.
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.
3.6. Gnarum id Tiberio fuit; utque premeret vulgi sermones, monuit edicto multos inlustrium Romanorum ob rem publicam obisse, neminem tam flagranti desiderio celebratum. idque et sibi et cunctis egregium si modus adiceretur. non enim eadem decora principibus viris et imperatori populo quae modicis domibus aut civitatibus. convenisse recenti dolori luctum et ex maerore solacia; sed referendum iam animum ad firmitudinem, ut quondam divus Iulius amissa unica filia, ut divus Augustus ereptis nepotibus abstruserint tristitiam. nil opus vetustioribus exemplis, quotiens populus Romanus cladis exercituum, interitum ducum, funditus amissas nobilis familias constanter tulerit. principes mortalis, rem publicam aeternam esse. proin repeterent sollemnia, et quia ludorum Megalesium spectaculum suberat, etiam voluptates resumerent.
3.6. Sed Tiberius, vim principatus sibi firmans, imaginem antiquitatis senatui praebebat postulata provinciarum ad disquisitionem patrum mittendo. crebrescebat enim Graecas per urbes licentia atque impunitas asyla statuendi; complebantur templa pessimis servitiorum; eodem subsidio obaerati adversum creditores suspectique capitalium criminum receptabantur, nec ullum satis validum imperium erat coercendis seditionibus populi flagitia hominum ut caerimonias deum protegentis. igitur placitum ut mitterent civitates iura atque legatos. et quaedam quod falso usurpaverant sponte omisere; multae vetustis superstitioni- bus aut meritis in populum Romanum fidebant. magnaque eius diei species fuit quo senatus maiorum beneficia, sociorum pacta, regum etiam qui ante vim Romanam valuerant decreta ipsorumque numinum religiones introspexit, libero, ut quondam, quid firmaret mutaretve.
3.57. Praeceperant animis orationem patres quo quaesitior adulatio fuit. nec tamen repertum nisi ut effigies principum, aras deum, templa et arcus aliaque solita censerent, nisi quod M. Silanus ex contumelia consulatus honorem principibus petivit dixitque pro sententia ut publicis privatisve monimentis ad memoriam temporum non consulum nomina praescriberentur, sed eorum qui tribuniciam potestatem gererent. at Q. Haterius cum eius diei senatus consulta aureis litteris figenda in curia censuisset deridiculo fuit senex foedissimae adulationis tantum infamia usurus.
3.63. Auditae aliarum quoque civitatium legationes. quorum copia fessi patres, et quia studiis certabatur, consulibus permisere ut perspecto iure, et si qua iniquitas involveretur, rem integram rursum ad senatum referrent. consules super eas civitates quas memoravi apud Pergamum Aesculapii compertum asylum rettulerunt: ceteros obscuris ob vetustatem initiis niti. nam Zmyrnaeos oraculum Apollinis, cuius imperio Stratonicidi Veneri templum dicaverint, Tenios eiusdem carmen referre, quo sacrare Neptuni effigiem aedemque iussi sint. propiora Sardianos: Alexandri victoris id donum. neque minus Milesios Dareo rege niti; set cultus numinum utrisque Dianam aut Apollinem venerandi. petere et Cretenses simulacro divi Augusti. factaque senatus consulta quis multo cum honore modus tamen praescribebatur, iussique ipsis in templis figere aera sacrandam ad memoriam, neu specie religionis in ambitionem delaberentur.
5.2. At Tiberius, quod supremis in matrem officiis defuisset, nihil mutata amoenitate vitae, magnitudinem negotiorum per litteras excusavit honoresque memoriae eius ab senatu large decretos quasi per modestiam imminuit, paucis admodum receptis et addito ne caelestis religio decerneretur: sic ipsam maluisse. quin et parte eiusdem epistulae increpuit amicitias muliebris, Fufium consulem oblique perstringens. is gratia Augustae floruerat, aptus adliciendis feminarum animis, dicax idem et Tiberium acerbis facetiis inridere solitus quarum apud praepotentis in longum memoria est.''. None | 1.4. \xa0It was thus an altered world, and of the old, unspoilt Roman character not a trace lingered. Equality was an outworn creed, and all eyes looked to the mandate of the sovereign â\x80\x94 with no immediate misgivings, so long as Augustus in the full vigour of his prime upheld himself, his house, and peace. But when the wearing effects of bodily sickness added themselves to advancing years, and the end was coming and new hopes dawning, a\xa0few voices began idly to discuss the blessings of freedom; more were apprehensive of war; others desired it; the great majority merely exchanged gossip derogatory to their future masters:â\x80\x94 "Agrippa, fierce-tempered, and hot from his humiliation, was unfitted by age and experience for so heavy a burden. Tiberius Nero was mature in years and tried in war, but had the old, inbred arrogance of the Claudian family, and hints of cruelty, strive as he would to repress them, kept breaking out. He had been reared from the cradle in a regt house; consulates and triumphs had been heaped on his youthful head: even during the years when he lived at Rhodes in ostensible retirement and actual exile, he had studied nothing save anger, hypocrisy, and secret lasciviousness. Add to the tale his mother with her feminine caprice: they must be slaves, it appeared, to the distaff, and to a pair of striplings as well, who in the interval would oppress the state and in the upshot rend it asunder!" <
2.26.4. \xa0The army was then marched back to winter quarters, elated at having balanced the maritime disaster by this fortunate expedition. Moreover, there was the liberality of the Caesar, who compensated every claimant in full for the loss he professed to have sustained. Nor was any doubt felt that the enemy was wavering and discussing an application for peace; and that with another effort in the coming summer, the war might see its close. But frequent letters from Tiberius counselled the prince "to return for the triumph decreed him: there had been already enough successes, and enough mischances. He had fought auspicious and great fields: he should also remember the losses inflicted by wind and wave â\x80\x94 losses not in any way due to his leadership, yet grave and deplorable. He himself had been sent nine times into Germany by the deified Augustus; and he had effected more by policy than by force. Policy had procured the Sugambrian surrender; policy had bound the Suebi and King Maroboduus to keep the peace. The Cherusci and the other rebel tribes, now that enough has been done for Roman vengeance, might similarly be left to their intestine strife." When Germanicus asked for one year more in which to finish his work, he delivered a still shrewder attack on his modesty, and offered him a second consulate, the duties of which he would assume in person. A\xa0hint was appended that "if the war must be continued, he might leave his brother, Drusus, the material for a reputation; since at present there was no other national enemy, and nowhere but in the Germanies could he acquire the style of Imperator\xa0and a title to the triumphal bays." â\x80\x94 Germanicus hesitated no longer, though he was aware that these civilities were a fiction, and that jealousy was the motive which withdrew him from a glory already within his grasp.' "
2.27. \xa0Nearly at the same time, a charge of revolutionary activities was laid against Libo Drusus, a member of the Scribonian family. I\xa0shall describe in some detail the origin, the progress, and the end of this affair, as it marked the discovery of the system destined for so many years to prey upon the vitals of the commonwealth. Firmius Catus, a senator, and one of Libo's closest friends, had urged that short-sighted youth, who had a foible for absurdities, to resort to the forecasts of astrologers, the ritual of magicians, and the society of interpreters of dreams; pointing to his great-grandfather Pompey, to his great-aunt Scribonia (at one time the consort of Augustus), to his cousinship with the Caesars, and to his mansion crowded with ancestral portraits; encouraging him in his luxuries and loans; and, to bind him in a yet stronger chain of evidence, sharing his debaucheries and his embarrassments. <" '2.28. \xa0When he had found witnesses enough, and slaves to testify in the same tenor, he asked for an interview with the sovereign, to whom the charge and the person implicated had been notified by Vescularius Flaccus, a Roman knight on familiar terms with Tiberius. The Caesar, without rejecting the information, declined a meeting, as "their conversations might be carried on through the same intermediate, Flaccus." In the interval, he distinguished Libo with a praetorship and several invitations to dinner. There was no estrangement on his brow, no hint of asperity in his speech: he had buried his anger far too deep. He could have checked every word and action of Libo: he preferred, however, to know them. At length, a certain Junius, solicited by Libo to raise departed spirits by incantations, carried his tale to Fulcinius Trio. Trio\'s genius, which was famous among the professional informers, hungered after notoriety. He swooped immediately on the accused, approached the consuls, and demanded a senatorial inquiry. The Fathers were summoned, to deliberate (it was added) on a case of equal importance and atrocity. <' "2.29. \xa0Meanwhile, Libo changed into mourning, and with an escort of ladies of quality made a circuit from house to house, pleading with his wife's relatives, and conjuring them to speak in mitigation of his danger, â\x80\x94 only to be everywhere refused on different pretexts and identical grounds of alarm. On the day the senate met, he was so exhausted by fear and distress â\x80\x94\xa0unless, as some accounts have it, he counterfeited illness â\x80\x94 that he was borne to the doors of the Curia in a litter, and, leaning on his brother, extended his hands and his appeals to Tiberius, by whom he was received without the least change of countece. The emperor then read over the indictment and the names of the sponsors, with a self-restraint that avoided the appearance of either palliating or aggravating the charges. <" "2.30. \xa0Besides Trio and Catus, Fonteius Agrippa and Gaius Vibius had associated themselves with the prosecution, and it was disputed which of the four should have the right of stating the case against the defendant. Finally, Vibius announced that, as no one would give way and Libo was appearing without legal representation, he would take the counts one by one. He produced Libo's papers, so fatuous that, according to one, he had inquired of his prophets if he would be rich enough to cover the Appian Road as far as Brundisium with money. There was more in the same vein, stolid, vacuous, or, if indulgently read, pitiable. In one paper, however, the accuser argued, a set of marks, sinister or at least mysterious, had been appended by Libo's hand to the names of the imperial family and a\xa0number of senators. As the defendant denied the allegation, it was resolved to question the slaves, who recognized the handwriting, under torture; and, since an old decree prohibited their examination in a charge affecting the life of their master, Tiberius, applying his talents to the discovery of a new jurisprudence, ordered them to be sold individually to the treasury agent: all to procure servile evidence against a Libo, without overriding a senatorial decree! In view of this, the accused asked for an adjournment till the next day, and left for home, after commissioning his relative, Publius Quirinius, to make a final appeal to the emperor. <" '2.31. \xa0The reply ran, that he must address his petitions to the senate. Meanwhile, his house was picketed by soldiers; they were tramping in the portico itself, within eyeshot and earshot, when Libo, thus tortured at the very feast which he had arranged to be his last delight on earth, called out for a slayer, clutched at the hands of his slaves, strove to force his sword upon them. They, as they shrank back in confusion, overturned lamp and table together; and he, in what was now for him the darkness of death, struck two blows into his vitals. He collapsed with a moan, and his freedmen ran up: the soldiers had witnessed the bloody scene, and retired. In the senate, however, the prosecution was carried through with unaltered gravity, and Tiberius declared on oath that, guilty as the defendant might have been, he would have interceded for his life, had he not laid an over-hasty hand upon himself. <' "
2.32.3. \xa0His estate was parcelled out among the accusers, and extraordinary praetorships were conferred on those of senatorial status. Cotta Messalinus then moved that the effigy of Libo should not accompany the funeral processions of his descendants; Gnaeus Lentulus, that no member of the Scribonian house should adopt the surname of Drusus. Days of public thanksgiving were fixed at the instance of Pomponius Flaccus. Lucius Piso, Asinius Gallus, Papius Mutilus, and Lucius Apronius procured a decree that votive offerings should be made to Jupiter, Mars, and Concord; and that the thirteenth of September, the anniversary of Libo's suicide, should rank as a festival. This union of sounding names and sycophancy I\xa0have recorded as showing how long that evil has been rooted in the State.\xa0â\x80\x94 Other resolutions of the senate ordered the expulsion of the astrologers and magic-mongers from Italy. One of their number, Lucius Pituanius, was flung from the Rock; another â\x80\x94 Publius Marcius â\x80\x94 was executed by the consuls outside the Esquiline Gate according to ancient usage and at sound of trumpet. <" '2.32. \xa0His estate was parcelled out among the accusers, and extraordinary praetorships were conferred on those of senatorial status. Cotta Messalinus then moved that the effigy of Libo should not accompany the funeral processions of his descendants; Gnaeus Lentulus, that no member of the Scribonian house should adopt the surname of Drusus. Days of public thanksgiving were fixed at the instance of Pomponius Flaccus. Lucius Piso, Asinius Gallus, Papius Mutilus, and Lucius Apronius procured a decree that votive offerings should be made to Jupiter, Mars, and Concord; and that the thirteenth of September, the anniversary of Libo's suicide, should rank as a festival. This union of sounding names and sycophancy I\xa0have recorded as showing how long that evil has been rooted in the State.\xa0â\x80\x94 Other resolutions of the senate ordered the expulsion of the astrologers and magic-mongers from Italy. One of their number, Lucius Pituanius, was flung from the Rock; another â\x80\x94 Publius Marcius â\x80\x94 was executed by the consuls outside the Esquiline Gate according to ancient usage and at sound of trumpet. <" "
2.41.2. \xa0The close of the year saw dedicated an arch near the temple of Saturn commemorating the recovery, "under the leadership of Germanicus and the auspices of Tiberius," of the eagles lost with Varus; a temple to Fors Fortuna on the Tiber bank, in the gardens which the dictator Caesar had bequeathed to the nation; a sanctuary to the Julian race, and an effigy to the deity of Augustus, at Bovillae. In the consulate of Gaius Caelius and Lucius Pomponius, Germanicus Caesar, on the twenty-sixth day of May, celebrated his triumph over the Cherusci, the Chatti, the Angrivarii, and the other tribes lying west of the Elbe. There was a procession of spoils and captives, of mimic mountains, rivers, and battles; and the war, since he had been forbidden to complete it, was assumed to be complete. To the spectators the effect was heightened by the noble figure of the commander himself, and by the five children who loaded his chariot. Yet beneath lay an unspoken fear, as men reflected that to his father Drusus the favour of the multitude had not brought happiness â\x80\x94 that Marcellus, his uncle, had been snatched in youth from the ardent affections of the populace â\x80\x94 that the loves of the Roman nation were fleeting and unblest! <
2.42.1. \xa0For the rest, Tiberius, in the name of Germanicus, made a distribution to the populace of three hundred sesterces a man: as his colleague in the consulship he nominated himself. All this, however, won him no credit for genuine affection, and he decided to remove the youth under a show of honour; some of the pretexts he fabricated, others he accepted as chance offered. For fifty years King Archelaus had been in possession of Cappadocia; to Tiberius a hated man, since he had offered him none of the usual attentions during his stay in Rhodes. The omission was due not to insolence, but to advice from the intimates of Augustus; for, as Gaius Caesar was then in his heyday and had been despatched to settle affairs in the East, the friendship of Tiberius was believed unsafe. When, through the extinction of the Caesarian line, Tiberius attained the empire, he lured Archelaus from Cappadocia by a letter of his mother; who, without dissembling the resentment of her son, offered clemency, if he came to make his petition. Unsuspicious of treachery, or apprehending force, should he be supposed alive to it, he hurried to the capital, was received by an unrelenting sovereign, and shortly afterwards was impeached in the senate. Broken, not by the charges, which were fictitious, but by torturing anxiety, combined with the weariness of age and the fact that to princes even equality â\x80\x94 to say nothing of humiliation â\x80\x94 is an unfamiliar thing, he ended his days whether deliberately or in the course of nature. His kingdom was converted into a province; and the emperor, announcing that its revenues made feasible a reduction of the one per\xa0cent sale-tax, fixed it for the future at one half of this amount. â\x80\x94 About the same time, the death of the two kings, Antiochus of Commagene and Philopator of Cilicia, disturbed the peace of their countries, where the majority of men desired a Roman governor, and the minority a monarch. The provinces, too, of Syria and Judaea, exhausted by their burdens, were pressing for a diminution of the tribute.
2.53.1. \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. 2.53.2. \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. <
2.73.2. \xa0His funeral, devoid of ancestral effigies or procession, was distinguished by eulogies and recollections of his virtues. There were those who, considering his personal appearance, his early age, and the circumstances of his death, â\x80\x94 to which they added the proximity of the region where he perished, â\x80\x94 compared his decease with that of Alexander the Great: â\x80\x94 "Each eminently handsome, of famous lineage, and in years not much exceeding thirty, had fallen among alien races by the treason of their countrymen. But the Roman had borne himself as one gentle to his friends, moderate in his pleasures, content with a single wife and the children of lawful wedlock. Nor was he less a man of the sword; though he lacked the other\'s temerity, and, when his numerous victories had beaten down the Germanies, was prohibited from making fast their bondage. But had he been the sole arbiter of affairs, of kingly authority and title, he would have overtaken the Greek in military fame with an ease proportioned to his superiority in clemency, self-command, and all other good qualities." The body, before cremation, was exposed in the forum of Antioch, the place destined for the final rites. Whether it bore marks of poisoning was disputable: for the indications were variously read, as pity and preconceived suspicion swayed the spectator to the side of Germanicus, or his predilections to that of Piso. <
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. <
3.4.2. \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!" <
3.6.2. \xa0All this Tiberius knew; and, to repress the comments of the crowd, he reminded them in a manifesto that "many illustrious Romans had died for their country, but none had been honoured with such a fervour of regret: a\xa0compliment highly valued by himself and by all, if only moderation were observed. For the same conduct was not becoming to ordinary families or communities and to leaders of the state and to an imperial people. Mourning and the solace of tears had suited the first throes of their affliction; but now they must recall their minds to fortitude, as once the deified Julius at the loss of his only daughter, and the deified Augustus at the taking of his grandchildren, had thrust aside their anguish. There was no need to show by earlier instances how often the Roman people had borne unshaken the slaughter of armies, the death of generals, the complete annihilation of historic houses. Statesmen were mortal, the state eternal. Let them return, therefore, to their usual occupations and â\x80\x94 as the Megalesian Games would soon be exhibited â\x80\x94 resume even their pleasures!" <' "
3.6. \xa0All this Tiberius knew; and, to repress the comments of the crowd, he reminded them in a manifesto that "many illustrious Romans had died for their country, but none had been honoured with such a fervour of regret: a\xa0compliment highly valued by himself and by all, if only moderation were observed. For the same conduct was not becoming to ordinary families or communities and to leaders of the state and to an imperial people. Mourning and the solace of tears had suited the first throes of their affliction; but now they must recall their minds to fortitude, as once the deified Julius at the loss of his only daughter, and the deified Augustus at the taking of his grandchildren, had thrust aside their anguish. There was no need to show by earlier instances how often the Roman people had borne unshaken the slaughter of armies, the death of generals, the complete annihilation of historic houses. Statesmen were mortal, the state eternal. Let them return, therefore, to their usual occupations and â\x80\x94 as the Megalesian Games would soon be exhibited â\x80\x94 resume even their pleasures!" <
3.57. \xa0The members had foreseen this pronouncement, and their flatteries were therefore well prepared. Invention, however, went no further than to decree effigies of the princes, altars to the gods, temples, arches, and other time-worn honours. An exception was when Marcus Silanus sought a compliment to the principate in a slight to the consulship, and proposed that on public and private monuments the inscription recording the date should bear the names, not of the consuls of the year, but of the persons exercising the tribunician power. Quintus Haterius, who moved that the day's resolutions should be set up in the senate-house in letters of gold, was derided as an old man who could reap nothing from his repulsive adulation save its infamy. <" '
3.63. \xa0Deputations from other states were heard as well; till the Fathers, weary of the details, and disliking the acrimony of the discussion, empowered the consuls to investigate the titles, in search of any latent flaw, and to refer the entire question back to the senate. Their report was that â\x80\x94 apart from the communities I\xa0have already named â\x80\x94 they were satisfied there was a genuine sanctuary of Aesculapius at Pergamum; other claimants relied on pedigrees too ancient to be clear. "For Smyrna cited an oracle of Apollo, at whose command the town had dedicated a temple to Venus Stratonicis; Tenos, a prophecy from the same source, ordering the consecration of a statue and shrine to Neptune. Sardis touched more familiar ground with a grant from the victorious Alexander; Miletus had equal confidence in King Darius. With these two, however, the divine object of adoration was Diana in the one case, Apollo in the other. The Cretans, again, were claiming for an effigy of the deified Augustus." The senate, accordingly, passed a\xa0number of resolutions, scrupulously complimentary, but still imposing a limit; and the applicants were ordered to fix the brass records actually inside the temples, both as a solemn memorial and as a warning not to lapse into secular intrigue under the cloak of religion. <
5.2. \xa0Tiberius, however, without altering the amenities of his life, excused himself by letter, on the score of important affairs, for neglecting to pay the last respects to his mother, and, with a semblance of modesty, curtailed the lavish tributes decreed to her memory by the senate. Extremely few passed muster, and he added a stipulation that divine honours were not to be voted: such, he observed, had been her own wish. More than this, in a part of the same missive he attacked "feminine friendships": an indirect stricture upon the consul Fufius, who had risen by the favour of Augusta, and, besides his aptitude for attracting the fancy of the sex, had a turn for wit and a habit of ridiculing Tiberius with those bitter pleasantries which linger long in the memory of potentates. <''. None |
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