1. Strabo, Geography, 17.1.46, 17.1.53 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 17.1.46. Next to the city of Apollo is Thebes, now called Diospolis, with her hundred gates, through each of which issue two hundred men, with horses and chariots, according to Homer, who mentions also its wealth; not all the wealth the palaces of Egyptian Thebes contain.Other writers use the same language, and consider Thebes as the metropolis of Egypt. Vestiges of its magnitude still exist, which extend 80 stadia in length. There are a great number of temples, many of which Cambyses mutilated. The spot is at present occupied by villages. One part of it, in which is the city, lies in Arabia; another is in the country on the other side of the river, where is the Memnonium. Here are two colossal figures near one another, each consisting of a single stone. One is entire; the upper parts of the other, from the chair, are fallen down, the effect, it is said, of an earthquake. It is believed, that once a day a noise as of a slight blow issues from the part of the statue which remains in the seat and on its base. When I was at those places with Aelius Gallus, and numerous friends and soldiers about him, I heard a noise at the first hour (of the day), but whether proceeding from the base or from the colossus, or produced on purpose by some of those standing around the base, I cannot confidently assert. For from the uncertainty of the cause, I am disposed to believe anything rather than that stones disposed in that manner could send forth sound.Above the Memnonium are tombs of kings in caves, and hewn out of the stone, about forty in number; they are executed with singular skill, and are worthy of notice. Among the tombs are obelisks with inscriptions, denoting the wealth of the kings of that time, and the extent of their empire, as reaching to the Scythians, Bactrians, Indians, and the present Ionia; the amount of tribute also, and the number of soldiers, which composed an army of about a million of men.The priests there are said to be, for the most part, astronomers and philosophers. The former compute the days, not by the moon, but by the sun, introducing into the twelve months of thirty days each five days every year. But in order to complete the whole year, because there is (annually) an excess of a part of a day, they form a period from out of whole days and whole years, the supernumerary portions of which in that period, when collected together, amount to a day. They ascribe to Mercury all knowledge of this kind. To Jupiter, whom they worship above all other deities, a virgin of the greatest beauty and of the most illustrious family (such persons the Greeks call pallades) is dedicated. She prostitutes herself with whom she pleases, until the time occurs for the natural purification of the body; she is afterwards married; but before her marriage, and after the period of prostitution, they mourn for her as for one dead. 17.1.53. Egypt was from the first disposed to peace, from having resources within itself, and because it was difficult of access to strangers. It was also protected on the north by a harbourless coast and the Egyptian Sea; on the east and west by the desert mountains of Libya and Arabia, as I have said before. The remaining parts towards the south are occupied by Troglodytae, Blemmyes, Nubae, and Megabari, Ethiopians above Syene. These are nomads, and not numerous nor warlike, but accounted so by the ancients, because frequently, like robbers, they attacked defenceless persons. Neither are the Ethiopians, who extend towards the south and Meroe, numerous nor collected in a body; for they inhabit a long, narrow, and winding tract of land on the riverside, such as we have before described; nor are they well prepared either for war or the pursuit of any other mode of life.At present the whole country is in the same pacific state, a proof of which is, that the upper country is sufficiently guarded by three cohorts, and these not complete. Whenever the Ethiopians have ventured to attack them, it has been at the risk of danger to their own country. The rest of the forces in Egypt are neither very numerous, nor did the Romans ever once employ them collected into one army. For neither are the Egyptians themselves of a warlike disposition, nor the surrounding nations, although their numbers are very large.Cornelius Gallus, the first governor of the country appointed by (Augustus) Caesar, attacked the city Heroopolis, which had revolted, and took it with a small body of men. He suppressed also in a short time an insurrection in the Thebais, which originated as to the payment of tribute. At a later period Petronius resisted, with the soldiers about his person, a mob of myriads of Alexandrines, who attacked him by throwing stones. He killed some, and compelled the rest to desist.We have before related how Aelius Gallus, when he invaded Arabia with a part of the army stationed in Egypt, exhibited a proof of the unwarlike disposition of the people; and if Syllaeus had not betrayed him, he would have conquered the whole of Arabia Felix. |
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2. Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, 18.60 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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3. Josephus Flavius, Jewish War, 2.50, 2.175, 2.293 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 2.175. 4. After this he raised another disturbance, by expending that sacred treasure which is called Corban upon aqueducts, whereby he brought water from the distance of four hundred furlongs. At this the multitude had great indignation; and when Pilate was come to Jerusalem, they came about his tribunal, and made a clamor at it. 2.293. 6. Moreover, as to the citizens of Jerusalem, although they took this matter very ill, yet did they restrain their passion; but Florus acted herein as if he had been hired, and blew up the war into a flame, and sent some to take seventeen talents out of the sacred treasure, and pretended that Caesar wanted them. |
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4. Pliny The Elder, Natural History, 3.28, 6.8 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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5. Suetonius, Tiberius, 37.4 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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6. Tacitus, Annals, 1.76, 2.42-2.43, 2.42.2, 2.47, 4.13, 6.41, 12.49, 14.46 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 1.76. In the same year, the Tiber, rising under the incessant rains, had flooded the lower levels of the city, and its subsidence was attended by much destruction of buildings and life. Accordingly, Asinius Gallus moved for a reference to the Sibylline Books. Tiberius objected, preferring secrecy as in earth so in heaven: still, the task of coercing the stream was entrusted to Ateius Capito and Lucius Arruntius. Since Achaia and Macedonia protested against the heavy taxation, it was decided to relieve them of their proconsular government for the time being and transfer them to the emperor. A show of gladiators, given in the name of his brother Germanicus, was presided over by Drusus, who took an extravagant pleasure in the shedding of blood however vile â a trait so alarming to the populace that it was said to have been censured by his father. Tiberius' own absence from the exhibition was variously explained. Some ascribed it to his impatience of a crowd; others, to his native morosity and his dread of comparisons; for Augustus had been a good-humoured spectator. I should be slow to believe that he deliberately furnished his son with an occasion for exposing his brutality and arousing the disgust of the nation; yet even this was suggested. 2.42. For 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 to say nothing of humiliation â 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 cent sale-tax, fixed it for the future at one half of this amount. â 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. 2.43. These circumstances, then, and the events in Armenia, which I mentioned above, were discussed by Tiberius before the senate. "The commotion in the East," he added, "could only be settled by the wisdom of Germanicus: for his own years were trending to their autumn, and those of Drusus were as yet scarcely mature." There followed a decree of the Fathers, delegating to Germanicus the provinces beyond the sea, with powers overriding, in all regions he might visit, those of the local governors holding office by allotment or imperial nomination. Tiberius, however, had removed Creticus Silanus from Syria â he was a marriage connection of Germanicus, whose eldest son, Nero, was plighted to his daughter â and had given the appointment to Gnaeus Piso, a man of ungoverned passions and constitutional insubordinacy. For there was a strain of wild arrogance in the blood â a strain derived from his father Piso; who in the Civil War lent strenuous aid against Caesar to the republican party during its resurrection in Africa, then followed the fortunes of Brutus and Cassius, and, on the annulment of his exile, refused to become a suitor for office, until approached with a special request to accept a consulate proffered by Augustus. But, apart from the paternal temper, Piso's brain was fired by the lineage and wealth of his wife Plancina: to Tiberius he accorded a grudging precedence; upon his children he looked down as far beneath him. Nor did he entertain a doubt that he had been selected for the governorship of Syria in order to repress the ambitions of Germanicus. The belief has been held that he did in fact receive private instructions from Tiberius; and Plancina, beyond question, had advice from the ex-empress, bent with feminine jealousy upon persecuting Agrippina. For the court was split and torn by unspoken preferences for Germanicus or for Drusus. Tiberius leaned to the latter as his own issue and blood of his blood. Germanicus, owing to the estrangement of his uncle, had risen in the esteem of the world; and he had a further advantage in the distinction of his mother's family, among whom he could point to Mark Antony for a grandfather and to Augustus for a great-uncle. On the other hand, the plain Roman knight, Pomponius Atticus, who was great-grandfather to Drusus, seemed to reflect no credit upon the ancestral effigies of the Claudian house; while both in fecundity and in fair fame Agrippina, the consort of Germanicus, ranked higher than Drusus' helpmeet, Livia. The brothers, however, maintained a singular uimity, unshaken by the contentions of their kith and kin. 2.47. In the same year, twelve important cities of Asia collapsed in an earthquake, the time being night, so that the havoc was the less foreseen and the more devastating. Even the usual resource in these catastrophes, a rush to open ground, was unavailing, as the fugitives were swallowed up in yawning chasms. Accounts are given of huge mountains sinking, of former plains seen heaved aloft, of fires flashing out amid the ruin. As the disaster fell heaviest on the Sardians, it brought them the largest measure of sympathy, the Caesar promising ten million sesterces, and remitting for five years their payments to the national and imperial exchequers. The Magnesians of Sipylus were ranked second in the extent of their losses and their indemnity. In the case of the Temnians, Philadelphenes, Aegeates, Apollonideans, the soâcalled Mostenians and Hyrcanian Macedonians, and the cities of Hierocaesarea, Myrina, Cyme, and Tmolus, it was decided to exempt them from tribute for the same term and to send a senatorial commissioner to view the state of affairs and administer relief. Since Asia was held by a consular governor, an ex-praetor â Marcus Ateius â was selected, so as to avoid the difficulties which might arise from the jealousy of two officials of similar standing. 4.13. Meanwhile Tiberius had in no way relaxed his attention to public business, but, accepting work as a consolation, was dealing with judicial cases at Rome and petitions from the provinces. On his proposal, senatorial resolutions were passed to relieve the towns of Cibyra in Asia and Aegium in Achaia, both damaged by earthquake, by remitting their tribute for three years. Vibius Serenus, too, the proconsul of Further Spain, was condemned on a charge of public violence, and deported, as the result of his savage character, to the island of Amorgus. Carsidius Sacerdos, accused of supplying grain to a public enemy in the person of Tacfarinas, was acquitted; and the same charge failed against Gaius Gracchus. Gracchus had been taken in earliest infancy by his father Sempronius to share his banishment in the company of landless men, destitute of all liberal achievements; later, he eked out a livelihood by mean trading transactions in Africa and Sicily: yet even so he failed to escape the hazards reserved for rank and fortune. Indeed, had not Aelius Lamia and Lucius Apronius, former governors of Africa, come to the rescue of his innocence, he would have been swept to ruin by the fame of his calamitous house and the disasters of his father. 6.41. About this date, the Cietae, a tribe subject to Archelaus of Cappadocia, pressed to conform with Roman usage by making a return of their property and submitting to a tribute, migrated to the heights of the Tauric range, and, favoured by the nature of the country, held their own against the unwarlike forces of the king; until the legate Marcus Trebellius, despatched by Vitellius from his province of Syria with four thousand legionaries and a picked force of auxiliaries, drew his lines round the two hills which the barbarians had occupied (the smaller is known as Cadra, the other as Davara) and reduced them to surrender â those who ventured to make a sally, by the sword, the others by thirst. Meanwhile, with the acquiescence of the Parthians, Tiridates took over Nicephorium, Anthemusias, and the other cities of Macedonian foundation, carrying Greek names, together with the Parthic towns of Halus and Artemita; enthusiasm running high, as Artabanus, with his Scythian training, had been execrated for his cruelty and it was hoped that Roman culture had mellowed the character of Tiridates. 12.49. The procurator of Cappadocia was Julius Paelignus, a person made doubly contemptible by hebetude of mind and grotesqueness of body, yet on terms of the greatest intimacy with Claudius during the years of retirement when he amused his sluggish leisure with the society of buffoons. The Paelignus had mustered the provincial militia, with the avowed intention of recovering Armenia; but, while he was plundering our subjects in preference to the enemy, the secession of his troops left him defenceless against the barbarian incursions, and he made his way to Radamistus, by whose liberality he was so overpowered that he voluntarily advised him to assume the kingly emblem, and assisted at its assumption in the quality of sponsor and satellite. Ugly reports of the incident spread; and, to make it clear that not all Romans were to be judged by the standard of Paelignus, the legate Helvidius Priscus was sent with a legion to deal with the disturbed situation as the circumstances might require. Accordingly, after crossing Mount Taurus in haste, he had settled more points by moderation than by force, when he was ordered back to Syria, lest he should give occasion for a Parthian war. 14.46. Under the same consulate, Tarquitius Priscus was found guilty of extortion, at the suit of the Bithynians, much to the joy of the senate, which remembered his accusation of Statilius Taurus, his own proconsul. In the Gallic provinces, an assessment was held by Quintus Volusius, Sextius Africanus, and Trebellius Maximus. Between Volusius and Africanus there subsisted a rivalry due to their rank: for Trebellius they entertained a common contempt, which enabled him to surpass them both. |
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7. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 55.10, 57.17, 57.17.8 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 55.10. 1. Augustus limited the number of people to be supplied with grain, a number not previously fixed, to two hundred thousand; and, as some say, he distributed largess of sixty denarii to each man.,1a. How the Forum of Augustus was dedicated.,1b. How the Temple of Mars therein was dedicated.,2. . . . to Mars, and that he himself and his grandsons should go there as often as they wished, while those who were passing from the class of boys and were being enrolled among the youths of military age should invariably do so; that those who were sent out to commands abroad should make that their starting-point;,3. that the senate should take its votes there in regard to the granting of triumphs, and that the victors after celebrating them should dedicate to this Mars their sceptre and their crown; that such victors and all others who receive triumphal honours should have their statues in bronze erected in the Forum;,4. that in case military standards captured by the enemy were ever recovered they should be placed in the temple; that a festival should be celebrated besides the steps of the temple by the cavalry commanders of each year; that a nail should be driven into it by the censors at the close of their terms;,5. and that even senators should have the right of contracting to supply the horses that were to compete in the Circensian games, and also to take general charge of the temple, just as had been provided by law in the case of the temples of Apollo and of Jupiter Capitolinus.,6. These matters settled, Augustus dedicated this temple of Mars, although he had granted to Gaius and Lucius once for all the right to consecrate all such buildings by virtue of a kind of consular authority that they exercised in the time-honoured manner. And they did, in fact, have the management of the Circensian games on this occasion, while their brother Agrippa took part along with the boys of the first families in the equestrian exercise called "Troy.",7. Two hundred and sixty lions were slaughtered in the Circus. There was a gladiatorial combat in the Saepta, and a naval battle between the "Persians" and the "Athenians" was given on the spot where even toâday some relics of it are still pointed out.,8. These, it will be understood, were the names given to the contestants; and the "Athenians" prevailed as of old. Afterwards water was let into the Circus Flaminius and thirty-six crocodiles were there slaughtered. Augustus, however, did not serve as consul during all these days, but after holding office for a short time, gave the title of the consulship to another.,9. These were the celebrations in honour of Mars. To Augustus himself a sacred contest was voted in Neapolis, the Campanian city, nominally because he had restored it when it was prostrated by earthquake and fire, but in reality because its inhabitants, alone of the Campanians, tried in a manner to imitate the customs of the Greeks.,10. He also was given the strict right to the title of "Father"; for hitherto he had merely been addressed by that title without the formality of a decree. Moreover, he now for the first time appointed two prefects over the Praetorians, Quintus Ostorius Scapula and Publius Salvius Aper, â for I, too, apply this name "prefect" solely to them, of all who exercise a similar office, inasmuch as it has won its way into general use.,11. Pylades, the dancer, gave a festival, though he did not perform any of the work himself, since he was very old, but merely wore the insignia of office and provided the cost of the entertainment; and the praetor Quintus Crispinus also gave one. I mention this only because it was on this occasion that knights and women of distinction were brought upon the stage.,12. of this, however, Augustus took no account; but when he at length discovered that his daughter Julia was so dissolute in her conduct as actually to take part in revels and drinking bouts at night in the Forum and on the very rostra, he became exceedingly angry.,13. He had surmised even before this time that she was not leading a straight life, but refused to believe it. For those who hold positions of command, it appears, are acquainted with everything else better than with their own affairs; and although their own deeds do not escape the knowledge of their associates, they have no precise information regarding what their associates do.,14. In the present instance, when Augustus learned what was going on, he gave way to a rage so violent that he could not keep the matter to himself, but went so far as to communicate it to senate. As a result Julia was banished to the island of Pandateria, lying off Campania, and her mother Scribonia voluntarily accompanied her.,15. of the men who had enjoyed her favours, Iullus Antonius, on the ground that his conduct had been prompted by designs upon the monarchy, was put to death along with other prominent persons, while the remainder were banished to islands. And since there was a tribune among them, he was not tried until he had completed his term of office.,16. As a result of this affair many other women, too, were accused of similar behaviour, but the emperor would not entertain all the suits; instead, he set a definite date as a limit and forbade all prying into what had occurred previous to that time. For although in the case of his daughter he would show no mercy, remarking that he would rather have been Phoebe's father than hers, he nevertheless was disposed to spare the rest. This Phoebe had been a freedwoman of Julia's and her accomplice, and had voluntarily taken her own life before she could be punished. It was for this that Augustus praised her.,17. Gaius assumed command of the legions on the Ister with peaceful intent. Indeed, he fought no war, not because no war broke out, but because he was learning to rule in quiet and safety, while the dangerous undertakings were regularly assigned to others.,18. When the Armenians revolted and the Parthians joined with them, Augustus was distressed and at a loss what to do. For he himself was not fit for campaigning by reason of age, while Tiberius, as has been stated, had already withdrawn, and he did not dare send any other influential man; as for Gaius and Lucius, they were young and inexperienced in affairs. Nevertheless, under the stress of necessity, he chose Gaius, gave him the proconsular authority and a wife, â in order that he might also have the increased dignity that attached to a married man, â and appointed advisers to him.,19. Gaius accordingly set out and was everywhere received with marks of distinction, as befitted one who was the emperor's grandson and was even looked upon as his son. Even Tiberius went to Chios and paid court to him, thus endeavouring to clear himself of suspicion; indeed, he humiliated himself and grovelled at the feet, not only of Gaius, but also of all the associates of Gaius. And Gaius, after going to Syria and meeting with no great success, was wounded.,20. When the barbarians heard of Gaius' expedition, Phrataces sent men to Augustus to explain what had occurred and to demand the return of his brothers on condition of his accepting peace. The emperor sent him a letter in reply, addressed simply to "Phrataces," without the appellation of "king," in which he directed him to lay aside the royal name and to withdraw from Armenia. Thereupon the Parthian, so far from being cowed, wrote back in a generally haughty tone, styling himself "King of Kings" and addressing Augustus simply as "Caesar." Tigranes did not at once send any envoys, but when Artabazus somewhat later fell ill and died, he sent gifts to Augustus, in view of the fact that his rival had been removed,,21. and though he did not mention the name "king" in his letter, he really did petition Augustus for the kingship. Influenced by these considerations and at the same time fearing the war with the Parthians, the emperor accepted the gifts and bade him go with good hopes to Gaius in Syria. . . . others who marched against them from Egypt, and did not yield until a tribune from the pretorian guard was sent against them. This man in the course of time checked their incursions, with the result that for a long period no senator governed the cities in this region. 57.17. 1. The following year Gaius Caecilius and Lucius Flaccus received the title of consuls. And when some brought Tiberius money at the beginning of the year, he would not accept it and published an edict regarding this very practice, in which he used a word that was not Latin.,2. After thinking it over at night he sent for all who were experts in such matters, for he was extremely anxious to have his diction irreproachable. Thereupon one Ateius Capito declared: "Even if no one has previously used this expression, yet now because of you we shall all cite it as an example of classical usage." But a certain Marcellus replied: "You, Caesar, can confer Roman citizenship upon men, but not upon words.",3. And the emperor did this man no harm for his remark, in spite of its extreme frankness. His anger was aroused, however, against Archelaus, the king of Cappadocia, because this prince, after having once grovelled before him in order to gain his assistance as advocate when accused by his subjects in the time of Augustus,,4. had afterwards slighted him on the occasion of his visit to Rhodes, yet had paid court to Gaius when the latter went to Asia. Therefore Tiberius now summoned him on the charge of rebellious conduct and left his fate to the decision of the senate, although the man was not only stricken in years, but also a great sufferer from gout, and was furthermore believed to be demented.,5. As a matter of fact, he had once lost his mind to such an extent that a guardian was appointed over his domain by Augustus; nevertheless, at the time in question he was no longer weak-witted, but was merely feigning, in the hope of saving himself by this expedient. And he would now have been put to death, had not someone in testifying against him stated that he had once said: "When I get back home, I will show him what sort of sinews I possess." So great a shout of laughter went up at this â for the man was not only unable to stand, but could not even sit up â that Tiberius gave up his purpose of putting him to death.,6. In fact, the prince's condition was so serious that he was carried into the senate in a covered litter (for it was customary even for men, whenever one of them came there feeling ill, to be carried in reclining, and even Tiberius sometimes did so), and he spoke a few words leaning out of the litter.,7. So it was that the life of Archelaus was spared for the time being; but he died shortly afterward from some other cause. After this Cappadocia fell to the Romans and was put in charge of a knight as governor. The cities in Asia which had been damaged by the earthquake were assigned to an ex-praetor with five lictors; and large sums of money were remitted from taxes and large sums were also given them by Tiberius.,8. For not only did he refrain scrupulously from the possessions of others â so long, that is, as he practised any virtue at all â and would not even accept the inheritances that were left to him by testators who had relatives, but he actually contributed vast sums both to cities and to private individuals, and would not accept any honour or praise for these acts.,9. When embassies came from cities or provinces, he never dealt with them alone, but caused a number of others to participate in the deliberations, especially men who had once governed these peoples. 57.17.8. For not only did he refrain scrupulously from the possessions of others â so long, that is, as he practised any virtue at all â and would not even accept the inheritances that were left to him by testators who had relatives, but he actually contributed vast sums both to cities and to private individuals, and would not accept any honour or praise for these acts. |
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