1. Philo of Alexandria, Against Flaccus, 2, 10 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
| 10. However, for a time he still paid some attention to the affairs of the state, not wholly abandoning the administration of his government; but when he heard that the grandson of Tiberius and his partner in the government had been put to death at the command of Gaius, he was smitten with intolerable anguish, and threw himself on the ground, and lay there speechless, being utterly deprived of his senses, for indeed his mind had long since been enervated by grief. |
|
2. Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, 18.170, 18.172-18.176 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 18.172. that he permitted those governors who had been sent once to their government [to stay there a long while], out of regard to the subjects that were under them; for that all governors are naturally disposed to get as much as they can; and that those who are not to fix there, but to stay a short time, and that at an uncertainty when they shall be turned out, do the more severely hurry themselves on to fleece the people; 18.173. but that if their government be long continued to them; they are at last satiated with the spoils, as having gotten a vast deal, and so become at length less sharp in their pillaging; but that if successors are sent quickly, the poor subjects, who are exposed to them as a prey, will not be able to bear the new ones, while they shall not have the same time allowed them wherein their predecessors had filled themselves, and so grew more unconcerned about getting more; and this because they are removed before they have had time [for their oppressions]. 18.174. He gave them an example to show his meaning: A great number of flies came about the sore places of a man that had been wounded; upon which one of the standers-by pitied the man’s misfortune, and thinking he was not able to drive those flies away himself, was going to drive them away for him; 18.175. but he prayed him to let them alone: the other, by way of reply, asked him the reason of such a preposterous proceeding, in preventing relief from his present misery; to which he answered, “If thou drivest these flies away, thou wilt hurt me worse; for as these are already full of my blood, they do not crowd about me, nor pain me so much as before, but are somewhat more remiss, while the fresh ones that come almost famished, and find me quite tired down already, will be my destruction. 18.176. For this cause, therefore, it is that I am myself careful not to send such new governors perpetually to those my subjects, who are already sufficiently harassed by many oppressions, as may, like these flies, further distress them; and so, besides their natural desire of gain, may have this additional incitement to it, that they expect to be suddenly deprived of that pleasure which they take in it.” |
|
3. Suetonius, Tiberius, 32.2, 37.4 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
4. Tacitus, Annals, 6.42 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 6.42. The extreme of adulation was shown by the powerful community of Seleucia, a walled town which, faithful to the memory of its founder Seleucus, has not degenerated into barbarism. Three hundred members, chosen for wealth or wisdom, form a senate: the people has its own prerogatives. So long as the two orders are in unison, the Parthian is ignored: if they clash, each calls in aid against its rival; and the alien, summoned to rescue a part, overpowers the whole. This had happened lately in the reign of Artabanus, who consulted his own ends by sacrificing the populace to the aristocrats: for supremacy of the people is akin to freedom; between the domination of a minority and the whim of a monarch the distance is small. They now celebrated the arrival of Tiridates with the honours paid to the ancient kings, along with the innovations of which a later age has been more lavish: at the same time, they poured abuse on Artabanus as an Arsacid on the mother's side, but otherwise of ignoble blood. â Tiridates handed over the government of Seleucia to the democracy; then, as he was debating what day to fix for his formal assumption of sovereignty, he received letters from Phraates and Hiero, holders of the two most important satrapies, asking for a short postponement. It was decided to wait for men of their high importance, and in the interval a move was made to the seat of government at Ctesiphon. However, as day after day found them still procrastinating, the Surena, before an applauding multitude, fastened, in the traditional style, the royal diadem upon the brows of Tiridates. |
|
5. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 57.10.5, 7978.27.1, 7978.27.3 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 57.10.5. All these expenditures, moreover, he made from the regular revenues; for he neither put anybody to death for his money nor confiscated, at this time, anybody's property, nor did he even resort to tricky methods of obtaining funds. In fact, when Aemilius Rectus once sent him from Egypt, which he was governing, more money than was stipulated, he sent back to him the message: "I want my sheep shorn, not shaven. |
|
