8. Tacitus, Annals, 2.27.1, 2.41.1, 3.58-3.59, 3.66.1, 3.71.2, 4.15.3, 4.17.1, 4.37.3, 4.56, 11.24.7 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 2.27.1. Nearly at the same time, a charge of revolutionary activities was laid against Libo Drusus, a member of the Scribonian family. I shall 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. 2.41.1. The 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 that Marcellus, his uncle, had been snatched in youth from the ardent affections of the populace â that the loves of the Roman nation were fleeting and unblest! 3.58. Meanwhile, after the governorship of Junius Blaesus in Africa had been extended, the Flamen Dialis, Servius Maluginensis, demanded the allotment of Asia to himself. "It was a common fallacy," he insisted, "that the flamens of Jove were not allowed to leave Italy; nor was his own legal status different from that of the flamens of Mars and Quirinus. If, then, they had had provinces allotted them, why was the right withheld from the priests of Jove? There was no national decree to be found on the point â nothing in the Books of Ceremonies. The pontiffs had often performed the rites of Jove, if the flamen was prevented by sickness or public business. For seventy-five years after the self-murder of Cornelius Merula no one had been appointed in his room, yet the rites had not been interrupted. But if so many years could elapse without a new creation, and without detriment to the cult, how much more easily could he absent himself for twelve months of proconsular authority? Personal rivalries had no doubt in former times led the pontiffs to prohibit his order from visiting the provinces: toâday, by the grace of Heaven, the chief pontiff was also the chief of men, beyond the reach of jealousy, rancour, or private inclinations. 3.59. Since various objections to the argument were raised by the augur Lentulus and others, it was determined, in the upshot, to wait for the verdict of the supreme pontiff himself. Tiberius postponed his inquiry into the legal standing of the flamen, but modified the ceremonies with which it had been resolved to celebrate the tribunician power of Drusus; criticizing specifically the unprecedented motion of Haterius and the gold lettering so repugt to Roman custom. A letter, too, from Drusus was read, which, though tuned to a modest key, left an impression of extreme arrogance. "So the world," men said, "had come to this, that even a mere boy, invested with such an honour, would not approach the divinities of Rome, set foot within the senate, or, at the least, take the auspices on his native soil. War, they must assume, or some remote quarter of the world detained him; though at that instant he was perambulating the lakes and beaches of Campania! Such was the initiation of the governor of the human race, these the first lessons derived from the paternal instruction! A grey-haired emperor might, if he pleased, recoil from the view of his fellow-citizens, and plead the fatigue of age and the labours he had accomplished: but, in the case of Drusus, what impediment could there be save pride? 3.66.1. Then, step by step, they passed from the degrading to the brutal. Gaius Silanus, the proconsul of Asia, accused of extortion by the provincials, was attacked simultaneously by the ex-consul Mamercus Scaurus, the praetor Junius Otho, and the aedile Bruttedius Niger, who flung at him the charge of violating the godhead of Augustus and spurning the majesty of Tiberius, while Mamercus made play with the precedents of antiquity â the indictment of Lucius Cotta by Scipio Africanus, of Servius Galba by Cato the Censor, of Publius Rutilius by Marcus Scaurus. Such, as all men know, were the crimes avenged by Scipio and Cato or the famous Scaurus, the great-grandsire of Mamercus, whom that reproach to his ancestors dishonoured by his infamous activity! Junius Otho's old profession had been to keep a school; afterwards, created a senator by the influence of Sejanus, by his effrontery and audacity he brought further ignominy, if possible, upon the meanness of his beginnings. Bruttedius, amply provided with liberal accomplishments, and bound, if he kept the straight road, to attain all distinctions, was goaded by a spirit of haste, which impelled him to outpace first his equals, then his superiors, and finally his own ambitions: an infirmity fatal to many, even of the good, who, disdaining the sure and slow, force a premature success, though destruction may accompany the prize. 4.17.1. In the consulate of Cornelius Cethegus and Visellius Varro, the pontiffs and â after their example â the other priests, while offering the vows for the life of the emperor, went further and commended Nero and Drusus to the same divinities, not so much from affection for the princes as in that spirit of sycophancy, of which the absence or the excess is, in a corrupt society, equally hazardous. For Tiberius, never indulgent to the family of Germanicus, was now stung beyond endurance to find a pair of striplings placed on a level with his own declining years. He summoned the pontiffs, and asked if they had made this concession to the entreaties â or should he say the threats? â of Agrippina. The pontiffs, in spite of their denial, received only a slight reprimand (for a large number were either relatives of his own or prominent figures in the state); but in the senate, he gave warning that for the future no one was to excite to arrogance the impressionable minds of the youths by such precocious distinctions. The truth was that Sejanus was pressing him hard: â "The state," so ran his indictment, "was split into two halves, as if by civil war. There were men who proclaimed themselves of Agrippina's party: unless a stand was taken, there would be more; and the only cure for the growing disunion was to strike down one or two of the most active malcontents. 4.56. The deputies from Smyrna, on the other hand, after retracing the antiquity of their town â whether founded by Tantalus, the seed of Jove; by Theseus, also of celestial stock; or by one of the Amazons â passed on to the arguments in which they rested most confidence: their good offices towards the Roman people, to whom they had sent their naval force to aid not merely in foreign wars but in those with which we had to cope in Italy, while they had also been the first to erect a temple to the City of Rome, at a period (the consulate of Marcus Porcius) when the Roman fortunes stood high indeed, but had not yet mounted to their zenith, as the Punic capital was yet standing and the kings were still powerful in Asia. At the same time, Sulla was called to witness that "with his army in a most critical position through the inclement winter and scarcity of clothing, the news had only to be announced at a public meeting in Smyrna, and the whole of the bystanders stripped the garments from their bodies and sent them to our legions." The Fathers accordingly, when their opinion was taken, gave Smyrna the preference. Vibius Marsus proposed that a supernumerary legate, to take responsibility for the temple, should be assigned to Manius Lepidus, to whom the province of Asia had fallen; and since Lepidus modestly declined to make the selection himself, Valerius Naso was chosen by lot among the ex-praetors and sent out. |
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