The Reign of Tiberius, Out of the First Six Annals of Tacitus - Cornelius Tacitus

Скачать книгу

there proceeded from his fear of Germanicus: he dreaded that he, who was master of so many legions, of numberless auxiliaries, and of all the allies of Rome; he, who was the darling of the people, might wish rather to possess the Empire, than to wait for it; he likewise, in this mysterious way of dealing with the Senate, sought false glory, and would rather seem by the Commonwealth chosen and called to the Empire, than to have crept darkly into it by the intrigues of a woman, or by adoption from a superannuated Prince. It was also afterwards found, that by this abstruseness and counterfeit irresolution he meant to penetrate into the designs and inclinations of the great men: for his jealous spirit construed all their words, all their looks, into crimes; and stored them up in his heart against a day of vengeance.

      When he first met the Senate, he would bear no other business to be transacted but that about the funeral of Augustus. His last will was brought in by the Vestal Virgins: in it Tiberius and Livia were appointed his heirs, Livia adopted into the Julian family, and dignified with the name of Augusta: into the next and second degree of heirship he adopted his grandchildren and their children; and in the third degree he named the great men of Rome, most of them hated by him, but out of vainglory he named them, and for future renown. His legacies were not beyond the usual bounds; only he left to the Roman people four hundred thousand great sesterces, {Footnote: £362,500.} to the populace or common sort, thirty-five thousand; to every common soldier of the Praetorian Guards, a thousand small sesterces, {Footnote: £8, 6s. 8d.} and to every soldier of the Roman legions three hundred. {Footnote: £2, 10s.} The funeral honours were next considered. The chief proposed were these: Asinius Gallus moved that "the funeral should pass through the Triumphal Gate:" Lucius Arruntius, "that the titles of all the laws which he had made, and the names of all the nations which he had conquered, should be carried before the corpse:" Valerius Messala added, that "the oath of allegiance to Tiberius should be renewed every year;" and being asked by Tiberius, "whether at his instigation he had made that motion?" "I spoke it as my opinion," says Messala; "nor will I ever be determined by any but my own, in things which concern the commonweal; let who will be provoked by my freedom." Only this new turn was wanting to complete the prevailing flattery of the time. The Senators then concurred in a loud cry, "that upon their own shoulders they must bear the body to the pile." But Tiberius declined the offer from an arrogant show of moderation. Moreover, he cautioned the people by an edict, "not to disturb the funeral functions with a zeal over-passionate, as they had those of Julius Caesar; nor to insist that the corpse of Augustus should be burnt rather in the Forum, than in the field of Mars, which was the place appointed." On the funeral day the soldiers under arms kept guard; a mighty mockery this to those who had either seen, or heard their fathers describe, the day when Caesar the Dictator was slain: servitude was then new, its sorrows yet fresh and bitter; and liberty unsuccessfully retrieved by a deed which, while it seemed impious to some, was thought altogether glorious by others, and hence tore Rome into tumults and the violence of parties: they who knew that turbulent day, and compared it with the quiet exit of Augustus, ridiculed the foppery of "calling an aid of soldiers to secure a peaceable burial to a Prince who had grown old in peace and power, and even provided against a relapse into liberty, by a long train of successors."

      Hence much and various matter of observation concerning Augustus: the superstitious multitude admired the fortuitous events of his fortune; "that the last day of his life, and the first of his reign, was the same; that he died at Nola, in the same village, and in the same house, and in the same chamber, where his father Octavius died. They observed to his glory, his many Consulships, equal in number to those of Valerius Corvinus and of Caius Marius, joined together; that he had exercised the power of the Tribuneship seven-and-thirty continued years: that he was one-and-twenty times proclaimed Imperator; with many other numerous honours repeated to him, or created for him." Men of deeper discernment entered further into his life, but differed about it. His admirers said, "that his filial piety to his father Caesar, and the distractions of the Republic, where the laws no longer governed, had driven him into a civil war; which, whatever be the first cause, can never be begun or carried, on by just and gentle means." Indeed, to be revenged on the murderers of his father, he had made many great sacrifices to the violent genius of Anthony; many to Lepidus: but when Lepidus was become sunk and superannuated in sloth; when Anthony was lost headlong in sensuality, there was then no other remedy for the distracted State, rent piecemeal by its Chiefs, but the sovereignty of one: Augustus, however, never had assumed to be over his country King, or Dictator; but settled the government under the legal name of Prince, or Chief of the Senate: he had extended the Empire, and set for its bounds the distant ocean and rivers far remote; the several parts and forces of the State, the legions, the provinces, and the navy, were all properly balanced and connected; the citizens lived dutifully under the protection of the law, the Allies in terms of respect, and Rome itself was adorned with magnificent structures: indeed, in a few instances he had exerted the arbitrary violence of power; and in but a few, only to secure the peace of the whole.

      In answer to all this, it was urged, that "his filial piety, and the unhappy situation of the Republic, were pure pretences; but the ardent lust of reigning, his true and only motive: with this spirit he had solicited into his service, by bribery, a body of veteran soldiers: and though a private youth, without post or magistracy, but, in defiance of law, levied an army: with this spirit he had debauched and bought the Roman legions under the Consuls, while he was falsely feigning a coalition with Pompey's republican party: that soon after, when he had procured from the Senate, or rather usurped the honours and authority of the Praetorship; and when Hirtius and Pansa, the two Consuls, were slain, he seized both their armies: that it was doubted whether the Consuls fell by the enemy, or whether Pansa was not killed by pouring poison into his wounds; and Hirtius slain by his own soldiers; and whether the young Caesar was not the black contriver of this bloody treason: that by terror he had extorted the Consulship in spite of the Senate; and turned against the Commonwealth the very arms with which the Commonwealth had trusted him for her defence against Anthony. Add to all this his cruel proscriptions, and the massacre of so many citizens, his seizing from the public and distributing to his own creatures so many lands and possessions; a violation of property not justified even by those who gained by it. But, allowing him to dedicate to the Manes of the Dictator the lives of Brutus and Cassius (though more to his honour had it been to have postponed his own personal hate to public good), did he not betray the young Pompey by an insidious peace, betray Lepidus by a deceitful show of friendship? Did he not next ensnare Marc Anthony, first by treaties, those of Tarentum and Brundusium; then by a marriage, that of his sister Octavia? And did not Anthony at last pay with his life the penalty of that subdolous alliance? After this, no doubt there was peace, but a bloody peace; bloody in the tragical defeat of Lollius, and that of Varus, in Germany; and at Rome, the Varrones, the Egnatii, the Julii (those illustrious names) were put to death." Nor was his domestic life spared upon this occasion. "He had arbitrarily robbed Nero of his wife big with child by her husband; and mocked the Gods by consulting the Priests; whether religion permitted him to marry her before her delivery, or obliged him to stay till after. His minions, Tedius and Vedius Pollio, had lived in scandalous and excessive luxury: his wife Livia, who wholly controlled him, had proved a cruel governess to the Commonwealth; and to the Julian house, a more cruel step-mother: he had even invaded the incommunicable honours of the Gods, and setting up for himself temples like theirs, would like them be adored in the image of a Deity, with all the sacred solemnity of Priests and sacrifices: nor had he adopted Tiberius for his successor, either out of affection for him, or from concern for the public welfare; but having discovered in him a spirit proud and cruel, he sought future glory from the blackest opposition and comparison." For, Augustus, when, a few years before, he solicited the Senate to grant to Tiberius another term of the authority of the Tribuneship, though he mentioned him with honour, yet taking notice of his odd humour, behaviour, and manners, dropped some expressions, which, while they seemed to excuse him, exposed and upbraided him.

      As soon as the funeral of Augustus was over, a temple and divine worship were forthwith decreed him. The Senate then turned their instant supplications to Tiberius, to fill his vacant place; but received an abstruse answer, touching the greatness of the Empire and his own distrust of himself; he said that "nothing but the divine genius of Augustus was equal to the mighty task: that for himself, who had been called by him into a participation of his cares, he had learnt by feeling them, what a daring, what a difficult toil was that of government, and how perpetually subject to the caprices

Скачать книгу