The Reign of Tiberius

THE REIGN OF TIBERIUS

Tacitus

PERENNIAL PRESS

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Copyright © 2016 by Tacitus

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

BOOK I. — A.D. 14 AND 15.

BOOK II. — A.D. 16-19.

BOOK III. — A.D. 20-22.

BOOK IV. — A.D. 23-28.

BOOK V. — A.D. 29-31.

BOOK VI. — A.D. 32-37.

BOOK I. — A.D. 14 AND 15.

KINGS WERE THE ORIGINAL Magistrates of Rome: Lucius Brutus founded Liberty and the Consulship: Dictators were chosen occasionally, and used only in pressing exigencies. Little more than two years prevailed the supreme power of the Decemvirate, and the consular jurisdiction of the military Tribunes not very many. The domination of Cinna was but short, that of Sylla not long. The authority of Pompey and Crassus was quickly swallowed up in Caesar; that of Lepidus and Anthony in Augustus. The Commonwealth, then long distressed and exhausted by the rage of her civil dissensions, fell easily into his hands, and over her he assumed a sovereign dominion; yet softened with a venerable name, that of Prince or Chief of the Senate. But the several revolutions in the ancient free state of Rome, and all her happy or disastrous events, are already recorded by writers of signal renown. Nor even in the reign of Augustus were there wanting authors of distinction and genius to have composed his story; till by the prevailing spirit of fear, flattery, and abasement they were checked. As to the succeeding Princes, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero; the dread of their tyranny, whilst they yet reigned, falsified their history; and after their fall, the fresh detestation of their cruelties inflamed their Historians. Hence my own design of recounting briefly certain incidents in the reign of Augustus, chiefly towards his latter end, and of entering afterwards more fully into that of Tiberius and the other three; unbiassed as I am in this undertaking by any resentment, or any affection; all the influences of these personal passions being far from me.

When, after the fall of Brutus and Cassius, there remained none to fight for the Commonwealth, and her arms were no longer in her own hands; when Sextus Pompeius was utterly defeated in Sicily, Lepidus bereft of his command. Marc Anthony slain; and of all the chiefs of the late Dictator’s party, only Octavius his nephew was left; he put off the invidious name of Triumvir, and styling himself Consul, pretended that the jurisdiction attached to the Tribuneship was his highest aim, as in it the protection of the populace was his only view: but when once he had laid his foundations wider, secured the soldiery by liberality and donations, gained the people by store of provisions, and charmed all by the blessings and sweetness of public peace, he began by politic gradations to exalt himself, to extend his domination, and with his own power to consolidate the authority of the Senate, jurisdiction of the Magistrate, and weight and force of the Laws; usurpations in which he was thwarted by no man: all the bravest Republicans and his most daring foes were slain in battle, or gleaned up by the late sanguinary proscriptions; and for the surviving Nobility, they were covered with wealth, and distinguished with public honours, according to the measure of their debasement, and promptness to bondage. Add, that all the creatures of this new Power, who in the loss of public freedom had gained private fortunes, preferred a servile condition, safe and possessed, to the revival of ancient liberty with personal peril. Neither were the Provinces averse to the present Revolution, and Sovereignty of one; since under that of the people and Senate they had lived in constant fear and mistrust, sorely rent and harassed as they were by the raging competition amongst our Grandees, as well as by the grievous rapine and exactions of our Magistrates; in vain too, under these their oppressions, had been their appeal to the protection of the laws, which were utterly enfeebled and borne down by might and violence, by faction and parties; nay, even by subornation and money.

Moreover, Augustus, in order to fortify his domination with collateral bulwarks, raised his sister’s son Claudius Marcellus, a perfect youth, to the dignity of Pontiff and that of Aedile; preferred Marcus Agrippa to two successive Consulships, a man in truth meanly born but an accomplished soldier, and the companion of his victories; and Marcellus, the husband of Julia, soon after dying, chose him for his son-in-law. Even the sons of his wife, Tiberius Nero, and Claudius Drusus, he dignified with high military titles and commands; though his house was yet supported by descendants of his own blood. For into the Julian family and name of the Caesars he had already adopted Lucius and Caius, the sons of Agrippa; and though they were but children, neither of them seventeen years old, vehement had been his ambition to see them declared Princes of the Roman Youth and even designed to the Consulship; while openly, he was protesting against admitting these early honours. Presently, upon the decease of Agrippa, were these his children snatched away, either by their own natural but hasty fate, or by the deadly fraud of their step-mother Livia; Lucius on his journey to command the armies in Spain; Caius in his return from Armenia, ill of a wound: and as Drusus, one of her own sons, had been long since dead, Tiberius remained sole candidate for the succession. Upon this object, centred all princely honours; he was by Augustus adopted for his son, assumed Colleague in the Empire, partner in the jurisdiction tribunitial, and presented under all these dignities to the several armies: instances of grandeur which were no longer derived from the secret schemes and plottings of his mother, as in times past, while her husband had unexceptionable heirs of his own, but thenceforth bestowed at her open suit. For as Augustus was now very aged, she had over him obtained such absolute sway, that for her pleasure he banished into the Isle of Planasia his only surviving grandson, Agrippa Postumus; one, in truth, destitute of laudable accomplishments, in his temper untractable, and stupidly conceited of his mighty strength, but branded with no misdemeanour or transgression. The Emperor had withal set Germanicus, the son of Drusus, over eight legions quartered upon the Rhine, and obliged Tiberius to adopt him, though Tiberius had then a son of his own, one of competent years; but it was the study of Augustus, to secure himself and the succession by variety of stays and engraftments. War at that time there was none, except that in Germany, kept on foot rather to abolish the disgrace sustained by Quinctilius Varus, there slain with his army, than from any ambition to enlarge the Empire, or for any other valuable advantage. In profound tranquillity were affairs at Rome. To the Magistrates remained their wonted names; of the Romans the younger sort had been born since the battle of Actium, and even most of the old during the civil wars: how few were then living who had seen the ancient free State!

The frame and economy of Rome being thus totally overturned, amongst the Romans were no longer found any traces of their primitive spirit, or attachment to the virtuous institutions of antiquity. But as the equality of the whole was extinguished by the sovereignty of one, all men regarded the orders of the Prince as the only rule of conduct and obedience; nor felt they any anxiety, while Augustus yet retained vigour of life, and upheld the credit of his administration with public peace, and the imperial fortune of his house. But when he became broken with the pressure of age and infirmities; when his end was at hand, and thence a new source of hopes and views was presented, some few there were who began to reason idly about the blessings and recovery of Liberty; many dreaded a civil war, others longed for one; while far the greater part were uttering their several apprehensions of their future masters; that naturally stern and savage was the temper of Agrippa, and by his public contumely enraged into fury; and neither in age nor experience was he equal to the weight of Empire. Tiberius indeed had arrived at fulness of years, and was a distinguished captain, but possessed the inveterate pride entailed upon the Claudian race; and many indications of a cruel nature escaped him, in spite of all his arts to disguise it; besides that from his early infancy he was trained up in a reigning house, and even in his youth inured to an accumulation of power and honours, consulships and triumphs: nor during the several years of his abode at Rhodes, where, under the plausible name of retirement, a real banishment was covered, did he exercise other occupation than that of meditating future vengeance, studying the arts of treachery, and practising secret, abominable sensualities: add to these considerations, that of his mother, a woman inspired with all the tyranny of her sex; yes, the Romans must be under bondage to a woman, and moreover enthralled by two youths, who would first combine to oppress the State, and then falling into dissension, rend it piecemeal.