[1.1]  Urbem Romam a principio reges habuere ;  libertatem et consulatum L. Brutus instituit.  Dictaturæ ad tempus sumebantur ;  neque decemviralis potestas ultra biennium, neque tribunorum militum consulare jus diu valuit.  Non Cinnæ, non Sullæ longa dominatio ;  et Pompeji Crassique potentia cito in Cæsarem, Lepidi atque Antonii arma in Augustum cessere, qui cuncta discordiis civilibus fessa nomine principis sub imperium accepit.  Sed veteris populi Romani prospera vel adversa claris scriptoribus memorata sunt ;  temporibusque Augusti dicendis non defuere decora ingenia, donec, gliscente adulatione, deterrerentur.  Tiberii Gajique et Claudii ac Neronis res, florentibus ipsis, ob metum falsæ, postquam occiderant, recentibus odiis compositæ sunt.  Inde consilium mihi pauca de Augusto, et extrema, tradere, mox Tiberii principatum et cetera, sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo.

[1.1]  Rome at the beginning was ruled by kings.  Freedom and the consulship were established by Lucius Brutus.  Dictatorships were held for a temporary crisis.  The power of the decemvirs did not last beyond two years, nor was the consular jurisdiction of the military tribunes of long duration.  The despotisms of Cinna and Sulla were brief;  the rule of Pompejus and of Crassus soon yielded to Cæsar, the arms of Lepidus and Antonius to Augustus, who, when the world was wearied by civil strife, subjected it to empire under the title of “Prince.”  But the successes and reverses of the old Roman people have been recorded by famous historians;  and fine intellects were not wanting to describe the times of Augustus, till growing sycophancy scared them away.  The histories of Tiberius, Gajus, Claudius, and Nero, while they were in power, were falsified through terror, and after their death were written under the irritation of a recent hatred.  Hence my purpose is to relate a few facts about Augustus - more particularly his last acts, then the reign of Tiberius, and all which follows, without either bitterness or partiality, any motives for which I am keeping at a distance.

[1.2]  Postquam Bruto et Cassio cæsis nulla jam publica arma, Pompejus apud Siciliam oppressus, exutoque Lepido, interfecto Antonio, ne Julianis quidem partibus nisi Cæsar dux reliquus, posito triumviri nomine consulem se ferens et ad tuendam plebem tribunicio jure contentum, ubi militem donis, populum annona, cunctos dulcedine otii pellexit, insurgere paulatim, munia Senatus, magistratuum, legum in se trahere, nullo adversante, quum ferocissimi per acies aut proscriptione cecĭdissent, ceteri nobilium, quanto quis servitio promptior, opibus et honoribus extollerentur, ac novis ex rebus aucti tuta et præsentia quam vetera et periculosa mallent.  Neque provinciæ illum rerum statum abnuebant, suspecto Senatus populique imperio ob certamina potentium et avaritiam magistratuum, invalido legum auxilio quæ vi, ambitu, postremo pecunia turbabantur.

[1.2]  When after the destruction of Brutus and Cassius there was no longer any army of the Commonwealth, when Pompejus was crushed off Sicily, and when, with Lepidus pushed aside and Antonius slain, even the Julian faction had only Cæsar left to lead it, then, dropping the title of triumvir, and giving out that he was a Consul, and was satisfied with a tribune’s authority for the protection of the people, Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the populace with cheap corn, and all men with the sweets of repose, and so grew greater by degrees, while he concentrated in himself the functions of the Senate, the magistrates, and the laws.  He was wholly unopposed, for the boldest spirits had fallen in battle, or in the proscription, while the remaining nobles, the readier they were to be slaves, were raised the higher by wealth and promotion, so that, aggrandised by revolution, they preferred the safety of the present to the dangerous past.  Nor did the provinces dislike that condition of affairs, for they distrusted the government of the Senate and the people, because of the rivalries between the leading men and the rapacity of the officials, while the protection of the laws was unavailing, as they were continually disrupted by violence, intrigue, and finally by corruption.

[1.3]  Ceterum Augustus subsidia dominationi Claudium Marcellum sororis filium admodum adulescentem pontificatu et curuli ædilitate, M. Agrippam ignobilem loco, bonum militia et victoriæ socium, geminatis consulatibus extulit, mox defuncto Marcello, generum sumpsit ;  Tiberium Neronem et Claudium Drusum privignos imperatoriis nominibus auxit, integra etiam tum domo sua.  Nam genitos Agrippa Gajum ac Lucium in familiam Cæsarum induxerat, necdum posita puerili prætexta “principes juventutis” appellari, destinari consules, specie recusantis, flagrantissime cupiverat.  Ut Agrippa vita concessit, Lucium Cæsarem euntem ad Hispanienses exercitus, Gajum remeantem Armenia et vulnere invalidum mors fato propera — vel novercæ Liviæ dolus — abstulit, Drusoque pridem exstincto, Nero solus e privignis erat, illuc cuncta vergere :  filius, collega imperii, consors tribuniciæ potestatis assumitur, omnesque per exercitus ostentatur, non obscuris, ut antea, matris artibus, sed palam hortatu.  Nam senem Augustum devinxerat adeo, uti nepotem unicum Agrippam Postumum in insulam Planasiam projecerit, rudem sane bonarum artium et robore corporis stolide ferocem, nullius tamen flagitii compertum.  At hercule Germanicum, Druso ortum, octo apud Rhenum legionibus imposuit, ascirique per adoptionem a Tiberio jussit, quanquam esset in domo Tiberii filius juvenis, sed quo pluribus munimentis insisteret.  Bellum ea tempestate nullum nisi adversus Germanos supererat, abolendæ magis infamiæ ob amissum cum Quintilio Varo exercitum quam cupidine proferendi imperii aut dignum ob præmium.  Domi res tranquillæ, eadem magistratuum vocabula ;  juniores post Actiacam victoriam, etiam senes plerique inter bella civium nati :  ¿ quotus quisque reliquus qui Rem Publicam vidisset ?

[1.3]  Augustus meanwhile, as supports to his despotism, raised to the pontificate and curule ædileship Claudius Marcellus, his sister’s son, while a mere stripling, and Marcus Agrippa, of humble birth, a good soldier, and one who had shared his victory, to two consecutive consulships, and as Marcellus soon afterwards died, he also accepted him as his son-in-law.  Tiberius Nero and Claudius Drusus, his stepsons, he honored with imperial titles, although his own family was as yet undiminished.  For he had admitted the children of Agrippa, Gajus and Lucius, into the house of the Cæsars;  and before they had yet laid aside the dress of boyhood, he had most fervently desired, with an outward show of reluctance, that they should be entitled “princes of the youth,” and be consuls-elect.  When Agrippa died, and Lucius Cæsar as he was on his way to our armies in Spain, and Gajus while returning from Armenia, still suffering from a wound, were prematurely cut off by fate-hastened death — or by their step-grandmother Livia’s treachery —, Drusus too having long been dead, Nero {(= Tiberius)} remained alone of the stepsons, and in him everything tended to center.  He was adopted as a son, as a colleague in command and a partner in the tribunician power, and paraded through all the armies, no longer through his mother’s secret intrigues, but at her open suggestion.  For she had gained such a hold on the aged Augustus that he drove out as an exile into the island of Planasia his only grandson, Agrippa Postumus, who, though devoid of worthy qualities and in his physical strength stupidly arrogant, had not been convicted of any gross offence.  And yet Augustus had appointed Germanicus, Drusus’s offspring, to the command of eight legions on the Rhine, and required Tiberius to adopt him, although Tiberius had a son, now a young man, in his house;  but he did it that he might have several safeguards to rest on.  He had no war at the time on his hands except against the Germans, which was rather to wipe out the disgrace of the loss of Quintilius Varus and his army than out of an ambition to extend the empire, or for any adequate recompense.  At home all was tranquil, and there were the same designations of the magistrates;  there was a younger generation, sprung up since the victory of Actium, and even many of the older men had been born during the civil wars.  How many were left who had seen the republic?

[1.4]  Igitur verso civitatis statu nihil usquam prisci et integri moris :  omnes, exuta æqualitate, jussa principis aspectare, nulla in præsens formidine, dum Augustus ætate validus seque et domum in pacem sustentavit.  Postquam provecta jam senectus ægro et corpore fatigabatur, aderatque finis et spes novæ, pauci bona libertatis in cassum disserere, plures bellum pavescere, alii cupere.  Pars multo maxima imminentes dominos variis rumoribus differebant :  trucem Agrippam et ignominia accensum non ætate neque rerum experientia tantæ moli parem ;  Tiberium Neronem maturum annis, spectatum bello, sed vetere atque insita Claudiæ familiæ superbia, multaque indicia sævitiæ, quanquam premantur, erumpere.  Hunc et prima ab infantia eductum in domo regnatrice ;  congestos juveni consulatus, triumphos ;  ne eis quidem annis, quibus Rhodi specie secessus exulem egerit, aliud quam iram et simulationem et secretas libidines meditatum.  Accedere matrem muliebri impotentia :  serviendum feminæ duobusque insuper adulescentibus, qui Rem Publicam interim premant, quandoque distrahant.

[1.4]  Thus the State had been revolutionised, and there was not a vestige left of the old sound morality.  Stript of equality, all looked up to the commands of a sovereign without the least apprehension for the present, while Augustus in the vigor of life, could maintain his own position, that of his house, and the general tranquillity.  When in advanced old age {a.D. 14} he was worn out by a sickly frame, and the end was near and new prospects opened, a few spoke in vain of the blessings of freedom, but most people dreaded and some longed for war.  The popular gossip of the large majority fastened itself variously on their future masters.  “Agrippa was savage, and had been exasperated by insult, and neither from age nor experience in affairs was equal to so great a burden.  Tiberius Nero was of mature years, and had established his fame in war, but he had the old arrogance inbred in the Claudian family, and many symptoms of a cruel temper, though they were repressed, now and then broke out.  He had also from earliest infancy been reared in an imperial house;  consulships and triumphs had been heaped on him in his younger days;  even in the years which, on the pretext of seclusion he spent in exile at Rhodes, he had had no thoughts but of wrath, hypocrisy, and secret sensuality.  There was his mother, too, with her womanly lack of self-control.  He would have to be a slave to a female and to two striplings besides, who for a while would burden, and some day rend asunder the State.”

[1.5]  Hæc atque talia agitantibus gravescere valetudo Augusti, et quidam scelus uxoris suspectabant.  Quippe rumor incesserat, paucos ante menses Augustum, electis consciis et comite uno Fabio Maximo, Planasiam vectum ad visendum Agrippam ;  multas illic utrimque lacrimas et signa caritatis spemque ex eo fore ut juvenis penatibus avi redderetur :  quod Maximum uxori Marciæ aperuisse, illam Liviæ.  Gnarum id Cæsari ;  neque multo post, exstincto Maximo, dubium an quæsita morte, auditos in funere ejus Marciæ gemitus semet incusantis, quod causa exitii marito fuisset.  Utcunque se ea res habuit, vixdum ingressus Illyricum Tiberius properis matris litteris accitur ;  neque satis compertum est, spirantem adhuc Augustum apud Urbem Nolam an exanimem reppererit.  Acribus namque custodiis domum et vias sæpserat Livia, lætique interdum nuntii vulgabantur donec, provisis quæ tempus monebat, simul excessisse Augustum et rerum potiri Neronem fama eadem tulit.

[1.5]  While these and like topics were discussed, the infirmities of Augustus increased, and some suspected guilt on his wife’s part.  For a rumor had gone abroad that a few months before he had sailed to Planasia on a visit to Agrippa, with the knowledge of some chosen friends, and with one companion, Fabius Maximus;  that many tears were shed on both sides, with expressions of affection, and that thus there was a hope of the young man being restored to the home of his grandfather.  This, it was said, Maximus had divulged to his wife Marcia, she again to Livia.  All was known to Cæsar, and when Maximus soon afterwards died, by a death some thought to be self-inflicted, there were heard at his funeral wailings from Marcia, in which she reproached herself for having been the cause of her husband’s destruction.  Whatever the fact was, Tiberius as he was just entering Illyria was summoned home by an urgent letter from his mother, and it has not been thoroughly ascertained whether at the city of Nola he found Augustus still breathing or quite lifeless.  For Livia had surrounded the house and its approaches with a strict watch, and favorable bulletins were published from time to time, till, provision having been made for the demands of the crisis, one and the same report told men that Augustus was dead and that Tiberius Nero was master of the State.

[1.6]  Primum facinus novi principatus fuit Postumi Agrippæ cædes, quem ignarum inermumque quamvis firmatus animo centurio ægre confecit.  Nihil de ea re Tiberius apud Senatum disseruit :  patris jussa simulabat, quibus præscripsisset tribuno custodiæ apposito, ne cunctaretur Agrippam morte afficere, quandoque ipse supremum diem explevisset.  Multa sine dubio sævaque Augustus de moribus adulescentis questus, ut exilium ejus Senatus consulto sanciretur perfecerat ;  ceterum, in nullius unquam suorum necem duravit ;  neque mortem nepoti pro securitate privigni illatam credibile erat.  Propius vero, Tiberium ac Liviam, illum metu, hanc novercalibus odiis, suspecti et invisi juvenis cædem festinavisse.  Nuntianti centurioni, ut mos militiæ, factum esse quod imperasset, neque imperasse sese, et rationem facti reddendam apud Senatum, respondit.  Quod postquam Sallustius Crispus particeps secretorum (is ad tribunum miserat codicillos) comperit, metuens ne reus subderetur (juxta periculoso ficta seu vera promeret), monuit Liviam ne arcana domus, ne consilia amicorum, ministeria militum vulgarentur, neve Tiberius vim principatus resolveret, cuncta ad Senatum vocando :  eam condicionem esse imperandi, ut non aliter ratio constet quam si uni reddatur.

[1.6]  The first crime of the new reign was the murder of Postumus Agrippa.  Though he was surprised and unarmed, a centurion of the firmest resolution despatched him with difficulty.  Tiberius gave no explanation of the matter to the Senate;  he pretended that there were directions from his father ordering the tribune in charge of the prisoner not to delay the slaughter of Agrippa, whenever he should himself have breathed his last.  Beyond a doubt, Augustus had often complained of the young man’s character, and had thus succeeded in obtaining the sanction of a decree of the Senate for his banishment.  But he never was hard-hearted enough to destroy any of his kinsfolk, nor was it credible that death was to be the sentence of the grandson in order that the stepson might feel secure.  It was more probable that Tiberius and Livia, the one from fear, the other from a stepmother’s enmity, hurried on the destruction of a youth whom they suspected and hated.  When the centurion reported, according to military custom, that he had executed the command, Tiberius replied that he had not given the command, and that the act must be justified to the Senate.  As soon as Sallustius Crispus who shared the secret (he had, in fact, sent the written order to the tribune) knew this, fearing that the charge would be shifted on himself (it being equally perilous whether he delivered fiction or truth), he advised Livia not to divulge the secrets of her house or the counsels of friends, or any services performed by the soldiers, nor to let Tiberius weaken the strength of imperial power by referring everything to the Senate, for “The condition,” he said, “of holding power is that an account will tally in no other way than by being given to one person alone.”

[1.7]  At Romæ ruere in servitium consules, patres, eques.  Quanto quis illustrior, tanto magis falsi ac festinantes, vultuque composito, ne læti excessu principis neu tristiores primordio, lacrimas gaudium, questus adulationem miscebant.  Sex. Pompejus et Sex. Appulejus consules primi in verba Tiberii Cæsaris juravere, apudque eos Sejus Strabo et C. Turranius, ille Prætoriarum cohortium præfectus, hic annonæ ;  mox Senatus, milesque et populus.  Nam Tiberius cuncta per consules incipiebat, tanquam vetere Re Publica.  Et, ambiguus imperandi, ne edictum quidem quo patres in curiam vocabat, nisi tribuniciæ potestatis præscriptione posuit sub Augusto acceptæ.  Verba edicti fuere pauca et sensu permodesto :  de honoribus parentis consulturum, neque abscedere a corpore, idque unum ex publicis muneribus usurpare.  Sed, defuncto Augusto, signum Prætoriis cohortibus ut imperator dederat ;  excubiæ, arma, cetera aulæ;  miles in forum, miles in curiam comitabatur.  Litteras ad exercitus tanquam adepto principatu misit, nusquam cunctabundus nisi quum in Senatu loqueretur.  Causa præcipua ex formidine, ne Germanicus, in cujus manu tot legiones, immensa sociorum auxilia, mirus apud populum favor, habere imperium quam exspectare mallet.  Dabat et famæ, ut vocatus electusque potius a Re Publica videretur quam per uxorium ambitum et senili adoptione irrepsisse.  Postea cognitum est ad introspiciendas etiam procerum voluntates inductam dubitationem :  nam verba, vultus in crimen detorquens recondebat.

[1.7]  Meanwhile at Rome people plunged into slavery — consuls, senators, knights.  The higher a man’s rank, the more eager his hypocrisy, with expression composed so as neither to betray joy at the decease of one emperor nor sorrow at the rise of another, while mingling tears with joy and mourning with sycophancy.  Sextus Pompejus and Sextus Apulejus, the consuls, were the first to swear allegiance to Tiberius Cæsar, and in their presence the oath was taken by Sejus Strabo and Gajus Turranius, respectively the commander of the Prætorian cohorts and the superintendent of the corn supplies.  Then the Senate, the soldiers and the people did the same.  For Tiberius would inaugurate everything with the consuls, as though the ancient constitution remained.  And being ambivalent about commanding, even the proclamation by which he summoned the senators to their chamber, he issued merely with the title of Tribune, which he had received under Augustus.  The wording of the proclamation was brief, and in a very modest tone.  “He would,” it said, “provide for the honors due to his father, and not leave the lifeless body, and this was the only public duty he now claimed.”  As soon, however, as Augustus was dead, he had given the password to the Prætorian cohorts, as commander-in-chief.  There were lookouts, arms, and the other trappings of court ;  soldiery attended him to the forum;  soldiery to the Senate House.  He sent a letter to the armies as though principate were acquired, and showed hesitation only when he spoke in the Senate.  His chief motive was fear that Germanicus, who had at his disposal so many legions, such vast auxiliary forces of the allies, and such wonderful popularity, should prefer to hold rather than to wait for command.  He was also giving in to public opinion that he might appear elected by the State rather than having snuck in through wifely ambition and adoption by a senile man.  It was subsequently understood that he assumed a wavering attitude, to test likewise the temper of the nobles.  For he would twist a word or a look into a crime and treasure it up in his memory.

[1.8]  Nihil primo Senatus die agi passus nisi de supremis Augusti, cujus testamentum, illatum per Virgines Vestæ, Tiberium et Liviam heredes habuit.  Livia in familiam Juliam nomenque Augustum assumebatur ;  in spem secundam nepotes pronepotesque ;  tertio gradu primores civitatis scripserat (plerosque invisos sibi, sed jactantia gloriaque ad posteros).  Legata non ultra civilem modum, nisi quod populo et plebi quadringenties tricies quinquies {([400 + 30 + 5] * H$100,000 = H$43,500,000)}, Prætoriarum cohortium militibus singula nummum milia {(H$1,000)}, {urbanarum cohortium militibus quingenos (H$500) nummos,} legionariis aut cohortibus civium Romanorum trecenos {(H$300)} nummos viritim dedit.  Tum consultatum de honoribus ;  ex quis maxime insignes visos, quod :  ut Porta Triumphali duceretur funus, Gallus Asinius ; ut legum latarum tituli, victarum ab eo gentium vocabula anteferrentur, L. Arruntius censuere.  Addebat Messalla Valerius renovandum per annos sacramentum in nomen Tiberii ;  interrogatusque a Tiberio num se mandante eam sententiam prompsisset, sponte dixisse respondit, neque in eis quæ ad Rem Publicam pertinerent consilio nisi suo usurum, vel cum periculo offensionis.  (Ea sola species adulandi supererat.)  Conclamant patres corpus ad rogum umeris senatorum ferendum.  Remisit Cæsar arroganti moderatione, populumque edicto monuit ne, ut quondam nimiis studiis funus divi Julii turbassent, ita Augustum in foro potius quam in campo Martis, sede destinata, cremari vellent.  Die funeris milites velut præsidio stetere, multum irridentibus qui ipsi viderant quique a parentibus acceperant diem illum crudi adhuc servitii et libertatis improspere repetitæ, quum occisus dictator Cæsar aliis pessimum, aliis pulcherrimum facinus videretur :  nunc senem principem, longa potentia, provisis etiam heredum in Rem Publicam opibus, auxilio scilicet militari tuendum ut sepultura ejus quieta foret.

[1.8]  On the first day of the Senate he allowed nothing to be discussed but the funeral of Augustus, whose will, which was brought in by the Vestal Virgins, named as his heirs Tiberius and Livia.  The latter was to be admitted into the Julian family with the name of Augusta;  next in expectation were the grand and great-grandchildren.  In the third place, he had named the chief men of the State — most of them the objects of his resentment, but for vaunting and glory among posterity.  His legacies were not beyond the scale of a private citizen, except a bequest of forty-three million five hundred thousand sesterces {([400 + 30 + 5] * H$100,000 = H$43,500,000)} “to the people and populace of Rome,” of one thousand {(H$1,000)} to every Prætorian soldier, {of five hundred (H$500) to each member of the urban cohorts,} and of three hundred {(H$300)} to every man in the legionary cohorts composed of Roman citizens.  Next followed a deliberation about funeral honors.  Of these the most imposing were thought fitting.  The procession was to be conducted through “the Gate of Triumph,” on the motion of Gallus Asinius;  the titles of the laws passed, the names of the nations conquered by Augustus were to be borne in front, on that of Lucius Arruntius.  Messalla Valerius further proposed that the oath of allegiance to Tiberius should be yearly renewed, and when Tiberius asked him whether it was at his bidding that he had brought forward this motion, he replied that he had proposed it spontaneously, and that in whatever concerned the State he would use only his own discretion, even at the risk of offending.  (This was the only style of adulation left to be tried.)  The Senators unanimously exclaimed that the body ought to be borne on their shoulders to the funeral pile.  The emperor left the point to them with disdainful moderation, he then admonished the people by a proclamation not to indulge in that tumultuous enthusiasm which had distracted the funeral of the Divine Julius, or express a wish that Augustus should be burnt in the Forum instead of in his appointed resting-place in the Campus Martius.  On the day of the funeral soldiers stood round as a guard, amid much ridicule from those who had either themselves witnessed or who had heard from their parents of the famous day when slavery was still something fresh, and freedom had been resought in vain, when the slaying of Cæsar, the Dictator, seemed to some the vilest, to others, the most glorious of deeds.  “Now,” they said, “an aged sovereign, whose power had lasted long, who had provided his heirs with abundant means to coerce the State, requires forsooth the defence of soldiers that his burial may be undisturbed.”

[1.9]  Multus hinc ipso de Augusto sermo, plerisque vana mirantibus, quod idem dies accepti quondam imperii princeps et vitæ supremus, quod Nolæ in domo et cubiculo in quo pater ejus, Octavius, vitam finivisset.  Numerus etiam consulatuum celebrabatur, quo Valerium Corvum et C. Marium simul æquaverat, continuata per septem et triginta annos tribunicia potestas, nomen imperatoris semel atque viciens partum, aliaque honorum mutiplicata aut nova.  At apud prudentes vita ejus varie extollebatur arguebaturve.  Hi pietate erga parentem et necessitudine Rei Publicæ, in qua nullus tunc legibus locus, ad arma civilia actum, quæ neque parari possent neque haberi per bonas artes.  Multa Antonio, dum interfectores patris ulcisceretur, multa Lepido concessisse.  Postquam hic socordia senuerit, ille per libidines pessum datus sit, non aliud discordantis patriæ remedium fuisse quam ut ab uno regeretur.  Non regno tamen neque dictatura, sed principis nomine constitutam Rem Publicam ;  mari Oceano aut amnibus longinquis sæptum imperium ;  legiones, provincias, classes, cuncta inter se conexa ;  jus apud cives, modestiam apud socios ;  Urbem ipsam magnifico ornatu ;  pauca admodum vi tractata quo ceteris quies esset.

[1.9]  Then followed much talk about Augustus himself, and many expressed an idle wonder that the same day marked the beginning of his assumption of empire and the close of his life, and, again, that he had ended his days at Nola in the same house and room as his father Octavius.  People extolled too the number of his consulships, in which he had equalled Valerius Corvus and Gajus Marius combined, the continuance for thirty-seven years of the tribunician power, the title of Commander twenty-one times earned, and his other honors which had either frequently repeated or were wholly new.  Insightful men, however, spoke variously of his life with praise and censure.  Some said “that dutiful feeling towards his (adoptive) father {i.e., Julius Cæsar}, and the necessities of the State in which laws had then no place, drove him into civil war, which can neither be planned nor conducted on any right principles.  He had often yielded to Antonius, while he was taking vengeance on his father’s murderers, often also to Lepidus.  When the latter sank into feeble dotage and the former had been ruined by his profligacy, the only remedy for his distracted country was the rule of a single man.  Yet the State had been organized under the name neither of a kingdom nor a dictatorship, but under that of a prince.  The ocean and remote rivers were the boundaries of the empire;  the legions, provinces, fleets, all things were linked together;  there was law for the citizens;  there was restraint among the allies.  The capital had been embellished on a grand scale;  only in a few instances had he resorted to force, simply to secure general tranquillity.”

[1.10]  Dicebatur contra :  pietatem erga parentem et tempora Rei Publicæ obtentui sumpta :  ceterum cupidine dominandi concitos per largitionem veteranos, paratum ab adulescente privato exercitum, corruptas consulis legiones, simulatam Pompejanarum gratiam partium.  Mox ubi decreto patrum fasces et jus prætoris invaserit, cæsis Hirtio et Pansa — sive hostis illos, seu Pansam venenum vulneri affusum, sui milites Hirtium et machinator doli Cæsar abstulerat —, utriusque copias occupavisse ;  extortum invito Senatu consulatum, armaque quæ in Antonium acceperit contra Rem Publicam versa ;  proscriptionem civium, divisiones agrorum ne ipsis quidem qui fecere laudatas.  Sane Cassii et Brutorum exitus paternis inimicitiis datos, quanquam fas sit privata odia publicis utilitatibus remittere :  sed Pompejum imagine pacis, sed Lepidum specie amicitiæ deceptos ;  post, Antonium, Tarentino Brundisinoque fœdere et nuptiis sororis illectum, subdolæ affinitatis pœnas morte exsolvisse.  Pacem sine dubio post hæc, verum cruentam :  Lollianas Varianasque clades, interfectos Romæ Varrones, Egnatios, Jullos.  Nec domesticis abstinebatur :  abducta Neroni uxor et consulti per ludibrium pontifices an concepto necdum edito partu rite nuberet ;  Q. Ventidii et Vedii Pollionis luxus ;  postremo Livia gravis in Rem Publicam mater, gravis domui Cæsarum noverca.  Nihil deorum honoribus relictum, quum se templis et effigie numinum per flamines et sacerdotes coli vellet.  Ne Tiberium quidem caritate aut Rei Publicæ cura successorem ascitum, sed quoniam arrogantiam sævitiamque ejus introspexerit, comparatione deterrima sibi gloriam quæsivisse.  (Etenim Augustus paucis ante annis, quum Tiberio tribuniciam potestatem a patribus rursum postularet, quanquam honora oratione, quædam de habitu cultuque et institutis ejus jecerat quæ velut excusando exprobraret.)  Ceterum, sepultura more perfecta templum et cælestes religiones decernuntur.

[1.10]  It was said, on the other hand, “that filial duty and hard times of the State were merely assumed as a mask.  It was really from a lust of sovereignty that he had excited the veterans by bribery, had, when a young man and a subject, raised an army, tampered with the Consul’s legions, and feigned an attachment to the faction of Pompejus.  Then, when by a decree of the Senate he had usurped the high functions and authority of Prætor when Hirtius and Pansa were slain — whether they were destroyed by the enemy, or Pansa by poison infused into a wound, Hirtius by his own soldiers and Cæsar’s treacherous machinations — he at once possessed himself of both their armies, wrested the consulate from a reluctant Senate, and turned against the State the arms with which he had been intrusted against Antonius.  Citizens were proscribed, lands divided, without so much as the praise of those who executed these deeds.  Even granting that the deaths of Cassius and of the Bruti were sacrifices to a hereditary enmity (though duty requires us to forego private hatreds for the sake of the public welfare), still Sextus Pompejus had been deluded by the phantom of peace, and Lepidus by the mask of friendship.  Subsequently, Antonius had been lured on by the treaties of Tarentum and Brundisium, and by his marriage with the sister, and paid by his death the penalty of a treacherous alliance.  No doubt, there was peace after all this, but it was a peace stained with blood;  there were the disasters of Lollius and Varus, the murders at Rome of the Varros, Egnatii, and Juli.”  The domestic life too of Augustus was not spared.  “Nero’s wife had been taken from him, and there had been the farce of consulting the pontiffs about whether, with a child conceived and not yet born, she could properly marry.  There were the excesses of Quintus Ventidius and Vedius Pollio;  last of all, there was Livia, terrible to the State as a mother, terrible to the house of the Cæsars as a stepmother.  No honor was left for the gods, when Augustus chose to be himself worshipped with temples and statues, like those of the deities, and with flamens and priests.  He had not even adopted Tiberius as his successor out of affection or any regard to the State, but because, having recognized Tiberius’ arrogance and ruthlessness, he had sought glory for himself by a contrast of extreme wickedness.”  )For, in fact, Augustus, a few years before, when he was a second time asking from the Senate the tribunician power for Tiberius, though his speech was complimentary, had thrown out certain hints as to his manners, style, and habits of life, as though excusing them but in fact decrying them.)  However, when his obsequies had been duly performed, a temple with a religious ritual was decreed him.

[1.11]  Versæ inde ad Tiberium preces.  Et ille varie disserebat — de magnitudine imperii, sua modestia.  Solam divi Augusti mentem tantæ molis capacem :  se in partem curarum ab illo vocatum experiendo didicisse quam arduum, quam subjectum fortunæ regendi cuncta onus.  Proinde in civitate tot illustribus viris subnixa non ad unum omnia deferrent :  plures facilius munia Rei Publicæ sociatis laboribus exsecuturos.  Plus in oratione tali dignitatis quam fidei erat ;  Tiberioque etiam in rebus quas non occuleret, seu natura sive assuetudine, suspensa semper et obscura verba :  tunc vero nitenti ut sensus suos penitus abderet, in incertum et ambiguum magis implicabantur.  At patres, quibus unus metus si intellegere viderentur, in questus, lacrimas, vota effundi ;  ad deos, ad effigiem Augusti, ad genua ipsius manus tendere, quum proferri libellum recitarique jussit.  Opes publicæ continebantur, quantum civium sociorumque in armis, quot classes, regna, provinciæ, tributa aut vectigalia, et necessitates ac largitiones.  Quæ cuncta sua manu perscripserat Augustus addideratque consilium coërcendi intra terminos imperii, incertum metu an per invidiam.

[1.11]  After this all prayers were addressed to Tiberius.  He, on his part, urged various considerations, the greatness of the empire, his own unassumingness.  “Only,” he said, “the intellect of the Divine Augustus was equal to such a burden.  Called as he had been by him to share his anxieties, he had learnt by experience how exposed to fortune’s caprices was the task of universal rule.  Consequently, in a state which had the support of so many great men, they should not put everything on one man, as many, by uniting their efforts would more easily discharge public functions.”  There was more grand sentiment than trustworthiness in such words.  Tiberius’s language even in matters which he did not care to conceal, either from nature or habit, was always hesitating and obscure, and now that he was struggling to hide his feelings completely, it was all the more involved in uncertainty and doubt.  The Senators, however, whose only fear was that they might appear to undersand him, burst into complaints, tears, and prayers.  They raised their hands to the gods, to the statue of Augustus, and to the knees of Tiberius himself, when suddenly he ordered a document to be produced and read.  This contained a description of the resources of the State, of the number of citizens and allies under arms, of the fleets, subject kingdoms, provinces, taxes, direct and indirect, necessary expenses and customary lavishments.  All these details Augustus had written with his own hand, and had added a counsel, that the empire should be confined to its present limits, it being uncertain whether from fear or out of jealousy.

[1.12]  Inter quæ, Senatu ad infimas obtestationes procumbente, dixit forte Tiberius se ut non toti Rei Publicæ parem, ita quæcumque pars sibi mandaretur, ejus tutelam suscepturum.  Tum Asinius Gallus, “Interrogo,” inquit, “Cæsar, quam partem Rei Publicæ mandari tibi velis.”  Perculsus improvisa interrogatione paulum reticuit :  dein collecto animo respondit nequaquam decorum pudori suo legere aliquid aut evitare ex eo cui in universum excusari mallet.  Rursum Gallus — etenim vultu offensionem conjectaverat — non idcirco interrogatum ait, ut divideret quæ separari nequirent, sed ut sua confessione argueretur unum esse Rei Publicæ corpus atque unius animo regendum.  Addidit laudem de Augusto, Tiberiumque ipsum victoriarum suarum quæque in toga per tot annos egregie fecisset admonuit.  Nec ideo iram ejus lenivit, pridem invisus, tanquam ducta in matrimonium Vipsania (M. Agrippæ filia, quæ quondam Tiberii uxor fuerat), plus quam civilia agitaret, Pollionisque Asinii patris ferociam retineret.

[1.12]  Meantime, as the Senate prostrated itself to the most abject supplication, Tiberius happened to say that, despite not being equal to the whole of State governance, still he would undertake the charge of whatever part of it might be entrusted to him.  Thereupon Asinius Gallus said, “I ask you, Cæsar, what part of the State you wish to have entrusted to you?”  Shocked by the unforeseen question, he was silent for a few moments;  then, recovering his presence of mind, he replied that it would by no means become his modesty to choose or to avoid in a case where he would prefer to be excused completely.  Then Gallus again, who had inferred offense from his looks, said that the question had not been asked with the intention of dividing what could not be separated, but to convince him by his own admission that the body of the State was one, and must be directed by the mind of a single man.  He further spoke in praise of Augustus, and reminded Tiberius himself of his victories, and of his admirable deeds for many years as a civilian.  Still, he did not thereby soften the emperor’s resentment, for he had long been detested from an impression that, as he had married Vipsania, daughter of Marcus Agrippa, who had once been the wife of Tiberius, he aspired to be more than a citizen, and retained the defiant attitude of Asinius Pollio, his father.

[1.13]  Post quæ L. Arruntius haud multum discrepans a Galli oratione perinde offendit, quanquam Tiberio nulla vetus in Arruntium ira :  sed divitem, promptum, artibus egregiis et pari fama publice, suspectabat.  Quippe Augustus supremis sermonibus quum tractaret quinam adipisci principem locum suffecturi abnuerent, aut impares vellent, vel iidem possent cuperentque, M’. Lepidum dixerat capacem sed aspernantem, Gallum Asinium avidum et minorem, L. Arruntium non indignum et si casus daretur ausurum.  De prioribus consentitur, pro Arruntio quidam Cn. Pisonem tradidere ;  omnesque præter Lepidum variis mox criminibus, struente Tiberio, circumventi sunt.

Etiam Q. Haterius et Mamercus Scaurus suspicacem animum perstrinxere, Haterius quum dixisset, “¿ Quousque patieris, Cæsar, non adesse caput Rei Publicæ ?”, Scaurus quia dixerat spem esse ex eo, non irritas fore Senatus preces, quod relationi consulum jure tribuniciæ potestatis non intercessisset.  In Haterium statim invectus est ;  Scaurum, cui implacabilius irascebatur, silentio tramisit.  Fessusque clamore omnium, expostulatione singulorum flexit paulatim, non ut fateretur suscipi a se imperium, sed ut negare et rogari desineret.  (Constat Haterium, quum deprecandi causa Palatium introisset ambulantisque Tiberii genua advolveretur, prope a militibus interfectum, quia Tiberius casu an manibus ejus impeditus prociderat.  Neque tamen periculo talis viri mitigatus est, donec Haterius Augustam oraret ejusque curatissimis precibus protegeretur.)

[1.13]  Next, Lucius Arruntius, who differed but little from the speech of Gallus, gave like offence, though Tiberius had no old grudge against him, but simply mistrusted him, because he was rich and energetic, had brilliant talents and a matching reputation publicly.  For Augustus, when in his last conversations he was discussing who, though sufficiently capable, would refuse the highest place, who, though being unequal to it, would aspire to it, or who would both be able and want to, had described Marcus Lepidus as able but contemptuously indifferent, Gallus Asinius as greedy and inferior, Lucius Arruntius as not unworthy of it, and, should the chance be given him, sure to make the venture.  About the two first there is a general agreement, but instead of Arruntius some have mentioned Gnaeus Piso, and all these men, except Lepidus, were soon afterwards entrapped by various charges through the contrivance of Tiberius.

Quintus Haterius too and Mamercus Scaurus grated on his suspicious mind, Haterius by having said, “How long, Cæsar, will you allow yourself not to attend as head of State?”  Scaurus by the remark that there was a hope that the Senate’s pleas would not be fruitless, seeing that he had not intervened against the Consuls’ motion using the prerogative of his tribunician power.  Tiberius instantly broke out into invective against Haterius;  Scaurus, for whom his ire was more implacable, he passed over in silence.  Wearied at last by the assembly’s clamorous importunity and the urgent demands of individual Senators, he gave way by degrees, not admitting that he was taking over command, but yet ceasing to refuse it and to be asked.  (It is well known that Haterius, having entered the palace to ask pardon, and was groveling at the knees of Tiberius as he was walking, was almost killed by the soldiers, because Tiberius fell forward, accidentally or from being entangled by the suppliant’s hands.  Yet the peril of so great a man did not make him relent, till Haterius went with entreaties to Augusta, and was saved by her very earnest intercessions.)

[1.14]  Multa patrum et in Augustam adulatio.  Alii parentem, alii matrem patriæ appellandam, plerique ut nomini Cæsaris ascriberetur “Juliæ Filius” censebant.  Ille moderandos feminarum honores dictitans eademque se temperantia usurum in eis quæ sibi tribuerentur, ceterum anxius invidia et, muliebre fastigium in deminutionem sui accipiens, ne lictorem quidem ei decerni passus est, Aramque Adoptionis et alia hujusce modi prohibuit.  At Germanico Cæsari proconsulare imperium petivit, missique legati qui deferrent, simul mæstitiam ejus ob excessum Augusti solarentur.  (Quo minus idem pro Druso postularetur, ea causa quod designatus consul Drusus, præsensque erat.)  Candidatos præturæ duodecim nominavit, numerum ab Augusto traditum ;  et hortante Senatu ut augeret, jure jurando obstrinxit se non excessurum.

[1.14]  Great too was the Senate’s sycophancy to Augusta.  Some would have her styled “parent”;  others “mother of the country,” and a majority proposed that to the name of Cæsar should be added “son of Julia.”  The emperor repeatedly asserted that there must be a limit to the honors paid to women, and that he would observe similar moderation in those bestowed on himself, but tense with invidiousness, and indeed regarding a woman’s elevation as a diminution of himself, he would not allow so much as a lictor to be assigned her, and forbade the erection of an altar in memory of her adoption, and any like distinction.  But for Germanicus Cæsar he asked proconsular powers, and envoys were despatched to confer them on him, and also to express sympathy with his grief at the death of Augustus.  (The same request was not made for Drusus, because he was consul elect and present at Rome.)  Twelve candidates were named for the praetorship, the number which Augustus had handed down, and when the Senate urged Tiberius to increase it, he bound himself by an oath not to exceed it.

[1.15]  Tum primum e campo comitia ad patres translata sunt.  (Nam ad eam diem, etsi potissima arbitrio principis, quædam tamen studiis tribuum fiebant.)  Neque populus ademptum jus questus est nisi inani rumore, et Senatus, largitionibus ac precibus sordidis exsolutus, libens tenuit — moderante Tiberio ne plures quam quattuor candidatos commendaret sine repulsa et ambitu designandos.  Inter quæ tribuni plebei petivere ut proprio sumptu ederent ludos qui de nomine Augusti fastis additi “Augustales” vocarentur.  Sed decreta pecunia ex ærario, utque per circum triumphali veste uterentur ;  curru vehi haud permissum.  Mox celebratio annua ad prætorem translata, cui inter cives et peregrinos jurisdictio evenisset.

[1.15]  It was then for the first time that the (major magistratorial) elections were transferred from the Campus Martius to the Senate.  (Up to that day, though the most important ones rested with the emperor’s choice, some were settled by the recommendations of the tribes.)  Nor did the people complain of having the right taken from them, except in mere idle talk, and the Senate, being now released from the necessity of bribery and of degrading appeals, gladly grasped it, Tiberius limiting himself to the recommendation of only four candidates who were to be nominated without rejection or canvassing.  Meanwhile the tribunes of the people asked permission to stage, at their own expense, games to be named after Augustus and added to the Calendar as the “Augustales.”  It was decreed, however, that the money should come from the treasury and that they should wear triumphal robes in the circus;  riding in a triumphal chariot was not permitted.  Soon the annual celebration was transferred to the praetor, to whose lot fell the jurisdiction between citizens and foreigners.

[1.16]  Hic rerum Urbanarum status erat, quum Pannonicas legiones seditio incessit, nullis novis causis nisi quod mutatus princeps licentiam turbarum et ex civili bello spem præmiorum ostendebat.  Castris æstivis tres simul legiones habebantur, præsidente Junio Blæso qui, fine Augusti et initiis Tiberii auditis, ob justitium aut gaudium intermiserat solita munia.  Eo principio lascivire miles, discordare, pessimi cujusque sermonibus præbere aures, denique luxum et otium cupere, disciplinam et laborem aspernari.  Erat in castris Percennius quidam, dux olim theatralium operarum, dein gregarius miles, procax lingua et miscere cœtus histrionali studio doctus.  Is imperitos animos et quænam post Augustum militiæ condicio ambigentes impellere paulatim nocturnis colloquiis aut flexo in vesperam die et, dilapsis melioribus, deterrimum quemque congregare.

[1.16]  This was the state of affairs at Rome when a mutiny broke out in the legions of Pannonia, which could be traced to no fresh cause except the change of emperors and the prospect it held out of license in tumult and of profit from a civil war.  In the summer camp three legions were quartered, under the command of Junius Blæsus, who on hearing of the death of Augustus and the accession of Tiberius, had allowed his men a rest from military duties, either for the (postmortem) recess or rejoicing.  With that, the soldiery started becoming indisciplined, disaffected, listening to the talk of every pestilent fellow — in short, craving for luxury and idleness and loathing discipline and toil.  In the camp was one Percennius, who had once been a leader of one of the theatrical factions, then became a common soldier, had a saucy tongue, and had learnt how to stir up a crowd with his histrionic enthusiasm.  By working on ignorant minds, which doubted as to what would be the terms of military service after Augustus, this man gradually influenced them in conversations at night or at nightfall, and when the better men had dispersed, he gathered round him all the worst spirits.

[1.17]  Postremo promptis jam et aliis seditionis ministris, velut contionabundus interrogabat cur paucis centurionibus, paucioribus tribunis in modum servorum obœdirent.  ¿ Quando ausuros exposcere remedia, nisi novum et nutantem adhuc principem precibus vel armis adirent ?  Satis per tot annos ignavia peccatum, quod tricena aut quadragena stipendia senes et plerique truncato ex vulneribus corpore tolerent.  Ne dimissis quidem finem esse militiæ, sed apud vexillum tendentes alio vocabulo eosdem labores perferre.  Ac si quis tot casus vita superaverit, trahi adhuc diversas in terras ubi per nomen agrorum uligines paludum vel inculta montium accipiant.  Enimvero militiam ipsam gravem, infructuosam :  denis in diem assibus animam et corpus æstimari ;  hinc vestem, arma, tentoria, hinc sævitiam centurionum et vacationes munerum redimi.  At hercule verbera et vulnera, duram hiemem, exercitas æstates, bellum atrox aut sterilem pacem, sempiterna.  Nec aliud levamentum quam si certis sub legibus militia iniretur, ut singulos denarios mererent, sextus decimus stipendii annus finem afferret, ne ultra sub vexillis tenerentur, sed eisdem in castris præmium pecunia solveretur.  ¿ An Prætorias cohortes, quæ binos denarios acceperint, quæ post sedecim annos penatibus suis reddantur, plus periculorum suscipere ?  Non obtrectari a se Urbanas excubias :  sibi, tamen, apud horridas gentes e contuberniis hostem aspici.

[1.17]  At last, when there were others ready to be abettors of a mutiny, he asked, as though in a public harangue, why, like slaves, they submitted to a few centurions and still fewer tribunes.  “When,” he said, “will you dare to demand relief, if you do not go with your prayers or even arms to a new and yet nervous throne?  We have blundered enough by our tameness for so many years, in having to endure thirty or forty campaigns till we grow old, most of us with bodies maimed by wounds.  Even dismissal is not the end of our service, but, pitching tents under a legion’s standard (as reservists) we toil through the same hardships under another title.  If a soldier survives so many risks, he is still dragged into remote regions where, under the name of lands, he receives soaking swamps or mountainous wastes.  Assuredly, military service itself is burdensome and unprofitable;  ten aces a day is the value set on life and limb;  out of this, clothing, arms, tents have to be purchased;  out of this, the savagery of centurions has to be bought off, and exemptions from duty have to be expensed.  But indeed the floggings and wounds, the hard winters, summers hard to endure, terrible war or fruitless peace are endless.  Our only relief can come from military life being entered on under fixed conditions, from receiving each the pay of a denarius, and from the sixteenth year terminating our service.  We must be retained no longer under the banners, but our compensation must be paid in cash in the same camp.  Do the Prætorian cohorts, which have just got their two denarii per man, and which after sixteen years are restored to their homes, encounter more perils?  We are not disparaging the guard-duty in the capital;  but for us here among feral tribes the enemy is to be seen from our tents.”

[1.18]  Astrepebat vulgus, diversis incitamentis, hi verberum notas, illi canitiem, plurimi detrita tegmina et nudum corpus exprobrantes.  Postremo eo furoris venere ut tres legiones miscere in unam agitaverint.  Depulsi æmulatione (quia suæ quisque legioni eum honorem quærebant), alio vertunt atque una tres aquilas et signa cohortium locant ;  simul congerunt cæspites, exstruunt tribunal, quo magis conspicua sedes foret.  Properantibus Blæsus advenit, increpabatque ac retinebat singulos, clamitans, “¡ Mea potius cæde imbuite manus !  Leviore flagitio legatum interficietis quam ab imperatore desciscitis.  Aut incolumis fidem legionum retinebo aut jugulatus pænitentiam accelerabo.”

[1.18]  The throng bayed approvingly from various motives, some remonstrating about the marks of the lash, others their grey locks, and most of them their threadbare garments and naked bodies.  At, last, in their fury they went so far as to propose to combine the three legions into one.  Driven from their purpose by the jealousy with which every one sought the chief honor for his own legion, they turned to other thoughts, and set up in one spot the three eagles, with the ensigns of the cohorts.  At the same time they piled up turf and raised a mound, that they might have a more conspicuous meeting-place.  As they hurried about, Blæsus came up.  He started upbraiding individuals, trying to hold them back with repeated shouts, “Better stain your hands with my slaughter:  it will be a lesser crime to slay your legate than to revolt from the emperor.  Either unharmed I will uphold the loyalty of the legions, or with my throat cut I will hasten on your remorse.”

[1.19]  Aggerabatur nihilominus cæspes, jamque pectori usque accreverat, quum tandem, pervicacia victi, inceptum omisere.  Blæsus multa dicendi arte, non per seditionem et turbas, desideria militum ad Cæsarem ferenda ait ;  neque veteres ab imperatoribus priscis neque ipsos a divo Augusto tam nova petivisse ;  et parum in tempore incipientis principis curas onerari.  Si tamen tenderent in pace temptare quæ ne civilium quidem bellorum victores expostulaverint, ¿ cur contra morem obsequii, contra fas disciplinæ, vim meditentur ?  Decernerent legatos, seque coram mandata darent.  Acclamavere ut filius Blæsi, tribunus, legatione ea fungeretur, peteretque militibus missionem ab sedecim annis :  cetera mandaturos ubi prima provenissent.  Profecto juvene, modicum otium ;  sed superbire miles quod filius legati orator publicæ causæ satis ostenderet necessitate expressa quæ per modestiam non obtinuissent.

[1.19]  Nonetheless the mound was piled up, and it had grown breast high when, at last overcome by his persistence, they gave up the project.  Blæsus, with the consummate tact of an orator, said, “It is not through mutiny and tumult that the desires of the army ought to be communicated to Cæsar, nor did our soldiers of old ever ask so novel a boon of ancient commanders, nor have you yourselves asked it of the Divine Augustus.  It is hardly the time for a new emperor’s cares to be aggravated.  If, however, you are bent upon attempting in peace what even victors in the civil wars did not demand, why, contrary to the habit of obedience, contrary to the law of discipline, do you meditate violence?  Decide on legates, and give them instructions face to face.”  It was carried by acclamation that the son of Blæsus, one of the tribunes, should undertake the mission, and should demand for the soldiers release from service after sixteen years.  They would deliver the rest of their message when the first part had been successful.  After the young man’s departure there was a modicum of quiet, but there was an arrogant tone among the soldiers, to whom the fact that their commander’s son was pleading their common cause clearly showed that they had wrested by compulsion what they had failed to obtain by good behavior.

[1.20]  Interea manipuli ante cœptam seditionem Nauportum missi ob itinera et pontes et alios usus, postquam turbatum in castris accepere, vexilla convellunt, direptisque proximis vicis ipsoque Nauporto (quod municipii instar erat), retinentes centuriones irrisu et contumeliis, postremo verberibus insectantur, præcipua in Aufidienum Rufum præfectum castrorum ira, quem dereptum vehiculo sarcinis gravant, aguntque primo in agmine, per ludibrium rogitantes an tam immensa onera, tam longa itinera libenter ferret.  Quippe Rufus — diu manipularis, dein centurio, mox castris præfectus — antiquam duramque militiam revocabat, vetus operis ac laboris, et eo immitior quia toleraverat.

[1.20]  Meanwhile the maniples which previous to the mutiny had been sent to Nauportus to make roads and bridges and for other purposes, when they heard of the tumult in the camp, uprooted the standards, and having plundered the neighboring villages and Nauportus itself (which was equivalent to a Roman municipality), used jeers, insults and finally beatings to assail the centurions trying to restrain them.  Their chief rage was against Aufidienus Rufus, the camp-prefect, whom, snatched down from his vehicle, they loaded with baggage, and drove on at the head of the column, asking him in ridicule whether he liked bearing such huge burdens and such long marches.  For Rufus — long a maniple regular, then a centurion, and subsequently camp-prefect — was trying to revive the old severe discipline, grown grey in work and toil, and all the more ruthless because he had endured it himself.

[1.21]  Horum adventu redintegratur seditio et vagi circumjecta populabantur.  Blæsus paucos, maxime præda onustos, ad terrorem ceterorum affici verberibus, claudi carcere jubet ;  nam etiam tum legato a centurionibus et optimo quoque manipularium parebatur.  Illi, obniti trahentibus, prensare circumstantium genua, ciere modo nomina singulorum, modo centuriam quisque cujus manipularis erat, cohortem, legionem, eadem omnibus imminere clamitantes.  Simul probra in legatum cumulant, cælum ac deos obtestantur, nihil reliqui faciunt quominus invidiam, misericordiam, metum et iras permoverent.  Accurritur ab universis et, carcere effracto, solvunt vincula, desertoresque ac rerum capitalium damnatos sibi jam miscent.

[1.21]  On the arrival of these troops the mutiny broke out afresh, and roving about they plundered the neighborhood.  Blæsus ordered a few who had conspicuously loaded themselves with spoil to be scourged and imprisoned as a terror to the rest;  for, even as it then was, the commander was still obeyed by the centurions and by all the best men among the soldiers.  As the men were dragged off, they struggled violently, clasped the knees of the bystanders, called to their comrades by name, or to the century, cohort or legion of which each man was a maniple regular, exclaiming that all were threatened with the same fate.  At the same time they heaped abuse on the commander;  they appealed to heaven and to the gods, and left nothing undone by which they might excite resentment and pity, alarm and rage.  They all rushed to the spot, broke open the guardhouse, unbound the prisoners, and were in a moment taking deserters and men convicted on capital charges into their midst.

[1.22]  Flagrantior inde vis, plures seditioni duces.  Et Vibulenus quidam gregarius miles, ante tribunal Blæsi allevatus circumstantium umeris, apud turbatos et quid pararet intentos, “Vos quidem,” inquit, “his innocentibus et miserrimis lucem et spiritum reddidistis.  Sed ¿ quis fratri meo vitam, quis fratrem mihi reddit ?  Quem missum ad vos a Germanico exercitu de communibus commodis nocte proxima jugulavit per gladiatores suos, quos in exitium militum habet atque armat.  Responde, Blæse, ¿ ubi cadaver abjeceris ?  Ne hostes quidem sepultura invident.  Quum osculis, quum lacrimis dolorem meum implevero, me quoque trucidari jube, dum interfectos nullum ob scelus, sed quia utilitati legionum consulebamus, hi sepeliant.”

[1.22]  Thence arose a more furious outbreak, with more leaders of the mutiny.  Vibulenus, a common soldier, was hoisted in front of the general’s tribunal on the shoulders of the bystanders and addressed the excited throng, who eagerly awaited his intentions.  “You have indeed,” he said, “restored light and air to these innocent and most unhappy men, but who restores to my brother his life, or my brother to myself?  Sent to you by the German army in our common cause, he was last night butchered by the gladiators whom the general keeps and arms for the destruction of his soldiers.  Answer, Blæsus, where you have flung aside the corpse?  Even an enemy does not begrudge burial.  When, with embraces and tears, I have sated my grief, order me also to be slain, provided only that when we have been destroyed for no crime, but only because we consulted the good of the legions, we may be buried by these men around me.”

[1.23]  Incendebat hæc fletu et pectus atque os manibus verberans.  Mox disjectis quorum per umeros sustinebatur, præceps et singulorum pedibus advolutus tantum consternationis invidiæque concivit, ut pars militum gladiatores, qui e servitio Blæsi erant, pars ceteram ejusdem familiam vincirent, alii ad quærendum corpus effunderentur.  Ac ni propere neque corpus ullum reperiri, et servos adhibitis cruciatibus abnuere cædem, neque illi fuisse unquam fratrem pernotuisset, haud multum ab exitio legati aberant.  Tribunos tamen ac præfectum castrorum extrusere, sarcinæ fugientium direptæ;  et centurio Lucilius interficitur cui militaribus facetiis vocabulum “Cedo alteram” indiderant, quia fracta vite in tergo militis alteram clara voce ac rursus aliam poscebat.  Ceteros latebræ texere, uno retento Clemente Julio qui perferendis militum mandatis habebatur idoneus ob promptum ingenium.  Quin ipsæ inter se Legiones Octava et Quinta Decima ferrum parabant, dum centurionem cognomento Sirpicum illa morti deposcit, Quintadecimani tuentur, ni miles Nonanus preces et, adversum aspernantes, minas interjecisset.

[1.23]  He inflamed their excitement by weeping and smiting his breast and face with his hands.  Then, hurling aside those who bore him on their shoulders, and impetuously flinging himself at the feet of one man after another, he roused such dismay and indignation that some of the soldiers put fetters on the gladiators who were among the number of Blaesus’s slaves, others did the like to the rest of his household, while a third party hurried out to look for the corpse.  And had it not quickly been known that no corpse was found, that the slaves, when tortures were applied, denied the murder, and that the man never had a brother, they were not far from killing the general.  As it was, they thrust out the tribunes and the camp-prefect;  they plundered the baggage of the fugitives, and they killed a centurion, Lucilius, to whom, with soldiers’ humor, they had given the name “Bring another,” because when he had broken one vine-stick on a man’s back, he would call in a loud voice for another and another.  Hiding places sheltered the rest, and one only was detained, Clemens Julius, whom the soldiers considered a fit person to carry messages, from his ready ingenuity.  Two legions, the Eighth and the Fifteenth, were actually drawing swords against each other, the former demanding the death of a centurion, whom they nicknamed Sirpicus, while the men of the fifteenth defended him — had not the soldiery of the ninth interposed its entreaties, and when these were spurned, its threats.

[1.24]  Hæc audita quanquam abstrusum et tristissima quæque maxime occultantem Tiberium perpulere, ut Drusum filium cum primoribus civitatis duabusque Prætoriis cohortibus mitteret, nullis satis certis mandatis, ex re consulturum.  Et cohortes delecto milite supra solitum firmatæ.  Additur magna pars Prætoriani equitis et robora Germanorum, qui tum custodes imperatori aderant ;  simul Prætorii præfectus Ælius Sejanus (collega Straboni patri suo datus, magna apud Tiberium auctoritate), rector juveni et, ceteris, periculorum præmiorumque ostentator.

Druso propinquanti quasi per officium obviæ fuere legiones — non lætæ, ut assolet, neque insignibus fulgentes, sed illuvie deformi et vultu, quanquam mæstitiam imitarentur, contumaciæ propiores.

[1.24]  This intelligence drove Tiberius, even though reclusive and most careful to hush up every very serious disaster, to the point where he despatched his son Drusus with the leading men of the State and with two Prætorian cohorts, without any definite instructions, to take suitable measures.  The cohorts were strengthened beyond their usual force with some picked troops.  There was in addition a considerable part of the Prætorian cavalry, and the flower of the German soldiery, which was then the emperor’s guard.  With them too was the commander of the Prætorians, Ælius Sejanus (who had been given as colleague to his faher Strabo and enjoyed great influence with Tiberius), as a mentor for the young man and, for the others, a living demonstration of perils and prizes.

When Drusus approached, the legions, as a mark of respect, met him, not as usual, with glad looks or the glitter of military decorations, but in unsightly squalor, and faces which, though they simulated grief, rather expressed defiance.

[1.25]  Postquam vallum introiit, portas stationibus firmant, globos armatorum certis castrorum locis opperiri jubent :  ceteri tribunal ingenti agmine circumveniunt.  Stabat Drusus silentium manu poscens.  Illi, quoties oculos ad multitudinem rettulerant, vocibus truculentis strepere, rursum viso Cæsare trepidare ;  murmur incertum, atrox clamor et repente quies ;  diversis animorum motibus pavebant terrebantque.  Tandem interrupto tumultu litteras patris recitat, in quis perscriptum erat præcipuam ipsi fortissimarum legionum curam, quibuscum plurima bella toleravisset ;  ubi primum a luctu requiesset animus, acturum apud patres de postulatis eorum ;  misisse interim filium ut sine cunctatione concederet quæ statim tribui possent ;  cetera Senatui servanda, quem neque gratiæ neque severitatis expertem haberi par esset.

[1.25]  As soon as he entered the entrenchments, they secured the gates with sentries, and ordered bodies of armed men to be in readiness at certain points of the camp.  The rest crowded round the general’s tribunal in a dense mass.  Drusus stood there, and with a gesture of his hand demanded silence.  As often as the mutineers turned their eyes back on the throng, they broke into savage exclamations, then looking up to Drusus they trembled.  There was an indistinct growl, a fierce shouting, and sudden quiet.  Urged by conflicting emotions, they felt panic and they caused the like.  At last, in an interval of the uproar, Drusus read his father’s letter, in which it was fully stated that he had a special care for the brave legions with which he had endured a number of campaigns;  that, as soon as his mind had recovered from its grief, he would lay their demands before the Senators;  that meanwhile he had sent his son to concede unhesitatingly what could be immediately granted, and that the rest must be reserved for the Senate, which should be recognized as lacking in neither beneficence nor severity.

[1.26]  Responsum est a contione, mandata Clementi centurioni quæ perferret.  Is orditur de missione a sedecim annis, de præmiis finitæ militiæ, ut denarius diurnum stipendium foret, ne veterani sub vexillo haberentur.  Ad ea Drusus quum arbitrium Senatus et patris obtenderet, clamore turbatur.  ¿ Cur venisset neque augendis militum stipendiis neque allevandis laboribus, denique nulla benefaciendi licentia ?  At hercule verbera et necem cunctis permitti.  Tiberium olim nomine Augusti desideria legionum frustrari solitum :  easdem artes Drusum rettulisse.  ¿ Nunquamne ad se nisi filios familiarum venturos ?  Novum id plane, quod imperator sola militis commoda ad Senatum rejiciat.  ¿ Eundem ergo Senatum consulendum quotiens supplicia aut prœlia indicantur ?  ¿ An præmia sub dominis, pœnas sine arbitro esse ?

[1.26]  The crowd replied that they had delivered their instructions to Clemens, one of the centurions, which he was to convey to Rome.  He began to speak of the soldiers’ discharge after sixteen years, of the rewards of completed service, of the daily pay being a denarius, and of the veterans not being detained under a standard.  When Drusus replied with the excuse that it was for the Senate and his father to decide, he was interrupted by a tumultuous shout.  “Why had he come, neither to increase the soldiers’ pay, nor to alleviate their hardships, in a word, with no power to better their lot?  Yet heaven knew that all were allowed to scourge and to execute.  Tiberius used formerly in the name of Augustus to frustrate the wishes of the legions, and the same tricks were now revived by Drusus.  Would no one ever come to them except family-subordinate sons?  Certainly, it was something new for the emperor to refer to the Senate what concerned only benefits of the soldiers.  Was then the same Senate to be consulted whenever executions or battles were announced?  Were their rewards to be at the discretion of their masters, their punishments to be without adjudicator?”

[1.27]  Postremo deserunt tribunal, ut quis Prætorianorum militum amicorumve Cæsaris occurreret, manus intentantes, causam discordiæ et initium armorum, maxime infensi Cn. Lentulo, quod is, ante alios ætate et gloria belli, firmare Drusum credebatur, et illa militiæ flagitia primus aspernari.  Nec multo post digredientem ac provisu periculi hiberna castra repetentem circumsistunt, rogitantes quo pergeret, ad imperatorem an ad patres, ut illic quoque commodis legionum adversaretur ;  simul ingruunt, saxa jaciunt.  Jamque lapidis ictu cruentus et exitii certus, accursu multitudinis quæ cum Druso advenerat, protectus est.

[1.27]  At last they deserted the general’s tribunal, and to any Prætorian soldier or friend of Cæsar’s who met them, they brandished their fists, causing strife and the beginning of a conflict, with special rage against Gnaeus Lentulus, because they thought that he above all others, by his age and warlike renown, encouraged Drusus, and was the first to scorn such blots on military discipline.  Soon after, as he was leaving with Drusus to betake himself in foresight of his danger to the winter camp, they surrounded him, and asked him again and again whither he was going;  was it to the emperor or to the Senate, there also to oppose the interests of the legions.  At the same moment they rushed at him savagely and flung stones.  And now, bleeding from a blow, and feeling destruction certain, he was rescued by the hurried arrival of the crowd which had accompanied Drusus.

[1.28]  Noctem minacem et in scelus erupturam fors lenivit :  nam luna — claro repente cælo — visa languescere.  Id miles rationis ignarus omen præsentium accepit, suis laboribus defectionem sideris assimulans, prospereque cessura quæ pergerent si fulgor et claritudo deæ redderetur.  Igitur æris sono, tubarum cornuumque concentu strepere ;  prout splendidior obscuriorve, lætari aut mærere ;  et postquam ortæ nubes offecere visui, creditumque conditam tenebris, ut sunt mobiles ad superstitionem perculsæ semel mentes, sibi æternum laborem portendi, sua facinora aversari deos lamentantur.  Utendum inclinatione ea, Cæsar, et quæ casus obtulerat in sapientiam vertenda ratus, circumiri tentoria jubet ;  accitur centurio Clemens et si alii bonis artibus grati in vulgus.  Hi vigiliis, stationibus, custodiis portarum se inserunt, spem offerunt, metum intendunt.  “¿ Quo usque filium imperatoris obsidebimus ?  ¿ Quis certaminum finis ?  ¿ Percennione et Vibuleno sacramentum dicturi sumus ?  ¿ Percennius et Vibulenus stipendia militibus, agros emeritis largientur ?  ¿ Denique pro Neronibus et Drusis imperium populi Romani capessent ?  ¿ Quin potius, ut novissimi in culpam, ita primi ad pænitentiam sumus ?  Tarda sunt quæ in commune expostulantur :  privatam gratiam statim mereare, statim recipias.”

Commotis per hæc mentibus, et inter se suspectis, tironem a veterano, legionem a legione dissociant.  Tum redire paulatim amor obsequii :  omittunt portas, signa unum in locum principio seditionis congregata suas in sedes referunt.

[1.28]  That terrible night which threatened an explosion of crime was tranquillised by a mere accident.  When the sky suddenly cleared, the moon was seen to grow faint.  Ignorant of the reason, the soldiery took this as an omen of their immediate conditions, assimilating the eclipse of the heavenly body to their own efforts:  what they were undertaking would end prosperously should the brightness and brilliance of the moon goddess be restored.  And so they raised a din with the sound of bronze and the combined playing of trumpets and horns, with joy or sorrow, as she brightened or grew dark.  When clouds arose and blocked their sight, and it was thought she was buried in the gloom, as minds once shocked are easily roused to superstition, they lamented that everlasting toil was being portended for them, and that the gods were turning away from their actions.  Drusus, thinking that he ought to avail himself of this change in their temper and turn what chance had offered to a wise account, ordered the tents to be visited.  Clemens the centurion was summoned with all others who for their good qualities were liked by the common soldiers.  These men made their way among the patrols, sentries and guards of the camp-gates, suggesting hope or intensifying the fear.  “How long will we besiege the emperor’s son?  What is to be the end of our struggle?  Will Percennius and Vibulenus give pay to the soldiers and land to those who have earned their discharge?  In other words, are they, instead of the Neros and the Drusi, to take over the command of the Roman people?  Why not rather, as the last in guilt, be the first in repentance?  Demands made in common are granted slowly;  private favor you may earn on the spot and receive on the spot.”

With minds affected by these words and growing mutually suspicious, they separated recruit from veteran, legion from legion.  Then by degrees the instinct of obedience returned.  They quitted the gates and restored to their places the standards which at the beginning of the mutiny they had grouped into one spot.

[1.29]  Drusus, orto die et vocata contione, quanquam rudis dicendi, nobilitate ingenita incusat priora, probat præsentia ;  negat se terrore et minis vinci :  flexos ad modestiam si videat, si supplices audiat, scripturum patri ut placatus legionum preces exciperet.  Orantibus rursum, idem Blæsus et L. Aponius (eques Romanus e cohorte Drusi), Justusque Catonius, primi ordinis centurio, ad Tiberium mittuntur.  Certatum inde sententiis, quum alii opperiendos legatos atque interim comitate permulcendum militem censerent, alii fortioribus remediis agendum :  nihil in vulgo modicum ;  terrere ni paveant ;  ubi pertimuerint, impune contemni :  dum superstitio urgeat, adjiciendos ex duce metus, sublatis seditionis auctoribus.  Promptum ad asperiora ingenium Druso erat :  vocatos Vibulenum et Percennium interfici jubet.  (Tradunt plerique intra tabernaculum ducis obrutos, alii corpora extra vallum abjecta, ostentui.)

[1.29]  At daybreak Drusus called them to an assembly, and, though raw at speaking, yet with inborn nobility upbraided them for their past and commended their present behavior.  He was not, he said, to be conquered by terror and threats.  Were he to see them as having turned to moderation and hear them as suppliants, he would write to his father, that he might be merciful and receive the legions’ petition.  At their pleading, the same Blæsus and Lucius Apronius, a Roman knight from Drusus’ retinue, with Justus Catonius, a master centurion, were again sent to Tiberius.  Then ensued a conflict of opinion among them, some maintaining that it was best to wait the envoys’ return and meanwhile humor the soldiery, others, that stronger remedies ought to be used:  the masses know no mean;  they inspire terror unless they are shaking with fear;  once they have been terrified, they can be safely despised.  “While superstition still sways them, the general should add more fear by taking out the leaders of the mutiny.”  Drusus was by nature inclined to the harsher measures.  He summoned Vibulenus and Percennius and ordered them killed.  (The majority say they were buried inside the general’s pavilion, others that their bodies were flung outside the rampart as a demonstration.)

[1.30]  Tum ut quisque præcipuus turbator conquisiti, et pars, extra castra palantes, a centurionibus aut Prætoriarum cohortium militibus cæsi :  quosdam ipsi manipuli documentum fidei tradidere.  Auxerat militum curas præmatura hiems, imbribus continuis adeoque sævis ut non egredi tentoria, congregari inter se, vix tutari signa possent, quæ turbine atque unda raptabantur.  Durabat et formido cælestis iræ :  nec frustra adversus impios hebescere sidera, ruere tempestates ;  non aliud malorum levamentum, quam si linquerent castra infausta temerataque et, soluti piaculo, suis quisque hibernis redderentur.  Primum Octava, dein Quinta Decima Legio rediere ;  Nonanus opperiendas Tiberii epistulas clamitaverat, mox desolatus aliorum discessione imminentem necessitatem sponte prævenit.  Et Drusus, non exspectato legatorum regressu, quia præsentia satis consederant, in Urbem rediit.

[1.30]  The all — every single chief instigator — were hunted down, and a part — those straying outside the camp — cut down by the centurions or by soldiers of the Prætorian cohorts.  Some the companies themselves turned over in proof of their loyalty.  The men’s troubles were increased by an early winter with continuous storms so violent that they could not go beyond their tents or get together or keep the standards in their places, from which they were perpetually torn by whirlwind and wave.  And there still lingered the dread of divine wrath;  nor was it for nothing, they thought, that, opposed to their impiety, the stars were growing dim and storms rushed down on them.  There was no other relief from misery than to quit an ill-omened and desecrated camp, and for everyone to return, released by this act of expiation, to his winterquarters.  First the Eighth, then the Fifteenth Legion returned;  the ninth had cried again and again that they ought to wait for the letter from Tiberius, but soon, finding themselves isolated by the departure of the rest, they voluntarily forestalled the looming necessity.  Drusus, without awaiting the envoys’ return, since for the present everything had quieted down enough, went back to Rome.

[1.31]  Eisdem ferme diebus eisdem causis Germanicæ legiones turbatæ, quanto plures tanto violentius, et magna spe fore ut Germanicus Cæsar imperium alterius pati nequiret, daretque se legionibus vi sua cuncta tractaturis.  Duo apud ripam Rheni exercitus erant :  cui nomen Superiori sub C. Silio legato ;  Inferiorem A. Cæcina curabat.  Regimen summæ rei penes Germanicum, agendo Galliarum censui tum intentum.  Sed quibus Silius moderabatur, mente ambigua fortunam seditionis alienæ speculabantur :  Inferioris exercitus miles in rabiem prolapsus est, orto ab Unetvicesimanis Quintanisque initio, et tractis Prima quoque ac Vicesima Legionibus ;  nam eisdem æstivis in finibus Ubiorum habebantur per otium aut levia munia.  Igitur, audito fine Augusti, vernacula multitudo, nuper acto in Urbe dilectu, lasciviæ sueta, laborum intolerans, implere ceterorum rudes animos :  venisse tempus quo veterani maturam missionem, juvenes largiora stipendia, cuncti modum miseriarum exposcerent, sævitiamque centurionum ulciscerentur.  Non unus hæc, ut Pannonicas inter legiones Percennius, nec apud trepidas militum aures, alios validiores exercitus respicientium, sed multa seditionis ora vocesque :  sua in manu sitam rem Romanam, suis victoriis augeri Rem Publicam, in suum cognomentum ascisci imperatores.

[1.31]  About the same time, from the same causes, the legions of Germany rose in mutiny, with a fury proportioned to their greater numbers, in the confident hope that Germanicus Cæsar would not be able to endure another’s supremacy and offer himself to the legions, who would handle everything by their own force.  There were two armies on the bank of the Rhine;  that named the Upper army had Gajus Silius for general;  the Lower was under the charge of Aulus Cæcina.  The supreme direction rested with Germanicus, then busily employed in conducting the assessment of Gaul.  The troops under the control of Silius, with minds yet in suspense, watched the issue of mutiny elsewhere;  but the soldiers of the lower army fell into a frenzy, which had its beginning in the men of the Twenty-first and Fifth Legions, and into which the First and Twentieth were also drawn.  For they were all quartered in the same summer-camp, in the territory of the Ubii, enjoying ease or having only light duties.  Accordingly on hearing of the death of Augustus, a rabble of city slaves, who had been enlisted under a recent levy at Rome, habituated to laxity and impatient of hardship, filled the ignorant minds of the other soldiers with notions that the time had come when the veteran might demand a timely discharge, the young, more ample pay, all, an end of their miseries, and vengeance on the cruelty of centurions.  It was not one alone who spoke thus, as did Percennius among the legions of Pannonia, nor was it in the ears of trembling soldiers, who looked with apprehension to other and mightier armies, but there was sedition in many a face and voice.  “The Roman world,” they said, “was in their hand;  their victories aggrandised the State;  it was from them that emperors received their titles.”

[1.32]  Nec legatus obviam ibat :  quippe plurium vecordia constantiam exemerat.  Repente lymphati destrictis gladiis in centuriones invadunt (ea vetustissima militaribus odiis materies et sæviendi principium).  Prostratos verberibus mulcant, sexageni singulos, ut numerum centurionum adæquarent ;  tum convulsos laniatosque et partim exanimos ante vallum aut in amnem Rhenum projiciunt.  Septimius, quum perfugisset ad tribunal pedibusque Cæcinæ advolveretur, eo usque flagitatus est donec ad exitium dederetur.  Cassius Chærea (mox cæde Gaji Cæsaris {Caligulæ} memoriam apud posteros adeptus), tum adulescens et animi ferox, inter obstantes et armatos ferro viam patefecit.  Non tribunus ultra, non castrorum præfectus, jus obtinuit :  vigilias, stationes, et si qua alia præsens usus indixerat, ipsi partiebantur.  Id — militares animos altius conjectantibus — præcipuum indicium magni atque implacabilis motus, quod neque disjecti nec paucorum instinctu, sed pariter ardescerent, pariter silerent, tanta æqualitate et constantia ut regi crederes.

[1.32]  Nor did their commander check them.  Indeed, the blind rage of so many had robbed him of his steadfastness., In a sudden frenzy they rushed with drawn swords on the centurions, the immemorial object of the soldiers’ resentment and the first cause of savage fury.  They threw them to the earth and beat them sorely, sixty to one, so as to correspond with the number of centurions.  Then tearing them from the ground, mangled, and some lifeless, they flung them outside the entrenchments or into the river Rhine.  One Septimius, who fled to the tribunal and was grovelling at Cæcina’s feet, was persistently demanded till he was given up to destruction.  Cassius Chærea, who later won for himself a memory with posterity by the murder of Gajus Cæsar {Caligula}, being then a youth of defiant spirit, cleared a passage with his sword through the armed men standing in the way.  Neither tribune nor camp-prefect maintained authority any longer.  Patrols, sentries, and whatever else the needs of the time required, were distributed by the men themselves.  To those who could plumb the mindsets of soldiers on a deeper level, the strongest symptom of a wide-spread and intractable commotion was the fact that, instead of being disjoined or at the instigation of a few persons, they were unanimous in their fury and equally unanimous in their composure, with so uniform a consistency that one would have thought they were being directed.

[1.33]  Interea Germanico per Gallias (ut diximus) census accipienti excessisse Augustum affertur.  Neptem ejus Agrippinam in matrimonio, pluresque ex ea liberos habebat, ipse Druso (fratre Tiberii) genitus, Augustæ nepos, sed anxius occultis in se patrui aviæque odiis, quorum causæ acriores quia iniquæ.  Quippe Drusi magna apud populum Romanum memoria, credebaturque, si rerum potitus foret, libertatem redditurus :  unde in Germanicum favor et spes eadem.  Nam juveni civile ingenium, mira comitas et diversa a Tiberii sermone, vultu, arrogantibus et obscuris.  Accedebant muliebres offensiones, novercalibus Liviæ in Agrippinam stimulis, atque ipsa Agrippina paulo commotior, nisi quod castitate et mariti amore quamvis indomitum animum in bonum vertebat.

[1.33]  Meantime Germanicus, while collecting, as I have related, the taxes of Gaul, received news of the death of Augustus.  He was married to the granddaughter of Augustus, Agrippina, by whom he had several children, and though he was himself the son of Drusus (brother of Tiberius) and grandson of Augusta, he was troubled by the secret hatred toward him of his uncle and grandmother, the motives for which were the more bitter because unjust.  For the memory of Drusus was held in honor by the Roman people, and they believed that had he obtained empire, he would have restored freedom.  Hence they regarded Germanicus with favor and with the same hope.  He was indeed a young man of undictatorial disposition, and of wonderful affability, contrasting strongly with the arrogance and obscurity marking the conversation and features of Tiberius.  Then there were the feminine affronts, with Livia’s stepmotherly goading of Agrippina, and Agrippina herself being a bit too emotional, except that, with her chastity and love of her husband, she turned her (albeit untamed) spirit to good effect.

[1.34]  Sed Germanicus, quanto summæ spei propior, tanto impensius pro Tiberio niti.  Seque et proximos et Belgarum civitates in verba ejus adigit.  Dehinc audito legionum tumultu raptim profectus, obvias extra castra habuit, dejectis in terram oculis velut pænitentia.  Postquam vallum iniit, dissoni questus audiri cœpere.  Et quidam prensa manu ejus per speciem exosculandi inseruerunt digitos ut vacua dentibus ora contingeret ;  alii curvata senio membra ostendebant.  Assistentem contionem, quia permixta videbatur, discedere in manipulos jubet.  “Sic melius audituros,” responsum.  Vexilla præferri ut id saltem discerneret cohortes.  Tarde obtemperavere.  Tunc, a veneratione Augusti orsus, flexit ad victorias triumphosque Tiberii, præcipuis laudibus celebrans quæ apud Germanias illis cum legionibus pulcherrima fecisset.  Italiæ inde consensum, Galliarum fidem extollit ;  nil usquam turbidum aut discors.  Silentio hæc vel murmure modico audita sunt.

[1.34]  But the nearer Germanicus was to that highest hope, the more emphatically did he exert himself for Tiberius.  He bound both himself and his intimates and the Belgic communities by the latter’s oath.  On hearing of the mutiny in the legions, he set off hurriedly and beheld them coming to meet him outside the camp, their eyes fixed on the ground, and seemingly repentant.  As soon as he entered the rampart, discordant complaints began to be heard.  Some men, seizing his hand under pretence of kissing it, thrust his fingers into their mouths, that he might feel their toothless mouths;  others showed him their limbs bowed with age.  He ordered the crowd standing near him, as it seemed a chaotic gathering, to separate itself into maniples.  Their response:  they could hear better as they were.  The standards were then to be placed in front, so that that at least would distinguish the cohorts.  Hesitatingly the soldiers obeyed.  Then beginning with a reverent mention of Augustus, he passed on to the victories and triumphs of Tiberius, dwelling with especial praise on his glorious achievements with those legions in Germany.  Next, he extolled the unity of Italy, the loyalty of Gaul, the entire absence of turbulence or strife.  He was heard in silence or with but a slight murmur.

[1.35]  Ut seditionem attigit, ubi modestia militaris, ubi veteris disciplinæ decus, quonam tribunos, quo centuriones exegissent, rogitans, nudant universi corpora, cicatrices ex vulneribus, verberum notas exprobrant ;  mox indiscretis vocibus pretia vacationum, angustias stipendii, duritiam operum ac propriis nominibus incusant vallum, fossas, pabuli, materiæ, lignorum aggestus, et si qua alia — ex necessitate aut adversus otium castrorum — quæruntur.  Atrocissimus veteranorum clamor oriebatur qui, tricena aut supra stipendia numerantes, mederetur fessis, nec mortem in eisdem laboribus, sed finem tam exercitæ militiæ neque inopem requiem orabant.  Fuere etiam qui legatam a divo Augusto pecuniam reposcerent, faustis in Germanicum ominibus ;  et, si vellet imperium, promptos ostentavere.  Tum vero, quasi scelere contaminaretur, præceps tribunali desiluit.  Opposuerunt abeunti arma, minitantes, ni regrederetur ;  at ille moriturum potius quam fidem exueret clamitans, ferrum a latere diripuit elatumque deferebat in pectus, ni proximi prensam dextram vi attinuissent.  Extrema et conglobata inter se pars contionis ac — vix credibile dictu — quidam singuli propius incedentes feriret hortabantur ;  et miles nomine Calusidius strictum obtulit gladium, addito acutiorem esse.  Sævum id malique moris etiam furentibus visum, ac spatium fuit quo Cæsar ab amicis in tabernaculum raperetur.

[1.35]  As soon as he touched on the mutiny and asked what had become of soldierly obedience, of the glory of ancient discipline, whither they had driven their tribunes and centurions, they all bared their bodies and remonstrated about the scars of their wounds and the marks of the lash.  And then with indistinguishable utterances they spoke bitterly of the prices of exemptions, of their scanty pay, of the severity of their tasks, with special mention of the entrenchment, the fosse, the conveyance of fodder, building-timber, firewood, and whatever else had to be procured from necessity, or as a check on idleness in the camp.  The fiercest clamor arose from the veteran soldiers, who, as they counted their thirty campaigns or more, implored him to relieve worn-out men, and not let them die under the same hardships, but have an end of such harassing service, and repose without beggary.  Some even claimed the legacy of the Divine Augustus, with words of good omen for Germanicus, and, should he wish for empire, they showed themselves abundantly willing.  Thereupon, as though he were contracting the pollution of guilt, he leapt impetuously from the tribunal.  The men opposed his departure with their weapons, threatening him repeatedly if he would not go back.  But Germanicus protesting that he would die rather than cast off his loyalty, plucked his sword from his side, raised it aloft and was plunging it into his breast, when those nearest him seized his hand and held it by force.  The remotest and most densely crowded part of the throng, and, what almost passes belief, some, who came close up to him, urged him to strike the blow, and a soldier, by name Calusidius, offered him a drawn sword, saying that it was sharper than his own.  Even in their fury, this seemed to them a savage act and one of evil precedent, and there was a pause during which Cæsar’s friends hurried him into his pavilion.

[1.36]  Consultatum ibi de remedio.  Etenim nuntiabatur parari legatos qui Superiorem exercitum ad causam eandem traherent ;  destinatum excidio Ubiorum oppidum, imbutasque præda manus in direptionem Galliarum erupturas.  Augebat metum gnarus Romanæ seditionis et, si omitteretur ripa, invasurus hostis :  at si auxilia et socii adversum abscedentes legiones armarentur, civile bellum suscipi.  Periculosa severitas, flagitiosa largitio :  seu nihil militi sive omnia concederentur, in ancipiti Res Publica.  Igitur, volutatis inter se rationibus, placitum ut epistulæ nomine principis scriberentur :  missionem dari vicena stipendia meritis ;  exauctorari qui sena dena fecissent ac retineri sub vexillo, ceterorum immunes nisi propulsandi hostis ;  legata quæ petiverant exsolvi duplicarique.

[1.36]  There they took counsel on remedying matters.  For news was also brought that legates were being organized who were to draw the upper army into their cause;  that the capital of the Ubii was marked out for extermination, and that hands with the stain of plunder on them would soon be daring enough for the pillage of Gaul.  The alarm was heightened by the knowledge that the enemy was aware of the Roman mutiny, and would certainly attack if the Rhine bank were undefended.  Yet if the auxiliary troops and allies were to be armed against the retiring legions, civil war would in fact begin.  Severity would be dangerous, indulgence vile.  Whether all or nothing were conceded to the soldiery, the State was equally in jeopardy.  Accordingly, having weighed their plans one against each other, they decided that a letter should be written in the prince’s name:  full discharge would be granted to those who had served in twenty campaigns;  those who had served sixteen would be decommissioned from active service and retained under the flag without liability for anything except actually keeping off the enemy;  the bequests which they had asked for were to be paid and indeed doubled.

[1.37]  Sensit miles in tempus conficta statimque flagitavit.  Missio per tribunos maturatur, largitio differebatur in hiberna cujusque.  Non abscessere Quintani Unetvicesimanique, donec eisdem in æstivis contracta ex viatico amicorum ipsiusque Cæsaris pecunia persolveretur.  Primam ac Vicesimam Legiones Cæcina legatus in civitatem Ubiorum reduxit, turpi agmine, quum fisci de imperatore rapti inter signa interque aquilas veherentur.  Germanicus Superiorem ad exercitum profectus Secundam et Tertiam Decimam et Sextam Decimam Legiones nihil cunctatas sacramento adigit.  Quartadecumani paulum dubitaverant :  pecunia et missio quamvis non flagitantibus oblata est.

[1.37]  The soldiers perceived that all this had been manufactured for the moment and made immediate demands.  The discharge from service was hastily arranged by the tribunes.  Payment would be deferred till they reached their respective winterquarters.  But the men of the Fifth and Twenty-first did not withdraw until their money, collected from the travel-fund of friends of Cæsar and of Cæsar himself, was paid fully there and then in the summer camp.  The First and Twentieth Legions were led back by their officer Cæcina to the canton of the Ubii, a disgraceful march, since the money-chests seized from the general was carried among the eagles and standards.  Germanicus set off for the Upper Army and bound the unhesitating Second, Thirteenth, and Sixteenth Legions by oath of allegiance.  The Fourteenth had hesitated a little, but their money and the discharge were offered even without their demanding it.

[1.38]  At in Chaucis cœptavere seditionem præsidium agitantes vexillarii discordium legionum, et præsenti duorum militum supplicio paulum repressi sunt.  Jusserat id M’. Ennius castrorum præfectus, bono magis exemplo quam concesso jure.  Deinde intumescente motu profugus repertusque ;  postquam intutæ latebræ, præsidium ab audacia mutuatur :  non præfectum ab eis, sed Germanicum ducem, sed Tiberium imperatorem violari.  Simul exterritis qui obstiterant, raptum vexillum ad ripam vertit, et si quis agmine decessisset, pro desertore fore clamitans, reduxit in hiberna turbidos et nihil ausos.

[1.38]  Meanwhile there was an outbreak among the Chauci, begun by some of the mutinous legions’ banner-men who were performing garrison duty.  They were quelled for a time by the immediate execution of two soldiers.  Such was the order of Mennius, the camp-prefect, more as a good lesson than as an authorized legality.  Then when the commotion increased he fled and was discovered;  after his hiding place became unsafe, he borrowed a defense from audacity.  It was not, he told them, the camp-prefect, but rather Germanicus, their general, it was Tiberius, their emperor, whom they were insulting.  At the same moment, having terrified the men who stood in his way, he seized the standard and turned it around towards the river-bank;  and, shouting repeatedly that whoever left the ranks would be a deserter, he led them back into their winter-quarters, disaffected indeed, but cowed.

[1.39]  Interea legati a Senatu regressum jam apud Aram Ubiorum Germanicum adeunt.  Duæ ibi legiones, Prima atque Vicesima, veteranique nuper missi sub vexillo hiemabant.  Pavidos et conscientia vecordes intrat metus :  venisse patrum jussu qui irrita facerent quæ per seditionem expresserant.  Utque mos vulgo quamvis falsis reum subdere, Munatium Plancum consulatu functum, principem legationis, auctorem Senatus consulti incusant ;  et, nocte concubia, vexillum in domo Germanici situm flagitare occipiunt, concursuque ad januam facto moliuntur fores, extractum cubili Cæsarem tradere vexillum intento mortis metu subigunt.  Mox vagi per vias obvios habuere legatos audita consternatione ad Germanicum tendentes.  Ingerunt contumelias, cædem parant, Planco maxime, quem dignitas fuga impediverat ;  neque aliud periclitanti subsidium quam castra Primæ Legionis.  Illic signa et aquilam amplexus religione sese tutabatur, ac ni aquilifer Calpurnius vim extremam arcuisset — rarum etiam inter hostes — legatus populi Romani Romanis in castris sanguine suo altaria deum commaculavisset.  Luce demum, postquam dux et miles et facta noscebantur, ingressus castra Germanicus perduci ad se Plancum imperat recepitque in tribunal.  Tum fatalem increpans rabiem, neque militum sed deum ira resurgere, cur venerint legati aperit ;  jus legationis atque ipsius Planci gravem et immeritum casum, simul quantum dedecoris adierit Legio, facunde miseratur, attonitaque magis quam quieta contione legatos præsidio auxiliarium equitum dimittit.

[1.39]  Meanwhile envoys from the Senate had an interview with Germanicus, who had now returned, at the Altar of the Ubii {Cologne}.  Two legions, the First and Twentieth, with veterans discharged and serving under a standard, were there in winter-quarters.  Fear seized the men, who were panicked and out of their minds with guilt-consciousness :  in their minds the envoys had come at command of the Senate to invalidate what the soldiers had extorted by their mutiny.  And as it is the way with a mob to fix any charge, however groundless, on some particular person, they accused Manatius Plancus, an ex-consul and the chief envoy, of being the author of the Senate’s decree.  In the dead of night they began to demand the imperial standard kept in Germanicus’s quarters, and having rushed together to the entrance, burst the door, dragged Cæsar from his bed, and forced him by menaces of death to hand over the standard.  Then roaming through the camp-streets, they encountered the envoys, who on hearing of the tumult were making their way to Germanicus.  They loaded them with insults, and were on the point of murdering them, Plancus especially, whose sense of honor had deterred him from flight.  In his peril he found safety only in the camp of the First Legion.  There clasping the standards and the eagle, he sought to protect himself under their sanctity.  And had not the eagle-bearer, Calpurnius, saved him from the worst violence, the blood of an envoy of the Roman people — an occurrence rare even among our foes — would in a Roman camp have stained the altars of the gods.  At last, at dawn, when the general and the soldiers and the whole affair started being recognized, Germanicus entered the camp, ordered Plancus to be conducted to him, and received him onto the tribunal.  He then berated their madness as “fated,” saying it had flared up again not so much through the anger of the soldiers as of the gods, and explained why the envoys had arrived.  On the rights of ambassadors, on the dreadful and undeserved plight of Plancus, and also on the disgrace into which the Legion had brought itself, he dwelt with the eloquence of pity;  and while the throng was confounded rather than appeased, he dismissed the envoys with an escort of auxiliary cavalry.

[1.40]  Eo in metu arguere Germanicum omnes, quod non ad Superiorem exercitum pergeret, ubi obsequia et contra rebelles auxilium :  satis superque missione et pecunia et mollibus consultis peccatum.  Vel si vilis ipsi salus, ¿ cur filium parvulum, cur gravidam conjugem inter furentes et omnis humani juris violatores haberet ?  Illos saltem avo et Rei Publicæ redderet.  Diu cunctatus aspernantem uxorem, quum se divo Augusto ortam, neque degenerem ad pericula, testaretur, postremo uterum ejus et communem filium multo cum fletu complexus, ut abiret perpulit.  Incedebat muliebre et miserabile agmen, profuga ducis uxor, parvulum sinu filium gerens, lamentantes circum amicorum conjuges, quæ simul trahebantur ;  nec minus tristes qui manebant.

[1.40]  Amid the alarm everyone criticized Germanicus for not going to the Upper Army, where there was compliance and help against the rebels.  Enough and more than enough blunders, they said, had been made by granting discharges and money, indeed, by conciliatory measures.  Even if Germanicus held his own life cheap, why should he keep a little son and a pregnant wife among madmen who outraged every human right?  Let these, at least, be restored safely to their grandsire and to the State.  When his wife spurned the notion, protesting that she was a descendant of the Divine Augustus and could face peril with no degenerate spirit, he at last embraced her womb and their mutual son with many tears, and after long delay compelled her to depart.  There went on its way a pitiable procession of women, a general’s fugitive wife with a little son in her bosom, her friends’ wives weeping round her, as with her they dragged themselves from the camp.  Not less sorrowful were those who remained.

[1.41]  Non florentis Cæsaris neque suis in castris, sed velut in Urbe victa facies gemitusque ac planctus etiam militum aures oraque advertere.  Progrediuntur contuberniis.  ¿ Quis ille flebilis sonus ?  ¿ Quod tam triste ?  ¡ Feminas illustres, non centurionem ad tutelam, non militem, nihil imperatoriæ uxoris aut comitatus soliti !  ¿ Pergere ad Treviros et externæ fidei ?  Pudor inde et miseratio et patris Agrippæ, Augusti avi memoria, socer Drusus, ipsa insigni fecunditate, præclara pudicitia ;  jam infans in castris genitus, in contubernio legionum eductus, quem militari vocabulo “Caligulam” appellabant, quia plerumque ad concilianda vulgi studia eo tegmine pedum induebatur.  Sed nihil æque flexit quam invidia in Treviros :  orant, obsistunt, rediret maneret, pars Agrippinæ occursantes, plurimi ad Germanicum regressi.  Isque ut erat recens dolore et ira apud circumfusos ita cœpit :

[1.41]  There was no appearance of the triumphant general about Germanicus, and he seemed to be in a conquered city rather than in his own camp, while groans and wailings attracted the ears and looks even of the soldiers.  They came out of their tents, asking “what was that mournful sound?  What meant the sad sight?  Here were ladies of rank, not a centurion to escort them, not a soldier, no sign of a prince’s wife, none of the usual retinue.  Could they be going to the Treveri, and those of alien loyalty?”  Then they felt shame and pity, and remembered his father Agrippa, her grandfather Augustus, her father-in-law Drusus, her own glory as a mother of children, her noble purity.  And there was her little child too, born in the camp, brought up amid the tents of the legions, whom they used to call in soldiers’ fashion, “Little Soldierboots” Caligula, because he was often shod with that foot covering to win the men’s goodwill.  But nothing moved them so much as jealousy towards the Treveri.  They entreated, stopped the way, that Agrippina might return and remain, some running to meet her, while most of them went back to Germanicus.  He, with a grief and anger that were yet fresh, thus began to address the throng around him -

[1.42]  “Non mihi uxor aut filius patre et Re Publica cariores sunt, sed illum quidem sua majestas, Imperium Romanum ceteri exercitus defendent.  Conjugem et liberos meos, quos pro gloria vestra libens ad exitium offerrem, nunc procul a furentibus summoveo, ut quidquid istud sceleris imminet, meo tantum sanguine pietur, neve occisus Augusti pronepos, interfecta Tiberii nurus nocentiores vos faciant.  ¿ Quid enim per hos dies inausum intemeratumve vobis ?  ¿ Quod nomen huic cœtui dabo ?  ¿ Militesne appellem, qui filium imperatoris vestri vallo et armis circumsedistis ?  ¿ An cives, quibus tam projecta Senatus auctoritas ?  Hostium quoque jus et sacra legationis et fas gentium rupistis.  Divus Julius seditionem exercitus verbo uno compescuit, Quirites vocando qui sacramentum ejus detrectabant :  divus Augustus vultu et aspectu Actiacas legiones exterruit :  nos ut non eosdem, ita ex illis ortos, si Hispaniæ Syriæve miles aspernaretur, tamen mirum et indignum erat.  ¡ Primane et Vicesima Legiones — illa signis a Tiberio acceptis, tu tot prœliorum socia, tot præmiis aucta — egregiam duci vestro gratiam refertis !  ¿ Hunc ego nuntium patri læta omnia aliis e provinciis audienti feram ?  Ipsius tirones, ipsius veteranos non missione, non pecunia satiatos :  hic tantum interfici centuriones, ejici tribunos, includi legatos, infecta sanguine castra, flumina, meque precariam animam inter infensos trahere.

[1.42] “Neither wife nor son are dearer to me than my father and the State.  But he will surely have the protection of his own majesty, the empire of Rome that of our other armies.  My wife and children whom, were it a question of your glory, I would willingly expose to destruction, I now remove to a distance from your fury, so that whatever wickedness is thereby threatened, may be expiated by my blood only, and that you may not be made more guilty by the slaughter of a great-grandson of Augustus, and the murder of a daughter-in-law of Tiberius.  For what have you not dared, what have you not profaned during these days?  What name shall I give to this gathering?  Am I to call you soldiers, you who have beset with entrenchments and arms your general’s son, or citizens, when you have trampled under foot the authority of the Senate?  Even the rights of public enemies, the sacred character of the ambassador, and the law of nations have been violated by you.  The Divine Julius once quelled an army’s mutiny with a single word by calling those who were renouncing their military obedience “citizens.”  The Divine Augustus cowed the legions who had fought at Actium with one look of his face.  Though I am not what they were, still, descended as I am from them, it would be a strange and unworthy thing should I be spurned by the soldiery of Spain or Syria.  First and Twentieth Legions — you of the Twentieth who received your standards from Tiberius, you of the First who were his ally in so many battles and enriched with so many rewards — is not this a fine gratitude with which you are repaying your general?  Are these the tidings which I shall have to carry to my father when he hears only joyful intelligence from our other provinces, that his own recruits, his own veterans are not satisfied with discharge or pay;  that here only centurions are murdered, tribunes driven away, envoys imprisoned, camps and rivers stained with blood, while I am myself drawing my precarious breath amid those who hate me?

[1.43] “¿ Cur enim primo contionis die ferrum illud, quod pectori meo infigere parabam, detraxistis, o improvidi amici ?  Melius et amantius ille qui gladium offerebat.  Cecidissem certe nondum tot flagitiorum exercitui meo conscius ;  legissetis ducem qui meam quidem mortem impunitam sineret, Vari tamen et trium legionum ulcisceretur.  Neque enim di sinant ut Belgarum, quanquam offerentium, decus istud et claritudo sit subvenisse Romano nomini, compressisse Germaniæ populos.  Tua, dive Auguste, cælo recepta mens, tua, pater Druse, imago, tui memoria eisdem istis cum militibus quos jam pudor et gloria intrat, eluant hanc maculam, irasque civiles in exitium hostibus vertant.  Vos quoque, quorum alia nunc ora, alia pectora contueor, si legatos Senatui, obsequium imperatori, si mihi conjugem et filium redditis, discedite a contactu ac dividite turbidos :  id stabile ad pænitentiam, id fidei vinculum erit.”

[1.43] “Why, on the first day of our meeting, why did you, my mad friends, wrest from me, in your blindness, the steel which I was preparing to plunge into my breast?  Better and more loving was the act of the man who offered me the sword.  At any rate I should have perished without yet being an accomplice to my army in so many outrages, while you would have chosen a general who, though he might allow my death to pass unpunished, would avenge the death of Varus and his three legions.  For may the gods not allow the Belgæ, even though making the offer, to have the glory and honor of having rescued the name of Rome and subdued the tribes of Germany.  It is thy spirit, Divine Augustus, now received into heaven, thine image, father Drusus, and the remembrance of thee, which, with these selfsame soldiers whom shame and thoughts of glory are already permeating, should wipe out this blot and turn the wrath of civil strife to the destruction of the foe.  You too, in whose faces and in whose hearts I perceive a change, if only you restore to the Senate their envoys, to the emperor his due allegiance, to myself my wife and son, do you turn away from contagion and isolate the turbulent elements.  This will be the basis of your repentance, a guarantee of your loyalty.”

[1.44]  Supplices ad hæc et vera exprobrari fatentes, orabant puniret noxios, ignosceret lapsis et duceret in hostem :  revocaretur conjunx, rediret legionum alumnus neve obses Gallis traderetur.  Reditum Agrippinæ excusavit ob imminentem partum et hiemem :  venturum filium :  cetera ipsi exsequerentur.  Discurrunt mutati et seditiosissimum quemque vinctos trahunt ad legatum Legionis Primæ C. Cætronium, qui judicium et pœnas de singulis in hunc modum exercuit :  stabant pro contione legiones destrictis gladiis ;  reus in suggestu per tribunum ostendebatur ;  si nocentem acclamaverant, præceps datus trucidabatur.  Et gaudebat cædibus miles tanquam semet absolveret ;  nec Cæsar arcebat, quando nullo ipsius jussu penes eosdem sævitia facti et invidia erat.  (Secuti exemplum veterani haud multo post in Rætiam mittuntur, specie defendendæ provinciæ ob imminentes Suebos, ceterum ut avellerentur castris trucibus adhuc non minus asperitate remedii quam sceleris memoria.)  Centurionatum inde coegit.  Citatus ab imperatore, nomen, ordinem, patriam, numerum stipendiorum, quæ strenue in prœliis fecisset, et cui erant dona militaria, edebat.  Si tribuni, si Legio industriam innocentiamque approbaverant, retinebat ordinem :  ubi avaritiam aut crudelitatem consensu objectavissent, solvebatur militia.

[1.44]  Thereupon, as suppliants confessing that his reproaches were true, they implored him to punish the guilty, pardon those who had erred, and lead them against the enemy.  And he was to recall his wife, to let the nursling of the legions return and not be handed over as a hostage to the Gauls.  He declined Agrippina’s return with the excuse of her approaching confinement and of winter.  His son, he said, would come, and the rest they themselves should settle.  Away they hurried hither and thither, altered men, and dragged the chief mutineers in chains to Gajus Cætronius, commander of the First Legion, who tried and punished them one by one in the following fashion:  in front of the throng stood the legions with drawn swords;  each accused man was on a raised platform and was pointed out by a tribune;  if they shouted out that he was guilty, he was thrown to them headlong and cut to pieces.  The soldiers gloated over the slaughters as though it gave them absolution.  Nor did Cæsar check them, seeing that, without any order of his, it was the same people who were equally liable both for the savagery of the action and for the resentment at it.  (The veterans who followed their example were sent into Rætia not long afterwards, nominally to defend the province against a threatened invasion of the Suevi, but in reality to wrench them away from a camp still brutalized as much by the drastic nature of the remedy as by the memory of the crime.)  Then the general mustered the centurionate.  Each, at his summons, stated his name, his rank, his birthplace, the number of his campaigns, what brave deeds he had done in battle, his military rewards, if any.  If the tribunes and the Legion commended his energy and good behavior, he kept his rank;  where in unison they charged him with rapacity or cruelty, he was dismissed from service.

[1.45]  Sic compositis præsentibus haud minor moles supererat ob ferociam Quintæ et Unetvicesimæ Legionum, sexagesimum apud lapidem (loco “Vetera” nomen est) hibernantium.  Nam primi seditionem cœptaverant :  atrocissimum quodque facinus horum manibus patratum ;  nec pœna commilitonum exterriti nec pænitentia conversi, iras retinebant.  Igitur Cæsar arma, classem, socios demittere Rheno parat, si imperium detrectetur, bello certaturus.

[1.45]  Quiet being thus restored for the present, a no less formidable difficulty remained through the turbulence of the Fifth and Twenty-first Legions, who were in winter quarters sixty miles away at Old Camp, as the place was called.  These, in fact, had been the first to begin the mutiny, and the most atrocious deeds had been committed by their hands.  Unawed by the punishment of their comrades, and unmoved by their contrition, they still retained their resentment.  Cæsar accordingly proposed to send an armed fleet with some of our allies down the Rhine, resolved to make war on them should they reject his authority.

[1.46]  At Romæ, nondum cognito qui fuisset exitus in Illyrico, et legionum Germanicarum motu audito, trepida civitas incusare Tiberium quod, dum patres et plebem — invalida et inermia — cunctatione ficta ludificetur, dissideat interim miles, neque duorum adulescentium nondum adulta auctoritate comprimi queat.  Ire ipsum et opponere majestatem imperatoriam debuisse cessuris ubi principem longa experientia eundemque severitatis et munificentiæ summum vidissent.  ¿ An Augustum fessa ætate totiens in Germanias commeare potuisse, Tiberium vigentem annis sedere in Senatu, verba patrum cavillantem ?  Satis prospectum Urbanæ servituti :  militaribus animis adhibenda fomenta ut ferre pacem velint.

[1.46]  At Rome, meanwhile, when the result of affairs in Illyrium was not yet known, and men had heard of the commotion among the German legions, the citizens in alarm reproached Tiberius for the feigned delaying tactics with which he was making fools of the Senate and the people, impotent and disarmed as they were, while the soldiery were all the time in revolt, and could not be quelled by the yet imperfectly-matured authority of two striplings.  “He ought to have gone himself and confronted with his imperial majesty those who would have soon yielded, when they once saw a sovereign of long experience, who was the supreme dispenser of rigor or of bounty.  How could Augustus, with the feebleness of age on him, so often visit Germany, while Tiberius, in the vigor of life, sits in the Senate making fun of its members’ words”?  Sufficient provision had been made for the City’s enslavement;  it was the soldier’s spirits which needed dressings applied to them, so that they might be willing to endure peace.

[1.47]  Immotum adversus eos sermones fixumque, Tiberio fuit non omittere caput rerum neque se Remque Publicam in casum dare.  Multa quippe et diversa angebant :  validior per Germaniam exercitus, propior apud Pannoniam ;  ille Galliarum opibus subnixus, hic Italiæ imminens.  ¿ Quos igitur anteferret ?  Ac ne postpositi “contumelia” incenderentur.  At per filios pariter adiri, majestate salva, cui major e longinquo reverentia.  Simul adulescentibus excusatum quædam ad patrem rejicere, resistentesque Germanico aut Druso posse a se mitigari vel infringi.  ¿ Quod aliud subsidium si imperatorem sprevissent ?  Ceterum, ut jam jamque iturus, legit comites, conquisivit impedimenta, adornavit naves :  mox hiemem aut negotia varie causatus, primo prudentes, dein vulgum, diutissime provincias fefellit.

[1.47]  Immovable in the face of such conversation, however, was the idea, implanted in Tiberius, that he should not abandon the headquarters of affairs and entrust himself and the State to chance.  Indeed, many conflicting thoughts troubled him.  The army in Germany was the stronger;  that in Pannonia the nearer;  the first was supported by all the strength of Gaul;  the latter menaced Italy.  Whom, therefore, should he put first?  And those put in second place might be inflamed by his “insult.”  Through his sons, on the other hand, approaches could be made equally without impairing his sovereignty, for which there would be greater respect at a distance.  At the same time the juveniles had the excuse of referring certain matters to their father, and any resistance to Germanicus or Drusus could be softened by himself, or broken.  What resource remained, if they despised the emperor?  Yet, as if always on the point of going, he selected companions, assembled baggage, equipped ships;  then, variously giving the pretext of winter or business, he first deceived the intelligentsia, the public next and, for the longest time of all, the provinces.

[1.48]  At Germanicus, quanquam contracto exercitu et parata in defectores ultione, dandum adhuc spatium ratus, si recenti exemplo sibi ipsi consulerent, præmittit litteras ad Cæcinam, venire se valida manu ac, ni supplicium in malos præsumant, usurum promisca cæde.  Eas Cæcina aquiliferis signiferisque et quod maxime castrorum sincerum erat occulte recitat, utque cunctos infamiæ, se ipsos morti eximant hortatur :  nam in pace causas et merita spectari ;  ubi bellum ingruat, innocentes ac noxios juxta cadere.  Illi, temptatis quos idoneos rebantur, postquam majorem legionum partem in officio vident, de sententia legati statuunt tempus, quo fœdissimum quemque et seditioni promptum ferro invadant.  Tunc signo inter se dato irrumpunt contubernia, trucidant ignaros, nullo nisi consciis noscente quod cædis initium, quis finis.

[1.48]  Germanicus on the other hand, though he had concentrated his army and prepared vengeance against the mutineers, deemed that an interval should still be provided to see whether, given the recent example, the men themselves would take their own interests into consideration.  He sent a letter ahead to Cæcina, which said that he was on the way with a strong force, and that, if they did not execute the guilty ones before he got there, he would resort to indiscriminate slaughter.  Cæcina read the letter confidentially to the eagle-bearers and standard-bearers, and to all in the camp who were most incorrupt, and urged them to save the whole army from disgrace, and themselves from death.  “In peace,” he said, “mitigating causes and merits are considered;  when war breaks out, innocent and guilty alike perish.”  At this, they felt out those whom they thought suitable, and when they saw that a majority of their legions remained dutiful, at the commander’s suggestion they fixed a time for falling with the sword on all the vilest and readiest mutineers.  Then, at a mutually given signal, they rushed into the tents, and butchered the unsuspecting men, with none but those in on the secret knowing what was the beginning or what was to be the end of the slaughter.

[1.49]  Diversa omnium quæ unquam accidere, civilium armorum facies.  Non prœlio, non adversis e castris, sed eisdem e cubilibus, quos simul vescentes dies, simul quietos nox habuerat, discedunt in partes, ingerunt tela.  Clamor, vulnera, sanguis palam, causa in occulto ;  cetera fors regit.  Et quidam bonorum cæsi postquam, intellecto in quos sæviretur, pessimi quoque arma rapuerant.  Neque legatus aut tribunus moderator affuit :  permissa vulgo licentia atque ultio et satietas.  Mox ingressus castra Germanicus, non medicinam illud plurimis cum lacrimis, sed cladem appellans, cremari corpora jubet.  Truces etiam tum animos cupido involat eundi in hostem, piaculum furoris :  nec aliter posse placari commilitonum manis quam si pectoribus impiis honesta vulnera accepissent.  Sequitur ardorem militum Cæsar, junctoque ponte tramittit duodecim milia e legionibus, sex et viginti socias cohortes, octo equitum alas, quarum ea seditione intemerata modestia fuit.

[1.49]  It was a scene different from all civil wars which have ever occurred.  It was not in battle, not from opposing camps, it was from those same beds that men — whom the day had found eating together, the night resting together — divided themselves into two factions, and showered on each other their missiles.  Uproar, wounds, bloodshed were everywhere visible;  the cause was a mystery.  All else was at the disposal of chance.  Even some loyal men were slain, for, after realizing who were the objects of fury, some of the worst mutineers too had seized weapons.  Neither commander nor tribune was present to control them;  the men were allowed license and vengeance to their heart’s content.  Soon afterwards Germanicus entered the camp, and exclaiming with a flood of tears that this was a catastrophe rather than a remedy, ordered the bodies to be burnt.  Into their minds, which even then were still enraged, flew the desire to march against the enemy, as an atonement for their frenzy:  it was felt that the shades of their fellow-soldiers could be appeased only if they sustained honorable wounds on their impious breasts.  Cæsar followed up the enthusiasm of the men, and after connecting up a pontoon bridge, he sent across 12,000 from the legions, 26 allied cohorts and eight squadrons of cavalry, whose self-discipline had been unstained during the mutiny.

[1.50]  Læti neque procul Germani agitabant, dum justitio ob amissum Augustum, post discordiis attinemur.  At Romanus agmine propero silvam Cæsiam limitemque a Tiberio cœptum scindit, castra in limite locat, frontem ac tergum vallo, latera concædibus munitus.  Inde saltus obscuros permeat consultatque ex duobus itineribus breve et solitum sequatur an impeditius et intemptatum eoque hostibus incautum.  Delecta longiore via, cetera accelerantur :  etenim attulerant exploratores festam eam Germanis noctem, ac sollemnibus epulis ludicram.  Cæcina cum expeditis cohortibus præire et obstantia silvarum amoliri jubetur :  legiones modico intervallo sequuntur.  Juvit nox sideribus illustris, ventumque ad vicos Marsorum, et circumdatæ stationes stratis — etiam tum per cubilia propterque mensas, nullo metu, non antepositi vigiliis, adeo cuncta incuria disjecta erant ;  neque belli timor, ac ne pax quidem nisi languida et soluta inter temulentos.

[1.50]  There was exultation among the Germans, not far off, as long as we were detained by the public mourning for the loss of Augustus, and then by our mutinies.  But the Roman, in a forced march, cut through the Cæsian forest and the border causeway which had been begun by Tiberius, and pitched his camp on this causeway, shielded front and back by a palisade, on the sides by felled trees.  From there he penetrated some dark forest valleys, and deliberated whether of two routes he should pursue the short and ordinary one, or that which was more difficult, unexplored, and consequently unguarded by the enemy.  After the longer way had been chosen, everything else was speeded up, for his scouts had brought word that among the Germans it was a night of festivity, with a solemn banquet as entertainment.  Cæcina was ordered to advance with some light cohorts, and to clear away any obstructions from the woods.  The legions followed at a moderate interval.  They were helped by a night of bright starlight, reached the villages of the Marsi, and threw their pickets round the enemy, who even then were stretched on beds or alongside their tables, without the least fear, or any sentries before their camp, so complete was their carelessness and disorder;  and there was no fear of war, nor was there even peace except for the languid and heedless kind found among drunken people.

[1.51]  Cæsar avidas legiones quo latior populatio foret quattuor in cuneos dispertit ;  quinquaginta milium spatium ferro flammisque pervastat.  Non sexus, non ætas miserationem attulit :  profana simul et sacra et celeberrimum illis gentibus templum quod Tanfanæ vocabant solo æquantur.  Sine vulnere milites, qui semisomnos, inermos aut palantes ceciderant.  Excivit ea cædes Bructeros, Tubantes, Usipetes ;  saltusque per quos exercitui regressus insedere.  Quod gnarum duci, incessitque itineri et prœlio.  Pars equitum et auxiliariæ cohortes ducebant ;  mox Prima Legio, et mediis impedimentis sinistrum latus Unetvicesimani, dextrum Quintani clausere, Vicesima Legio terga firmavit, post ceteri sociorum.  Sed hostes, donec agmen per saltus porrigeretur, immoti, dein latera et frontem modice assultantes, tota vi novissimos incurrere.  Turbabanturque densis Germanorum catervis leves cohortes, quum Cæsar advectus ad Vicesimanos voce magna hoc illud tempus oblitterandæ seditionis clamitabat :  pergerent, properarent culpam in decus vertere.  Exarsere animis, unoque impetu perruptum hostem redigunt in aperta cæduntque :  simul primi agminis copiæ evasere silvas castraque communivere.  Quietum inde iter, fidensque recentibus ac priorum oblitus, miles in hibernis locatur.

[1.51]  Cæsar, to spread devastation more widely, divided his eager legions into four wedges, and ravaged a space of fifty miles with fire and sword.  Neither sex nor age moved his compassion.  Everything, things profane and sacred alike, including the highly celebrated temple of those peoples (which they called Tanfana’s), was levelled to the ground.  There was not a wound among our soldiers, who cut down a half-asleep, an unarmed, or a straggling foe.  The Bructeri, Tubantes, and Usipetes, were roused by this slaughter, and they beset the forested valley trails through which the army had to return.  The general knew this, and he marched, prepared both to advance and to fight.  Part of the cavalry, and some of the auxiliary cohorts led the van;  then came the First Legion, and, with the baggage in the center, the men of the twenty-first closed up the left, those of the fifth, the right flank.  The Twentieth Legion secured the rear, and, next, were the rest of the allies.  Meanwhile the enemy moved not till the army began to defile in column through the woods, then made slight skirmishing attacks on its flanks and van, and with his whole force charged the rear.  The light cohorts were thrown into confusion by the dense masses of the Germans, when Cæsar rode up to the men of the Twentieth Legion, and in a loud voice exclaimed that this was the time for wiping out the mutiny.  “Advance,” he said, “and hasten to turn your guilt into glory.”  This fired their courage, and at a single dash they broke through the enemy, and drove him back into the open country and slew him.  At the same moment the troops of the van emerged from the woods and intrenched a camp.  After this their march was uninterrupted, and the soldiery, with the confidence of recent success, and forgetful of the past, were placed in winter-quarters.

[1.52]  Nuntiata ea Tiberium lætitia curaque affecere :  gaudebat oppressam seditionem, sed quod largiendis pecuniis et missione festinata favorem militum quæsivisset, bellica quoque Germanici gloria angebatur.  Rettulit tamen ad Senatum de rebus gestis, multaque de virtute ejus memoravit, magis in speciem verbis adornata quam ut penitus sentire crederetur.  Paucioribus Drusum et finem Illyrici motus laudavit, sed intentior et fida oratione.  Cunctaque quæ Germanicus indulserat servavit etiam apud Pannonicos exercitus.

[1.52]  The news was a source of joy and also of anxiety to Tiberius.  He rejoiced that the mutiny was crushed, but the fact that Germanicus had won the soldiers’ favor by lavishing money and granting the early discharge, as well as his fame as a soldier, made him anxious.  Still, he reported to the Senate on the man’s achievements and commemorated his courage in a lengthy account whose verbal embellishments were aimed too much at display for it to be believed that he felt deeply.  He praised Drusus and the end of the Illyrian disturbance in fewer words, but more earnestly and in a convincing speech.  And everything that Germanicus had conceded he upheld for the Pannonian armies as well.

[1.53]  Eodem anno Julia supremum diem obiit, ob impudicitiam olim a patre Augusto Pandateria insula, mox oppido Reginorum, qui Siculum fretum accolunt, clausa.  Fuerat in matrimonio Tiberii, florentibus Gajo et Lucio Cæsaribus, spreveratque ut imparem ;  nec alia tam intima Tiberio causa cur Rhodum abscederet.  Imperium adeptus, extorrem, infamem et, post interfectum Postumum Agrippam, omnis spei egenam, inopia ac tabe longa peremit, obscuram fore necem longinquitate exilii ratus.  Par causa sævitiæ in Sempronium Gracchum, qui familia nobili, sollers ingenio et prave facundus, eandem Juliam in matrimonio Marci Agrippæ temeraverat.  Nec is libidini finis :  traditam Tiberio pervicax adulter contumacia et odiis in maritum accendebat ;  litteræque quas Julia patri Augusto cum insectatione Tiberii scripsit a Graccho compositæ credebantur.  Igitur amotus Cercinam, Africi maris insulam, quattuordecim annis exilium toleravit.  Tunc milites ad cædem missi invenere in prominenti litoris nihil lætum opperientem.  Quorum adventu breve tempus petivit ut suprema mandata uxori Alliariæ per litteras daret, cervicemque percussoribus obtulit ;  constantia mortis haud indignus Sempronio nomine ;  vita degeneraverat.  (Quidam non Roma eos milites, sed ab L. Asprenate pro consule Africæ, missos tradidere, auctore Tiberio, qui famam cædis posse in Asprenatem verti frustra speraverat.)

[1.53]  That same year Julia ended her days.  For her profligacy she had formerly been confined by her father Augustus in the island of Pandateria, and then in the town of the Regini on the shores of the straits of Sicily.  She had been the wife of Tiberius while Gajus and Lucius Cæsar were in their glory, and had disdained him as an unequal match.  This was Tiberius’s special reason for retiring to Rhodes.  When he obtained the empire, he left her in banishment and disgrace, deprived of all hope after the murder of Postumus Agrippa, and let her perish through poverty and long tuberculosis, with the idea that her death would be obscure due to the length of her exile.  He had a like motive for cruel vengeance on Sempronius Gracchus, a man of noble family, of shrewd understanding, and a perverse eloquence, who had seduced this same Julia when she was the wife of Marcus Agrippa.  And this was not the end of the intrigue.  When she had been handed over to Tiberius, her persistent paramour inflamed her with disobedience and hatred towards her husband;  and a letter which Julia wrote to her father, Augustus, inveighing against Tiberius, was believed to be the composition of Gracchus.  He was accordingly banished to Cercina, where he endured an exile of fourteen years.  Then the soldiers who were sent to slay him, found him on a promontory, expecting no good.  On their arrival, he begged a brief interval in which to give by letter his last instructions to his wife Alliaria, and then offered his neck to the executioners, dying with a courage not unworthy of the Sempronian name, which his degenerate life had dishonored.  Some have related that these soldiers were not sent from Rome, but by Lucius Asprenas, proconsul of Africa, on the authority of Tiberius, who had vainly hoped that the infamy of the murder might be shifted on Asprenas.

[1.54]  Idem annus novas cærimonias accepit, addito sodalium Augustalium sacerdotio, ut quondam Titus Tatius retinendis Sabinorum sacris sodales Titios instituerat.  Sorte ducti e primoribus civitatis unus et viginti ;  Tiberius Drususque et Claudius et Germanicus adjiciuntur.  Ludos Augustales tunc primum cœptos turbavit discordia ex certamine histrionum.  Indulserat ei ludicro Augustus, dum Mæcenati obtemperat effuso in amorem Bathylli ;  neque ipse abhorrebat talibus studiis ;  et civile rebatur, misceri voluptatibus vulgi.  Alia Tiberio morum via :  sed populum per tot annos molliter habitum nondum audebat ad duriora vertere.

[1.54]  The same year {a.D. 14} witnessed the establishment of religious ceremonies in a new priesthood of the brotherhood of the Augustales, just as in former days Titus Tatius, to retain the rites of the Sabines, had instituted the Titian brotherhood.  Twenty-one were chosen by lot from the chief men of the State;  Tiberius, Drusus, Claudius, and Germanicus, were added to the number.  The Augustal game’s which were then inaugurated, were disturbed by quarrels arising out of rivalry between the actors.  Augustus had shown indulgence to the entertainment by way of humoring Mæcenas’s extravagant passion for Bathyllus, nor did he himself dislike such amusements, and he thought it citizenlike to mingle in the pleasures of the populace.  Very different was the tendency of Tiberius’s character.  But a people so many years indulgently treated, he did not yet venture to put under harsher control.

[1.55]  Druso Cæsare C. Norbano consulibus, decernitur Germanico triumphus, manente bello ;  quod quanquam in æstatem summa ope parabat, initio veris et repentino in Chattos excursu præcepit.  Nam spes incesserat dissidere hostem in Arminium ac Segestem, insignem utrumque perfidia in nos aut fide.  Arminius turbator Germaniæ ;  Segestes parari rebellionem sæpe alias — et supremo convivio post quod in arma itum — aperuit, suasitque Varo ut se et Arminium et ceteros proceres vinciret :  nihil ausuram plebem, principibus amotis ;  atque ipsi tempus fore quo crimina et innoxios discerneret.  Sed Varus fato et vi Arminii cecidit ;  Segestes, quanquam consensu gentis in bellum tractus, discors manebat, auctis privatim odiis, quod Arminius filiam ejus alii pactam rapuerat :  gener invisus inimici soceri, quæque apud concordes vincula caritatis, incitamenta irarum apud infensos erant.

[1.55]  In the consulship of Drusus Cæsar and Gajus Norbanus {a.D. 15}, Germanicus had a triumph decreed him, though war still lasted.  And though it was for the summer campaign that he was most vigorously preparing, he acted ahead of time with a sudden inroad on the Chatti in the beginning of spring.  There had, in fact, sprung up a hope of the enemy being divided between Arminius and Segestes, famous, respectively, for treachery and loyalty towards us.  Arminius was the disturber of Germany.  Segestes often revealed the fact that a rebellion was being organized, more especially at that last banquet after which they rushed to arms, and he urged Varus to arrest himself and Arminius and all the other chiefs, assuring him that the people would attempt nothing if the leading men were removed, and that he would then have an opportunity of sifting accusations and distinguishing the innocent.  But Varus fell by fate and by the sword of Arminius, with whom Segestes, though dragged into war by the unanimous voice of the nation, continued to be at feud, his resentment being heightened by personal motives, as Arminius had married his daughter who was betrothed to another.  With a son-in-law detested, and fathers-in-law also at enmity, what are bonds of love between united hearts became with bitter foes incentives to fury.

[1.56]  Igitur Germanicus quattuor legiones, quinque auxiliarium milia et tumultuarias catervas Germanorum cis Rhenum colentium Cæcinæ tradit ;  totidem legiones, duplicem sociorum numerum ipse ducit, positoque castello super vestigia paterni præsidii in monte Tauno, expeditum exercitum in Chattos rapit, L. Apronio ad munitiones viarum et fluminum relicto.  Nam (rarum illi cælo) siccitate et amnibus modicis inoffensum iter properaverat, imbresque et fluminum auctus regredienti metuebatur.  Sed Chattis adeo improvisus advenit, ut quod imbecillum ætate ac sexu statim captum aut trucidatum sit.  Juventus flumen Adranam nando tramiserat, Romanosque pontem cœptantes arcebant.  Dein tormentis sagittisque pulsi, temptatis frustra condicionibus pacis, quum quidam ad Germanicum perfugissent, reliqui omissis pagis vicisque in silvas disperguntur.  Cæsar, incenso Mattio (id genti caput), aperta populatus, vertit ad Rhenum, non auso hoste terga abeuntium lacessere, quod illi moris, quotiens astu magis quam per formidinem cessit.  Fuerat animus Cheruscis juvare Chattos, sed exterruit Cæcina huc illuc ferens arma ;  et Marsos congredi ausos prospero prœlio cohibuit.

[1.56]  Germanicus accordingly gave Cæcina four legions, five thousand auxiliaries, with some hastily raised levies from the Germans dwelling on the left bank of the Rhine.  He was himself at the head of an equal number of legions and twice as many allies.  Having established a fort on the site of his father’s garrison on Mount Taunus he hurried his troops in quick marching order against the Chatti, leaving Lucius Apronius to fortify roads and rivers.  (With the drought — a rarity in that climate — and streams only moderate, his journey had been speedy and unobstructed, and there was a fear of rainstorms and swollen rivers on his return.)  But so suddenly did he come on the Chatti that all the helpless from age or sex were at once captured or slaughtered.  Their able-bodied men had swum across the river Eder, and were trying to keep back the Romans as they were commencing a bridge.  Subsequently they were driven back by missiles and arrows, and having in vain attempted for peace, some took refuge with Germanicus, while the rest leaving their cantons and villages dispersed themselves in their forests.  After burning Mattium, the capital of the tribe, and ravaging the open country, Germanicus marched back towards the Rhine, the enemy not daring to harass the rear of the retiring army (which is his custom whenever stratagem rather than alarm has caused his withdrawal).  It had been the intention of the Cherusci to help the Chatti;  but Cæcina thoroughly cowed them, moving his arms here and there, and the Marsi who dared to engage him, he checked in a successful battle.

[1.57]  Neque multo post legati a Segeste venerunt auxilium orantes adversus vim popularium a quis circumsedebatur, validiore apud eos Arminio, quoniam bellum suadebat :  nam barbaris, quanto quis audacia promptus, tanto magis fidus rebusque motis potior habetur.  Addiderat Segestes legatis filium, nomine Segimundum :  sed juvenis conscientia cunctabatur.  Quippe anno quo Germaniæ descivere sacerdos apud aram Ubiorum creatus ruperat vittas, profugus ad rebellis.  Adductus tamen in spem clementiæ Romanæ pertulit patris mandata, benigneque exceptus cum præsidio Gallicam in ripam missus est.  Germanico pretium fuit convertere agmen, pugnatumque in obsidentes, et ereptus Segestes magna cum propinquorum et clientium manu.  Inerant feminæ nobiles, inter quas uxor Arminii, eademque filia Segestis, mariti magis quam parentis animo, neque victa in lacrimas neque voce supplex ;  compressis intra sinum manibus gravidum uterum intuens.  Ferebantur et spolia Varianæ cladis, plerisque eorum qui tum in deditionem veniebant prædæ data :  simul Segestes ipse, ingens visu et memoria bonæ societatis impavidus.

[1.57]  Not long after envoys came from Segestes, imploring aid against the violence of his fellow-countrymen, by whom he was hemmed in, and with whom Arminius had greater influence, because he counselled war.  For with barbarians, the more eager a man’s daring, the more does he inspire confidence, and the more highly is he esteemed in turbulent conditions.  With the envoys Segestes had associated his son, by name Segimundus, but the youth hung back from a consciousness of guilt.  For in the year of the revolt of Germany he had been appointed a priest at the altar of the Ubii, and had rent the sacred garlands, and fled to the rebels.  Induced, however, to hope for mercy from Rome, he brought his father’s message;  he was graciously received and sent with an escort to the Gallic bank of the Rhine.  It was now worth while for Germanicus to march back his army.  A battle was fought against the besiegers and Segestes was rescued with a numerous band of kinsfolk and dependents.  In the number were some women of rank;  among them, the wife of Arminius, who was also the daughter of Segestes, but who exhibited the spirit of her husband rather than of her father, subdued neither to tears nor to the tones of a suppliant, her hands tightly clasped within her bosom, and eyes which dwelt on her hope of offspring.  The spoils also taken in the defeat of Varus were brought in, having been given as plunder to many of those who were then being surrendered.  Segestes too was there in person, a stately figure, fearless in the remembrance of having been a faithful ally.

[1.58]  Verba ejus in hunc modum fuere :  “Non hic mihi primus erga populum Romanum fidei et constantiæ dies.  Ex quo a divo Augusto civitate donatus sum, amicos inimicosque ex vestris utilitatibus delegi, neque odio patriæ (quippe proditores etiam eis quos anteponunt invisi sunt), verum quia Romanis Germanisque idem conducere, et pacem quam bellum probabam.  Ergo raptorem filiæ meæ, violatorem fœderis vestri, Arminium, apud Varum, qui tum exercitui præsidebat, reum feci.  Dilatus segnitia ducis, quia parum præsidii in legibus erat, ut me et Arminium et conscios vinciret flagitavi :  ¡ testis illa nox, mihi utinam potius novissima !  Quæ secuta sunt defleri magis quam defendi possunt :  ceterum, et injeci catenas Arminio et a factione ejus injectas perpessus sum.  Atque ubi primum tui copia, vetera novis et quieta turbidis antehabeo, neque ob præmium, sed ut me perfidia exsolvam, simul genti Germanorum idoneus conciliator, si pænitentiam quam perniciem maluerit.  Pro juventa et errore filii veniam precor :  filiam necessitate huc adductam fateor.  Tuum erit consultare utrum prævaleat quod ex Arminio concepit an quod ex me genita est.”  Cæsar clementi responso liberis propinquisque ejus incolumitatem, ipsi sedem vetere in provincia pollicetur.  Exercitum reduxit nomenque imperatoris auctore Tiberio accepit.  Arminii uxor virilis sexus stirpem edidit :  educatus Ravennæ puer quo mox ludibrio conflictatus sit in tempore memorabo.

[1.58]  His speech was to this effect.  “This is not my first day of steadfast loyalty towards the Roman people.  From the time that the Divine Augustus gave me the citizenship, I have chosen my friends and foes with an eye to your advantage, not from hatred of my fatherland (for traitors are detested even by those whom they prefer) but because I held that the same thing is of benefit to both Romans and Germans, and that peace is better than war.  And therefore I denounced to Varus, who then commanded your army, Arminius, the ravisher of my daughter, the violater of your treaty.  I was put off by that dilatory general, and, as I found but little protection in the laws, I urged him to arrest myself, Arminius, and his accomplices.  That night is my witness;  would that it had been my last.  What followed, may be deplored rather than defended.  But I did put Arminius in irons and did endure them put on myself by his partisans.  And now at my first opportunity with you, I favor the old situation over the new, peace over turmoil, not for a reward, but to clear myself from treachery and at the same time to be a fit mediator for a German people, should they choose repentance rather than annihilation.  For the youth and error of my son I entreat forgiveness.  As for my daughter, I admit that it is by compulsion she has been brought here.  It will be for you to consider which fact weighs most with you, that she is with child by Arminius or that she owes her being to me.”  Cæsar in a gracious reply promised safety to his children and kinsfolk and a home for himself in the old province.  He then led back the army and received on the proposal of Tiberius the title of Imperator.  The wife of Arminius gave birth to a male child ;  at the appropriate time I will discuss the humiliation later inflicted on the boy, who was brought up in Ravenna.

[1.59]  Fama dediti benigneque excepti Segestis vulgata, ut quibusque bellum invitis aut cupientibus erat, spe vel dolore accipitur.  Arminium super insitam violentiam, rapta uxor, subjectus servitio uxoris uterus, vecordem agebant, volitabatque per Cheruscos, arma in Segestem, arma in Cæsarem poscens.  Neque probris temperabat :  Egregium patrem, magnum imperatorem, fortem exercitum, quorum tot manus unam mulierculam avexerint.  Sibi tres legiones, totidem legatos procubuisse ;  non enim se proditione neque adversus feminas gravidas, sed palam adversus armatos bellum tractare.  Cerni adhuc Germanorum in lucis signa Romana, quæ dis patriis suspenderit.  Coleret Segestes victam ripam, redderet filio sacerdotium hominum :  Germanos nunquam satis excusaturos quod inter Albim et Rhenum virgas et secures et togam viderint.  Aliis gentibus, ignorantia imperii Romani, inexperta esse supplicia, nescia tributa :  quæ quoniam exuerint — irritusque discesserit ille inter numina dicatus Augustus, ille delectus Tiberius —, ne imperitum adulescentulum, ne seditiosum exercitum pavescerent.  Si patriam, parentes, antiqua mallent quam dominos et colonias novas, Arminium potius gloriæ ac libertatis quam Segestem flagitiosæ servitutis ducem sequerentur.

[1.59]  The report of the surrender and kind reception of Segestes, when generally known, was heard with hope or grief according as men shrank from war or desired it.  Arminius, with his naturally furious temper, was driven to frenzy by the seizure of his wife and the foredooming to slavery of his wife’s unborn child.  He flew hither and thither among the Cherusci, demanding “war against Segestes, war against Cæsar.”  And he refrained not from taunts.  “Noble the father,” he would say, “mighty the general, brave the army which, with such strength, has carried off one weak woman.  Before me, three legions, three commanders have fallen.  Not by treachery, not against pregnant women, but openly against armed men do I wage war.  There are still to be seen in the groves of Germany the Roman standards which I hung up to our country’s gods.  Let Segestes dwell on the conquered bank;  let him restore to his son a priesthood for human beings;  one thing there is which Germans will never sufficiently excuse, their having seen between the Elbe and the Rhine the Roman rods, axes, and toga.  Other nations in their ignorance of Roman rule, have no experience of punishments, know nothing of tributes, and, as we have divested ourselves of them, and since Augustus, that figure consecrated among the gods, and Tiberius, that chosen one, have withdrawn thwarted, let us not quail before an inexperienced juvenile, before a mutinous army.  If you prefer your fatherland, your ancestors, your ancient life to tyrants and to new colonies, follow as your leader Arminius to glory and to freedom rather than Segestes to ignominious servitude.”

[1.60]  Conciti per hæc non modo Cherusci, sed conterminæ gentes, tractusque in partes Inguiomerus, Arminii patruus, vetere apud Romanos auctoritate ;  unde major Cæsari metus.  Et ne bellum mole una ingrueret, Cæcinam cum quadraginta cohortibus Romanis distrahendo hosti per Bructeros ad flumen Amisiam mittit ;  equitem Pedo præfectus finibus Frisiorum ducit.  Ipse impositas navibus quattuor legiones per lacus vexit ;  simulque pedes, eques, classes apud prædictum amnem convenere.  Chauci quum auxilia pollicerentur, in commilitium asciti sunt.  Bructeros sua urentes expedita cum manu L. Stertinius missu Germanici fudit ;  interque cædem et prædam repperit Undevicesimæ Legionis aquilam cum Varo amissam.  Ductum inde agmen ad ultimos Bructerorum, quantumque Amisiam et Lupiam amnes inter vastatum, haud procul Teutoburgiensi Saltu in quo reliquiæ Vari legionumque insepultæ dicebantur.

[1.60]  This language roused not only the Cherusci but the neighboring tribes and drew to their side Inguiomerus, the uncle of Arminius, who had long been respected by the Romans.  This increased Cæsar’s alarm.  That the war might not burst in all its fury on one point, he sent Cæcina through the Bructeri to the river Ems with forty Roman cohorts to distract the enemy, while the cavalry was led by its commander Pedo by the territories of the Frisii.  Germanicus himself put four legions on shipboard and conveyed them through the lakes, and the infantry, cavalry, and fleet met simultaneously at the river already mentioned.  The Chauci, on promising aid, were associated with us in military fellowship.  Lucius Stertinius was despatched by Germanicus with a flying column and routed the Bructeri as they were burning their possessions, and amid the carnage and plunder, found the eagle of the Nineteenth Legion which had been lost with Varus.  The troops were then marched to the furthest frontier of the Bructeri, and all the country between the rivers Ems and Lippe was ravaged, not far from the Salt riverbank of Teutoburg where the remains of Varus and his legions were said to lie unburied.

[1.61]  Igitur cupido Cæsarem invadit solvendi suprema militibus ducique, permoto ad miserationem omni qui aderat exercitu, ob propinquos, amicos, denique ob casus bellorum et sortem hominum.  Præmisso Cæcina ut occulta Saltuum scrutaretur, pontesque et aggeres umido paludum et fallacibus campis imponeret, incedunt mæstos locos visuque ac memoria deformes.  Primo, Vari castra lato ambitu et dimensis principiis trium legionum manus ostentabant ;  dein semiruto vallo, humili fossa, accisæ jam reliquiæ consedisse intellegebantur :  medio campi albentia ossa, ut fugerant, ut restiterant, disjecta vel aggerata.  Adjacebant fragmina telorum equorumque artus, simul truncis arborum antefixa ora.  Lucis propinquis barbaræ aræ, apud quas tribunos ac primorum ordinum centuriones mactaverant.  Et cladis ejus superstites, pugnam aut vincula elapsi, referebant hic cecidisse legatos, illic raptas aquilas ;  primum ubi vulnus Varo adactum, ubi infelici dextera et suo ictu mortem invenerit ;  quo tribunali contionatus Arminius, quot patibula captivis, quæ scrobes, utque signis et aquilis per superbiam illuserit.

[1.61]  Germanicus upon this was seized with an eager longing to pay the last honor to those soldiers and their general, while the whole army present was moved to compassion by the thought of their kinsfolk and friends, and, indeed, of the calamities of wars and the lot of mankind.  Having sent on Cæcina in advance to reconnoiter the hideways of the Salt riverbanks, and to raise bridges and causeways over watery swamps and treacherous fields, they visited the mournful scenes, with their horrible sights and associations.  First there was Varus’ camp with its wide perimeter and headquarters measured out, demonstrating the handiwork of three legions ;  then, in the half-destroyed rampart, in a shallow ditch, their remnants, now cut to pieces, had evidently huddled together.  In the middle of the plain there were whitening bones, scattered or piled up, exactly as men had fled or resisted.  Nearby lay fragments of weapons and horses’ limbs, and also, on the trunks of trees, skulls were impaled.  In the neighboring groves wee barbarian altars, at which they had sacrificed tribunes and master centurions.  Some survivors of the disaster who had escaped from the battle or from captivity, described how this was the spot where the officers fell, how yonder the eagles were captured, where Varus was pierced by his first wound, where too by the stroke of his own ill-starred hand he found for himself death.  They pointed out too the raised ground from which Arminius had harangued his army, the number of Y-shaped shackling-posts there had been for the captives, and which were the pits, and how in his haughtiness he had mocked the standards and eagles.

[1.62]  Igitur Romanus qui aderat exercitus sextum post cladis annum trium legionum ossa, nullo noscente alienas reliquias an suorum, humo tegeret, omnes ut conjunctos, ut consanguineos, aucta in hostem ira, mæsti simul et infensi condebant.  Primum extruendo tumulo cæspitem Cæsar posuit, gratissimo munere in defunctos, et præsentibus doloris socius.  Quod Tiberio haud probatum, seu cuncta Germanici in deterius trahenti, sive exercitum imagine cæsorum insepultorumque tardatum ad prœlia et formidolosiorem hostium credebat ;  neque imperatorem auguratu et vetustissimis cærimoniis præditum attrectare feralia debuisse.

[1.62]  And so the Roman army now on the spot, six years after the disaster, with none knowing whether it was someone else’s or his own family’s remains that he was covering with earth, but all of them sorrowing and ferocious as their anger at the enemy mounted, started to bury the bones of the three legions as if they were kith and kin.  In raising the barrow Cæsar laid the first sod, rendering thus a most welcome honor to the dead, and sharing also in the sorrow of those present.  This Tiberius did not approve, either interpreting unfavorably every act of Germanicus, or because he thought that the spectacle of the slain and unburied made the army slow to fight and more afraid of the enemy, and that a general invested with the augurate and its very ancient ceremonies ought not to have handled funeral rites.

[1.63]  Sed Germanicus cedentem in avia Arminium secutus, ubi primum copia fuit, evehi equites, campumque quem hostis insederat eripi jubet.  Arminius colligi suos et propinquare silvis monitos vertit repente ;  mox signum prorumpendi dedit eis quos per saltus occultaverat.  Tunc nova acie turbatus eques ;  missæque subsidiariæ cohortes et fugientium agmine impulsæ auxerant consternationem ;  trudebanturque in paludem gnaram vincentibus, iniquam nesciis, ni Cæsar productas legiones instruxisset :  inde hostibus terror, fiducia militi ;  et manibus æquis abscessum.  Mox reducto ad Amisiam exercitu, legiones classe, ut advexerat, reportat ;  pars equitum litore Oceani petere Rhenum jussa ;  Cæcina, qui suum militem ducebat, monitus — quanquam notis itineribus regrederetur — Pontes Longos quam maturrime superare.  (Angustus is trames vastas inter paludes et quondam a L. Domitio aggeratus, cetera limosa, tenacia gravi cæno aut rivis incerta erant ;  circum silvæ paulatim acclives quas tum Arminius implevit, compendiis viarum et cito agmine onustum sarcinis armisque militem quum antevenisset.)  Cæcinæ dubitanti quonam modo ruptos vetustate pontes reponeret simulque propulsaret hostem, castra metari in loco placuit, ut opus et alii prœlium inciperent.

[1.63]  Germanicus, however, pursued Arminius as he fell back into trackless wilds, and as soon as he had the opportunity, ordered his cavalry to sally forth and seize the level ground occupied by the enemy.  Arminius having bidden his men to concentrate themselves and keep close to the woods, suddenly wheeled round, and soon gave those whom he had concealed in the forest defiles the signal to rush to the attack.  Thereupon our cavalry was thrown into disorder by this new force, and some cohorts in reserve were sent, which, broken by the shock of flying troops, increased the panic.  They were being pushed into a swamp well known to the victorious assailants, perilous to men unacquainted with it, when Cæsar deployed the legions he had drawn up.  This struck terror into the enemy and gave confidence to our men, and they disengaged without advantage to either.  Soon afterwards Germanicus led back his army to the Ems, taking his legions by the fleet, as he had brought them up.  Part of the cavalry was ordered to make for the Rhine along the sea-coast.  Cæcina, who commanded a division of his own, was advised, though he was returning by a route which he knew, to pass Long Bridges with all possible speed.  (This was a narrow road amid vast swamps, which had formerly been constructed by Lucius Domitius ;  on every side were quagmires of thick clinging mud, or perilous with streams.  Around were woods on a gradual slope, which Arminius now completely occupied, as soon as by a short route and quick march he had outstripped troops heavily laden with baggage and arms.)  As Cæcina was in doubt how he could possibly replace bridges which were ruinous from age, and at the same time hold back the enemy, he resolved to encamp on the spot, that some might begin the repair and others the battle.

[1.64]  Barbari, perfringere stationes seque inferre munitoribus nisi, lacessunt, circumgrediuntur, occursant :  miscetur operantium bellantiumque clamor.  Et cuncta pariter Romanis adversa, locus uligine profunda, idem ad gradum instabilis, procedentibus lubricus, corpora gravia loricis ;  neque librare pila inter undas poterant.  Contra Cheruscis sueta apud paludes prœlia, procera membra, hastæ ingentes ad vulnera facienda quamvis procul.  Nox demum inclinantes jam legiones adversæ pugnæ exemit.  Germani ob prospera indefessi, ne tum quidem sumpta quiete, quantum aquarum circum surgentibus jugis oritur vertēre in subjecta ;  mersaque humo et obruto quod effectum operis, duplicatus militi labor.  Quadragesimum id stipendium Cæcina parendi aut imperitandi habebat, secundarum ambiguarumque rerum sciens, eoque interritus.  Igitur futura volvens non aliud repperit quam ut hostem silvis coërceret, donec saucii quantumque gravioris agminis anteirent ;  nam medio montium et paludum porrigebatur planities, quæ tenuem aciem pateretur.  Deliguntur legiones :  Quinta dextro lateri ;  Unetvicesima in lævum ;  Primani ducendum ad agmen ;  Vicesimanus adversum secuturos.

[1.64]  The barbarians attempted to break through the outposts and to throw themselves on the engineering parties, which they harassed, pacing round them and continually charging them.  There was a confused din from the men at work and the combatants.  Everything alike was unfavorable to the Romans, the place with its deep marsh, insecure to the foot and slippery as one advanced, limbs burdened with coats of mail, and the impossibility of aiming their javelins amid the water.  The Cherusci, on the other hand, were familiar with fighting in fens;  they had huge frames, and lances long enough to inflict wounds even at a distance.  Night at last released the legions, which were now wavering, from a disastrous engagement.  The Germans whom success rendered unwearied, without even then taking any rest, turned all the streams which rose from the slopes of the surrounding hills into the lands beneath.  The ground being thus flooded and the completed portion of our works submerged, the soldiers’ labor was doubled.  This was Cæcina’s fortieth campaign as a subordinate or a commander, and, with such experience of success and peril, he was perfectly fearless.  As he thought over future possibilities, he could devise no plan but to keep the enemy within the woods, till the wounded and the more encumbered troops were in advance.  For between the hills and the swamps there stretched a plain which would admit of a thin line of battle.  The legions had their assigned places, the Fifth on the right wing, the Twenty-first on the left, the men of the First to lead the van, the Twentieth to repel pursuers.

[1.65]  Nox per diversa inquies, quum barbari festis epulis, læto cantu aut truci sonore subjecta vallium ac resultantes saltus complerent, apud Romanos invalidi ignes, interruptæ voces, atque ipsi passim adjacerent vallo, oberrarent tentoriis, insomnes magis quam pervigiles.

Ducemque terruit dira quies :  nam Quintilium Varum sanguine oblitum et paludibus emersum cernere et audire visus est velut vocantem, non tamen obsecutus et manum intendentis reppulisse.

Cœpta luce, missæ in latera legiones, metu an contumacia, locum deseruere, capto propere campo umentia ultra.  Neque tamen Arminius, quanquam libero incursu, statim prorupit :  sed ut hæsere cæno fossisque impedimenta, turbati circum milites, incertus signorum ordo, utque tali in tempore sibi quisque properus et lentæ adversum imperia aures, irrumpere Germanos jubet, clamitans, “¡ En Varus eodemque iterum fato vinctæ legiones !”  Simul hæc et cum delectis scindit agmen, equisque maxime vulnera ingerit.  Illi, sanguine suo et lubrico paludum lapsantes, excussis rectoribus disjicere obvios, proterere jacentes.  Plurimus circa aquilas labor, quæ neque ferri adversum ingruentia tela neque figi limosa humo poterant.  Cæcina dum sustentat aciem, suffosso equo delapsus circumveniebatur, ni Prima Legio sese opposuisset.  Juvit hostium aviditas, omissa cæde prædam sectantium, enisæque legiones vesperascente die in aperta et solida.  Neque is miseriarum finis.  Struendum vallum, petendus agger, amissis magna ex parte per quæ geritur humus aut exciditur cæspes ;  non tentoria manipulis, non fomenta sauciis ;  infectos cæno aut cruore cibos dividentes funestas tenebras et tot hominum milibus unum jam reliquum diem lamentabantur.

[1.65]  It was a restless night for different reasons, the barbarians in their festivity filling the valleys under the hills and the echoing glens with merry song or savage shouts, while in the Roman camp were flickering fires, broken exclamations, and the men lay scattered along the intrenchments or wandered from tent to tent, wakeful rather than watchful.

A ghastly dream terrified the general.  He seemed to see Quintilius Varus, covered with blood, rising out of the swamps, and to hear him, as it were, calling to him, but he did not, as he imagined, obey the call;  he even repelled his hand, as he stretched it over him.

At daybreak the legions, posted on the wings, from panic or perversity, deserted their position and hastily occupied a plain beyond the morass.  Yet Arminius, though free to attack, did not at the moment rush out on them.  But when the baggage was clogged in the mud and in the fosses, the soldiers around it in disorder, the array of the standards in confusion, every one in selfish haste and all ears deaf to the word of command he ordered the Germans to charge, exclaiming again and again, “Behold a Varus and legions once more entangled in Varus’s fate.”  As he spoke, he cut through the column with some picked men, inflicting wounds chiefly on the horses.  Staggering in their blood on the slippery marsh, they shook off their riders, driving hither and thither all in their way, and trampling on the fallen.  The struggle was hottest round the eagles, which could neither be carried in the face of the storm of missiles, nor planted in the miry soil.  Cæcina, while he was keeping up the battle, fell from his horse, which was pierced under him, and was being hemmed in, when the First Legion threw itself in the way.  The greed of the foe helped him, for they left the slaughter to secure the spoil, and the legions, towards evening, struggled on to open and firm ground.  Nor did this end their miseries.  A rampart had to be thrown up, materials fetched for its embankment, despite their having lost most of the things with which earth is carried or turf cut out.  There were no tents for the rank and file, no comforts for the wounded.  As they shared their food, soiled by mire or blood, they bewailed the darkness with its awful omen, and the one day which yet remained to so many thousand men.

[1.66]  Forte equus, abruptis vinculis, vagus et clamore territus quosdam occurrentium obturbavit.  Tanta inde consternatio irrupisse Germanos credentium ut cuncti ruerent ad portas, quarum decumana maxime petebatur, aversa hosti et fugientibus tutior.  Cæcina, comperto vanam esse formidinem, quum tamen neque auctoritate neque precibus, ne manu quidem obsistere aut retinere militem quiret, projectus in limine portæ miseratione demum, quia per corpus legati eundum erat, clausit viam.  Simul tribuni et centuriones falsum pavorem esse docuerunt.

[1.66]  It chanced that a horse, which had broken its halter and wandered wildly in fright at the uproar, knocked down some of the men getting in its way.  Thence arose such a panic, from the belief that the Germans had burst into the camp, that all rushed to the gates.  Of these the decuman {back} gate was the point chiefly sought, as it was furthest from the enemy and safer for flight.  Cæcina, having ascertained that the alarm was groundless, yet being unable to stop or stay the soldiers by authority or entreaties or even by force, threw himself to the earth in the gateway, and at last by an appeal to their pity, as they would have had to pass over the body of their commander, closed the way.  At the same moment the tribunes and the centurions convinced them that it was a false alarm.

[1.67]  Tunc contractos in principia jussosque dicta cum silentio accipere, temporis ac necessitatis monet.  Unam in armis salutem, sed ea consilio temperanda, manendumque intra vallum, donec expugnandi hostes spe propius succederent ;  mox undique erumpendum :  illa eruptione ad Rhenum perveniri.  Quodsi fugerent, plures silvas, profundas magis paludes, sævitiam hostium superesse ;  at victoribus decus, gloriam.  Quæ domi cara, quæ in castris honesta, memorat ;  reticuit de adversis.  Equos dehinc — orsus a suis — legatorum tribunorumque, nulla ambitione, fortissimo cuique bellatori tradit, ut hi, mox pedes in hostem invaderent.

[1.67]  Having then assembled them at his headquarters, and ordered them to hear his words in silence, he warned them of the crisis and its urgency.  “Their safety,” he said, “lay in their arms, which they must, however, use cool-headedly, and they must remain within the entrenchments, till the enemy, in the hope of storming them, approached closer;  then, there must be a general sortie;  by that charge the Rhine would be reached.  Whereas if they fled, more forests, deeper swamps, and a savage foe awaited them;  but if they were victorious, prestige and glory would be theirs.”  He dwelt on all that was dear to them at home, all that testified to their honor in the camp, without any allusion to disaster.  Next he handed over the horses, beginning with his own, of the officers and tribunes, to the bravest fighters in the army, quite impartially, that these first, and then the infantry, might charge the enemy.

[1.68]  Haud minus inquies Germanus spe, cupidine et diversis ducum sententiis agebat, Arminio sinerent egredi egressosque rursum per umida et impedita circumvenirent suadente, atrociora Inguiomero et læta barbaris, ut vallum armis ambirent :  promptam expugnationem ;  plures captivos, incorruptam prædam fore.  Igitur orta die proruunt fossas, injiciunt crates, summa valli prensant, raro super milite et quasi ob metum defixo.  Postquam hæsere munimentis, datur cohortibus signum, cornuaque ac tubæ concinuere.  Exin clamore et impetu tergis Germanorum circumfunduntur, exprobrantes non hic silvas nec paludes, sed æquis locis æquos deos.  Hosti facile excidium et paucos ac semermos cogitanti, sonus tubarum, fulgor armorum, quanto inopina, tanto majora offunduntur, cadebantque — ut rebus secundis avidi, ita adversis incauti.  Arminius integer, Inguiomerus post grave vulnus pugnam deseruere :  vulgus trucidatum est, donec ira et dies permansit.  Nocte demum reversæ legiones, quamvis plus vulnerum, eadem ciborum egestas fatigaret, vim, sanitatem, copias, cuncta in victoria habuere.

[1.68]  There was as much restlessness in the German host with its hopes, its eager longings, and the conflicting opinions of its chiefs.  Arminius advised that they should allow the Romans to quit their position, and, when they had quitted it, again surprise them in swampy and intricate ground.  Inguiomerus, with fiercer counsels, heartily welcome to barbarians, was for beleaguering the entrenchment in armed array, as to storm them would, he said, be easy, and there would be more prisoners and the booty unspoilt.  So at daybreak they trampled in the fosses, flung hurdles into them, seized the upper part of the breastwork, where the troops were thinly distributed and seemingly paralysed by fear.  When they were fairly within the fortifications, the signal was given to the cohorts, and the horns and trumpets sounded.  Instantly, with a shout and sudden rush, our men threw themselves on the German rear, with taunts, that here were no woods or swamps, but that they were on even ground, with even gods.  The sound of trumpets, the gleam of arms, which were so unexpected, burst with all the greater effect on the enemy, thinking only, as they were, of the easy destruction of a few half-armed men, and they were struck down, as unprepared for a reverse as they had been elated by success.  Arminius and Inguiomerus fled from the battle, the first unhurt, the other severely wounded.  Their followers were slaughtered, as long as our fury and the light of day lasted.  It was not till night that the legions returned, and though more wounds and the same want of provisions distressed them, yet they found strength, healing, sustenance, everything indeed, in their victory.

[1.69]  Pervaserat interim circumventi exercitus fama et infesto Germanorum agmine Gallias peti, ac ni Agrippina impositum Rheno pontem solvi prohibuisset, erant qui id flagitium formidine auderent.  Sed femina ingens animi munia ducis per eos dies induit, militibusque ut quis inops aut saucius vestem et fomenta dilargita est.  Tradit C. Plinius Germanicorum bellorum scriptor, stetisse apud principium ponti laudes et grates reversis legionibus habentem.  Id Tiberii animum altius penetravit :  non enim simplices eas curas, nec adversus externos studia militum quæri.  Nihil relictum imperatoribus, ubi femina manipulos intervisat, signa adeat, largitionem temptet — tanquam parum ambitiose filium ducis gregali habitu circumferat, ‘Cæsaremque Caligulam’ appellari velit.  Potiorem jam apud exercitus Agrippinam quam legatos, quam duces ;  compressam a muliere seditionem cui nomen principis obsistere non quiverit.  Accendebat hæc onerabatque Sejanus, peritia morum Tiberii, odia in longum jaciens quæ reconderet, auctaque promeret.

[1.69]  Meanwhile a rumor had spread that our army was cut off, and that a furious German host was marching on Gaul.  And had not Agrippina prevented the bridge over the Rhine from being destroyed, some in their cowardice would have dared that base act.  A woman of heroic spirit, she assumed during those days the duties of a general, and distributed clothes or medicine among the soldiers, as they were destitute or wounded.  According to Gajus Plinius, the historian of the German wars, she stood at the extremity of the bridge, and bestowed praise and thanks on the returning legions.  This made a deep impression on the mind of Tiberius.  “Such zeal,” he thought, “could not be guileless;  it was not against a foreign foe that she was thus courting the soldiers.  Generals had nothing left them when a woman went among the companies, attended the standards, ventured on bribery, as though it showed but slight ambition to parade her son in a common soldier’s uniform, and wish him to be called Cæsar Caligula.  Agrippina had now more power with the armies than officers, than generals.  A woman had quelled a mutiny which the sovereign’s name could not check.”  All this was inflamed and aggravated by Sejanus, who, with his thorough comprehension of the character of Tiberius, sowing hatreds for the long term which he would conceal and, when matured, unleash.

[1.70]  At Germanicus legionum quas navibus vexerat Secundam et Quartam Decimam itinere terrestri P. Vitellio ducendas tradit, quo levior classis vadoso mari innaret vel reciproco sideret.  Vitellius primum iter sicca humo aut modice allabente æstu quietum habuit :  mox impulsu aquilonis, simul sidere æquinoctii, quo maxime tumescit Oceanus, rapi agique agmen.  Et opplebantur terræ:  eadem freto, litori, campis facies, neque discemi poterant incerta ab solidis, brevia a profundis.  Sternuntur fluctibus, hauriuntur gurgitibus ;  jumenta, sarcinæ, corpora exanima interfluunt, occursant.  Permiscentur inter se manipuli, modo pectore, modo ore tenus exstantes, aliquando, subtracto solo, disjecti aut obruti.  Non vox et mutui hortatus juvabant, adversante unda ;  nihil strenuus ab ignavo, sapiens ab imprudenti, consilia a casu differre :  cuncta pari violentia involvebantur.  Tandem Vitellius, in editiora enisus, eodem agmen subduxit.  Pernoctavere sine utensilibus, sine igni, magna pars nudo aut mulcato corpore, haud minus miserabiles quam quos hostis circumsidet :  quippe illic etiam honestæ mortis usus, his inglorium exitium.  Lux reddidit terram, penetratumque ad amnem Rhenum {manuscriptum :  Visurgin}, quo Cæsar classe contenderat.  Impositæ dein legiones — vagante fama summersas ;  nec fides salutis, antequam Cæsarem exercitumque reducem videre.

[1.70]  Of the legions which he had conveyed by ship, Germanicus gave the Second and Fourteenth to Publius Vitellius, to be marched by land, so that the fleet might sail more easily over a sea full of shoals, or run aground more lightly at the ebb-tide.  Vitellius at first pursued his route without interruption, having a dry shore, or the waves coming in gently.  After a while, through the force of the north wind and the equinoctial season, when the sea swells to its highest, his army was driven and tossed hither and thither.  The country too was flooded;  sea, shore, fields presented one aspect, nor could the treacherous quicksands be distinguished from solid ground or shallows from deep water.  Men were swept away by the waves or sucked under by eddies;  beasts of burden, baggage, lifeless bodies floated about and blocked their way.  The companies were mingled in confusion, now with the breast, now with the head only above water, sometimes losing their footing and parted from their comrades or drowned.  The voice of mutual encouragement availed not against the adverse force of the waves.  There was nothing to distinguish the brave from the coward, the prudent from the careless, forethought from chance;  the same strong power swept everything before it.  At last Vitellius struggled out to higher ground and led his men up to it.  There they passed the night, without necessary food, without fire, many of them with bare or beaten limbs, in a plight as pitiable as that of men besieged by an enemy.  For there, indeed, there was an encounter with an honorable death, while for them there was inglorious extermination.  Daylight restored land to their sight, and they pushed their way to the river Rhein {manuscript :  Weser}, for which Cæsar had been making with the fleet.  The legions were then put aboard, who were rumored to have drowned.  Nor was there a belief in their safety till they saw Cæsar and the army returned.

[1.71]  Jam Stertinius, ad accipiendum in deditionem Segimerum fratrem Segestis præmissus, ipsum et filium ejus in civitatem Ubiorum perduxerat.  Data utrique venia, facile Segimero, cunctantius filio, quia Quintilii Vari corpus illusisse dicebatur.  Ceterum ad supplenda exercitus damna certavere Galliæ, Hispaniæ, Italia, quod cuique promptum, arma, equos, aurum offerentes.  Quorum laudato studio Germanicus, armis modo et equis ad bellum sumptis, propria pecunia militem juvit.  Utque cladis memoriam etiam comitate leniret, circumire saucios, facta singulorum extollere ;  vulnera intuens alium spe, alium gloria, cunctos alloquio et cura, sibique et prœlio firmabat.

[1.71]  By this time Stertinius, who had been despatched to receive the surrender of Segimerus, brother of Segestes, had conducted the chief, together with his son, to the canton of the Ubii.  Both were pardoned, Segimerus readily, the son with some hesitation, because it was said that he had insulted the corpse of Quintilius Varus.  Meanwhile Gaul, Spain, and Italy vied in repairing the losses of the army, offering whatever they had at hand, arms, horses, gold.  Germanicus having praised their zeal, took only for the war their arms and horses, and relieved the soldiers out of his own purse.  And that he might also soften the remembrance of the disaster by kindness, he went round to the wounded, applauded the feats of soldier after soldier, examined their wounds, raised the hopes of one, the ambition of another, and the spirits of all by his encouragement and interest, thus strengthening their ardor for himself and for battle.

[1.72]  Decreta eo anno triumphalia insignia A. Cæcinæ, L. Apronio, C. Silio ob res cum Germanico gestas.  Nomen “Patris Patriæ” Tiberius, a populo sæpius ingestum, repudiavit ;  neque in acta sua jurari, quanquam censente Senatu, permisit, cuncta mortalium incerta, quantoque plus adeptus foret, tanto se magis in lubrico dictitans.  Non tamen ideo faciebat fidem civilis animi.  Nam legem Majestatis reduxerat, cui nomen apud veteres idem, sed alia in judicium veniebant :  si quis proditione exercitum aut plebem seditionibus, denique male gesta Re Publica “majestatem populi Romani” minuisset ;  facta arguebantur, dicta impune erant.  Primus Augustus cognitionem de famosis libellis specie legis ejus tractavit, commotus Cassii Severi libidine, qua viros feminasque illustres procacibus scriptis diffamaverat.  Mox Tiberius, consultante Pompejo Macro prætore an judicia Majestatis redderentur, exercendas leges esse respondit.  Hunc quoque asperavere carmina incertis auctoribus vulgata in sævitiam, superbiamque ejus, et discordem cum matre animum.

[1.72]  That year triumphal honors were decreed to Aulus Cæcina, Lucius Apronius, Gajus Silius for their achievements under Germanicus.  The title of “father of his country,” which the people had so often thrust on him, Tiberius refused, nor would he allow obedience to be sworn to his enactments, though the Senate voted it, for he said repeatedly that all human things were uncertain, and that the more he had obtained, the more precarious was his position.  But he did not thereby create a belief in his patriotism, for he had revived the law of treason, the name of which indeed was known in ancient times, though other matters came under its jurisdiction, such as the betrayal of an army, or seditious stirring up of the people, or, in short, any corrupt act by which a man had impaired “the majesty of the people of Rome.”  Deeds only were liable to accusation;  words went unpunished.  It was Augustus who first, under color of this law, applied legal inquiry to libellous writings, provoked, as he had been, by the licentious freedom with which Cassius Severus had defamed men and women of distinction in his insulting satires.  Soon afterwards Tiberius, consulted by Pompejus Macer, the praetor, as to whether trials for treason should be revived, replied that the laws were to be enforced.  He too had been exasperated by the publication of verses of uncertain authorship, pointed at his cruelty, his arrogance, and his dissensions with his mother.

[1.73]  Haud pigebit referre in Fajanio et Rubrio, modicis equitibus Romanis, prætemptata crimina, ut quibus initiis, quanta Tiberii arte gravissimum exitium irrepserit, dein repressum sit, postremo arserit cunctaque corripuerit, noscatur.  Fajanio objiciebat accusator, quod inter cultores Augusti (qui per omnes domos in modum collegiorum habebantur) Cassium quendam mimum corpore infamem ascivisset, quodque venditis hortis statuam Augusti simul mancipasset.  Rubrio crimini dabatur violatum perjurio numen Augusti.  Quæ ubi Tiberio notuere, scripsit consulibus non ideo decretum patri suo cælum, ut in perniciem civium is honor verteretur.  Cassium histrionem solitum inter alios ejusdem artis interesse ludis, quos mater sua in memoriam Augusti sacrasset ;  nec contra religiones fieri quod effigies ejus, ut alia numinum simulacra, venditionibus hortorum et domuum accedant.  Jus jurandum perinde æstimandum quam si Jovem fefellisset :  deorum injurias dis curæ.

[1.73]  It will not be unseemly to relate the pilot charges against Fajanius and Rubrius, two modest Roman equestrians.  In this way light may be thrown on the origins of the deadly curse and on how Tiberius’ cunning allowed it to creep in, and how it was subsequently suppressed, but then finally flared up to engulf everything.  Against Falanius it was alleged by his accuser that he had admitted among the votaries of Augustus, who in every great house were associated into a kind of brotherhood, one Cassius, a mime infamous for his bodily abuse, and that he had also in selling his gardens included in the sale a statue of Augustus.  Against Rubrius the charge was that he had violated by perjury the divinity of Augustus.  When this was known to Tiberius, he wrote to the consuls “that his father had not had a place in heaven decreed to him, that the honor might be turned to the destruction of the citizens.  Cassius, the actor, with men of the same profession, used to take part in the games which had been consecrated by his mother to the memory of Augustus.  Nor was it contrary to the religion of the State for the emperor’s image, like those of other deities, to be added to a sale of gardens and houses.  As to the oath, the thing ought to be considered as if the man had deceived Jupiter.  Wrongs done to the gods were the gods’ concern.”

[1.74]  Nec multo post Granium Marcellum prætorem Bithyniæ quæstor ipsius Cæpio Crispinus Majestatis postulavit, subscribente Romanio Hispone ;  qui formam vitæ iniit, quam postea celebrem miseriæ temporum et audaciæ hominum fecerunt.  Nam egens, ignotus, inquies, dum occultis libellis sævitiæ principis arrepit, mox clarissimo cuique periculum facessit, potentiam apud unum, odium apud omnes adeptus dedit exemplum, quod secuti — ex pauperibus divites, ex contemptis metuendi — perniciem aliis ac postremum sibi invenere.  Sed Marcellum insimulabat sinistros de Tiberio sermones habuisse — inevitabile crimen, quum ex moribus principis fœdissima quæque deligeret accusator objectaretque reo.  Nam quia vera erant, etiam dicta credebantur.  Addidit Hispo statuam Marcelli altius quam Cæsarum sitam, et alia in statua, amputato capite Augusti, effigiem Tiberii inditam.  Ad quod exarsit adeo, ut rupta taciturnitate proclamaret se quoque in ea causa laturum sententiam — palam et juratum, quo ceteris eadem necessitas fieret.  Manebant etiam tum vestigia morientis libertatis.  Igitur Cn. Piso, “¿ Quo,” inquit, “loco censebis, Cæsar ?  Si primus, habebo quod sequar :  si post omnes, vereor ne imprudens dissentiam.”  Permotus his, quantoque incautius efferverat pænitentia patiens, tulit absolvi reum criminibus Majestatis.  De pecuniis repetundis ad reciperatores itum est.

[1.74]  Not long afterwards, Granius Marcellus, proconsul of Bithynia, was accused of treason by his quæstor, Cæpio Crispinus, and the charge was supported by Romanius Hispo.  Crispinus then entered on a line of life afterwards rendered notorious by the miseries of the age and men’s shamelessness.  Needy, obscure, and restless, he wormed himself by stealthy informations into the confidence of a vindictive prince, and soon imperilled all the most distinguished citizens;  and having thus gained influence with one, hatred from all besides, he left an example in following which beggars became wealthy, the insignificant, formidable, and brought ruin first on others, finally on themselves.  He alleged against Marcellus that he had made some disrespectful remarks about Tiberius, a charge not to be evaded, inasmuch as the accuser selected the worst features of the emperor’s character and grounded his case on them.  The things were true, and so were believed to have been said.  Hispo added that Marcellus had placed his own statue above those of the Cæsars, and had set the bust of Tiberius on another statue from which he had struck off the head of Augustus.  At this the emperor’s wrath blazed forth, and, breaking through his habitual silence, he exclaimed that in such a case he would himself too give his vote openly on oath, that the rest might be under the same obligation.  There lingered even then a few signs of expiring freedom.  And so Gnaeus Piso asked, “In what order will you vote, Cæsar?  If first, I shall know what to follow;  if last, I fear that I may differ from you unwillingly.”  Shaken by this, Tiberius, as much tolerant in regret as he had incautiously boiled up, allowed the accused to be absolved of the charge of treason.  As for the question of extortion, it was referred to a special commission.

[1.75]  Nec patrum cognitionibus satiatus, judiciis assidebat — in cornu tribunalis, ne prætorem curuli depelleret.  Multaque, eo coram, adversus ambitum et potentium preces constituta.  Sed dum veritati consulitur, libertas corrumpebatur.  Inter quæ Pius Aurelius senator, questus mole publicæ viæ ductuque aquarum labefactas ædes suas, auxilium patrum invocabat.  Resistentibus ærarii prætoribus, subvenit Cæsar, pretiumque ædium Aurelio tribuit, erogandæ per honesta pecuniæ cupiens — quam virtutem diu retinuit, quum ceteras exueret.  Propertio Celeri prætorio veniam ordinis ob paupertatem petenti, decies sestertium {(10 * H$100,000 = H$1,000,000)} largitus est, satis comperto paternas ei angustias esse.  Temptantes eadem alios probare causam Senatui jussit, cupidine severitatis in eis etiam quæ rite faceret acerbus.  Unde ceteri silentium et paupertatem confessioni et beneficio præposuere.

[1.75]  Not satisfied with Senatorial investigations, the emperor would sit in on court trials — at one end of the prætor’s tribunal, so as not to displace him from the official seat.  With him present, many decisions were given that ran contrary to the bribery and solicitations of the powerful.  This, though it promoted justice, ruined freedom.  Pius Aurelius, for example, a senator, complained that the foundations of his house had been weakened by the pressure of a public road and aqueduct, and he appealed to the Senate for assistance.  He was opposed by the praetors of the treasury, but the emperor helped him, and paid him the value of his house, for he liked to spend money on a good purpose, a virtue which he long retained, when he cast off all others.  To Propertius Celer, an ex-praetor seeking exemption from his rank because of poverty, he gave a million sesterces {(10 * H$100,000 = H$1,000,000)}, it having been sufficiently determined that his straitened circumstances were from his father.  He bade others, who attempted the same, prove their case to the Senate, as from his love of strictness he was harsh even where he acted on right grounds.  Consequently every one else preferred silence and poverty to confession and beneficence.

[1.76]  Eodem anno continuis imbribus auctus Tiberis plana Urbis stagnaverat ;  relabentem secuta est ædificiorum et hominum strages.  Igitur censuit Asinius Gallus ut libri Sibyllini adirentur.  Renuit Tiberius, perinde divina humanaque obtegens ;  sed remedium coërcendi fluminis Atejo Capitoni et L. Arruntio mandatum.  Achajam ac Macedoniam onera deprecantes, levari in præsens proconsulari imperio, tradique Cæsari placuit.  Edendis gladiatoribus, quos Germanici fratris, ac suo, nomine obtulerat, Drusus præsedit, quanquam vili sanguine nimis gaudens ;  quod in vulgus formidolosum, et pater arguisse dicebatur.  Cur abstinuerit spectaculo ipse, varie trahebant ;  alii tædio cœtus, quidam tristitia ingenii et metu comparationis, quia Augustus comiter interfuisset.  (Non crediderim ad ostentandam sævitiam movendasque populi offensiones concessam filio materiem, quanquam id quoque dictum est.)

[1.76]  In the same year the Tiber, swollen by continuous rains, flooded the level portions of the city.  Its recession was followed by a destruction of buildings and of life.  Thereupon Asinius Gallus proposed to consult the Sibylline books.  Tiberius refused, hiding the divine as well as the human.  However, the devising of means to confine the river was intrusted to Atejus Capito and Lucius Arruntius.  Achaia and Macedonia, on complaining of their burdens, were, it was decided, to be relieved for a time from proconsular government and to be transferred to the emperor.  Drusus presided over a show of gladiators which he gave in his own name and in that of his brother Germanicus, for he gloated intensely over bloodshed, however cheap its victims.  This was alarming to the populace, and his father had, it was said, rebuked him.  Why Tiberius kept away from the spectacle was interpreted variously.  According to some, it was his loathing of a crowd, according to others, his gloomy temper, and a fear of contrast with the gracious presence of Augustus.  I cannot believe that he deliberately gave his son the opportunity of displaying his ferocity and provoking the people’s disgust, though even this was said.

[1.77]  At theatri licentia, proximo priore anno cœpta, gravius tum erupit, occisis non modo e plebe, et militibus et centurione, vulnerato tribuno Prætoriæ cohortis, dum probra in magistratus et dissensionem vulgi prohibent.  Actum de ea seditione apud patres ;  dicebanturque sententiæ ut prætoribus jus virgarum in histriones esset.  Intercessit Haterius Agrippa tribunus plebei, increpitusque est Asinii Galli oratione, silente Tiberio, qui ea simulacra libertatis Senatui præbebat.  Valuit tamen intercessio, quia divus Augustus immunes verberum histriones quondam responderat, neque fas Tiberio infringere dicta ejus.  De modo lucaris et adversus lasciviam fautorum multa decernuntur ;  ex quis maxime insignia, ne domos pantomimorum senator introiret, ne egredientes in publicum equites Romani cingerent aut alibi quam in theatro spectarentur, et spectantium immodestiam exilio multandi potestas prætoribus fieret.

[1.77]  Meanwhile the unruly tone of the theater which first showed itself in the preceding year, broke out with worse violence, and some soldiers and a centurion, besides several of the populace, were killed, and the tribune of a Prætorian cohort was wounded, while they were trying to stop insults to the magistrates and the strife of the mob.  This disturbance was the subject of a debate in the Senate, and opinions were expressed in favor of the praetors having authority to scourge actors.  Haterius Agrippa, tribune of the people, interposed his veto, and was sharply censured in a speech from Asinius Gallus, without a word from Tiberius, who liked to allow the Senate such shows of freedom.  Still the interposition was successful, because Augustus had once pronounced that actors were exempt from the scourge, and it was not lawful for Tiberius to infringe his words.  Many enactments were passed on the limit of their subsidy and against the recklessness of their fans.  Of these the most notable were that no Senator should enter the house of a pantomime player, that Roman knights should not crowd round them in the public streets, that they should be seen in performance only in the theater, and that the praetors should be empowered to punish with banishment any riotous conduct in the spectators.

[1.78]  Templum ut in colonia Tarraconensi strueretur Augusto petentibus Hispanis permissum, datumque in omnes provincias exemplum.  Centesimam rerum venalium post bella civilia institutam deprecante populo, edixit Tiberius militare ærarium eo subsidio niti ;  simul, imparem oneri Rem Publicam nisi vicesimo militiæ anno veterani dimitterentur.  Ita proximæ seditionis male consulta, quibus sedecim stipendiorum finem expresserant, abolita in posterum.

[1.78]  A request from the Spaniards that they might erect a temple to Augustus in the colony of Tarragona was granted, and a precedent thus given for all the provinces.  When the people of Rome asked for a remission of the one percent sales tax introduced after the civil wars, Tiberius declared by edict “that the military treasury depended on that branch of revenue, and, further, that the State was unequal to the burden unless the veterans were discharged in their twentieth year of service.”  Thus the ill-advised results of the late mutiny, by which a limit of sixteen campaigns had been extorted, were cancelled for the future.

[1.79]  Actum deinde in Senatu ab Arruntio et Atejo an ob moderandas Tiberis exundationes verterentur flumina et lacus, per quos augescit ;  auditæque municipiorum et coloniarum legationes, orantibus Florentinis ne Clanis, solito alveo demotus, in amnem Arnum transferretur, idque ipsis perniciem afferret.  Congruentia his Interamnates disseruere :  pessum ituros fecundissimos Italiæ campos, si amnis Nar (id enim parabatur) in rivos diductus superstagnavisset.  Nec Reatini silebant, Velinum lacum, qua in Narem effunditur, obstrui recusantes, quippe in adjacentia erupturum ;  optime rebus mortalium consuluisse naturam, quæ sua ora fluminibus, suos cursus, utque originem, ita finis dederit ;  spectandas etiam religiones sociorum, qui sacra et lucos et aras patriis amnibus dicaverint :  quin ipsum Tiberim nolle prorsus accolis fluviis orbatum minore gloria fluere.  Seu preces coloniarum seu difficultas operum sive superstitio valuit, ut in sententiam Pisonis concederetur, qui nil mutandum censuerat.

[1.79]  A question was then raised in the Senate by Arruntius and Atejus whether, in order to restrain the inundations of the Tiber, the rivers and lakes which swell its waters should be diverted from their courses.  A hearing was given to embassies from the municipal towns and colonies, and the people of Florentia begged that the Chiana might not be turned out of its channel and made to flow into the Arno, as that would bring ruin on themselves.  Similar arguments were used by the inhabitants of Interamna.  The most fruitful plains of Italy, they said, would be destroyed if the river Nera (for this was the plan proposed) were to be divided into several streams and overflow the country.  Nor did the people of Rieti remain silent.  They remonstrated against the closing up of lake Velino, where it empties itself into the Nera, “as it would burst in a flood on the entire neighborhood.  Nature had admirably provided for human interests in having assigned to rivers their mouths, their channels, and their limits, as well as their sources.  Regard, too, must be paid to the different religions of the allies, who had dedicated sacred rites, groves, and altars to the rivers of their country.  Tiber himself would be altogether unwilling to be deprived of his neighbor streams and to flow with less glory.”  Either the entreaties of the colonies, or the difficulty of the work or superstitious motives prevailed, and they yielded to Piso’s opinion, who declared himself against any change.

[1.80]  Prorogatur Poppæo Sabino provincia Mœsia, additis Achaja ac Macedonia.  Id quoque morum Tiberii fuit, continuare imperia ac plerosque ad finem vitæ in eisdem exercitibus aut jurisdictionibus habere.  Causæ variæ traduntur :  alii tædio novæ curæ, semel placita pro æternis servavisse, quidam invidia, ne plures fruerentur ;  sunt qui existiment, ut callidum ejus ingenium, ita anxium judicium — neque enim eminentes virtutes sectabatur, et rursum vitia oderat :  ex optimis periculum sibi, a pessimis dedecus publicum metuebat.  Qua hæsitatione postremo eo provectus est ut mandaverit quibusdam provincias, quos egredi Urbe non erat passurus.

[1.80]  Poppæus Sabinus was continued as governor of the province of Moesia with the addition of Achaia and Macedonia.  It was part of Tiberius’ character to prolong indefinitely military commands and to keep many men to the end of their life with the same armies and in the same administrations.  Various motives have been assigned for this.  Some say that, through an aversion to any new concern he presered onetime decisions as permanent, others that it was through resentment, to limit the numbers of beneficiaries ;  there are those who reckon that the astuteness of hs intellect was matched by the tenseness of his judgement ;  he did not pursue towering excellence and, conversely, hated vice :  from the best men he dreaded danger for himself, from the worst a public disgrace.  He went so far at last in this irresolution, that he appointed to provinces men whose departure from the City he had no intention of permitting.

[1.81]  De comitiis consularibus, quæ tum primum illo principe ac deinceps fuere, vix quicquam firmare ausim :  adeo diversa non modo apud auctores, sed in ipsius orationibus reperiuntur.  Modo, subtractis candidatorum nominibus, originem cujusque et vitam et stipendia descripsit ut qui forent intellegeretur ;  aliquando ea quoque significatione subtracta candidatos hortatus ne ambitu comitia turbarent, suam ad id curam pollicitus est.  Plerumque eos tantum apud se professos disseruit, quorum nomina consulibus edidisset ;  posse et alios profiteri, si gratiæ aut meritis confiderent :  speciosa verbis, re inania aut subdola ;  quantoque majore libertatis imagine tegebantur, tanto eruptura ad infensius servitium.

[1.81]  Concerning the consular elections which occurred then for the first time in his principate and thereafter, I would dare to vouch for scarcely anything :  such is the diversity discovered not only among authors but in the man’s own speeches.  Sometimes, without giving the names of the candidates, he described their origin, their life and military career, so that it might be understood who they were.  At other times, having dispensed with these descriptions as well, after urging them not to disturb the elections by canvassing, he would promise his own help towards the result.  For the most part he announced that only those had declared their candidacy with him whose names he had given to the consuls, and that others might offer themselves if they had confidence in their influence or merit — yet this was mere specious words, empty of substance (or deceptive).  And the more they were masked by the appearance of freedom, the more oppressive was to be our resulting enslavement.