[11.1]  * * nam Valerium Asiaticum, bis consulem, fuisse quondam adulterum ejus credidit, pariterque hortis inhians quos ille a Lucullo cœptos insigni magnificentia excolebat, Suillium accusandis utrisque immittit.  Adjungitur Sosibius, Britannici educator, qui per speciem benevolentiæ moneret Claudium cavere vim atque opes principibus infensas :  « præcipuum auctorem Asiaticum interficiendi G. Cæsaris non extimuisse contione in populi Romani fateri, gloriamque facinoris ultro petere ;  clarum ex eo in Urbe, didita per provincias fama, parare iter ad Germanicos exercitus quando, genitus Viennæ multisque et validis propinquitatibus subnixus, turbare gentiles nationes promptum haberet. »  At Claudius, nihil ultra scrutatus, citis cum militibus tanquam opprimendo bello Crispinum Prætorii præfectum misit, a quo repertus est apud Bajas vinclisque inditis in Urbem raptus.

[11.1]  {a.D. 47 :}  For {Messalina} believed that Valerius Asiaticus, twice consul, had formerly been her {i.e., Poppæa’s} adulterer and, at the same time gaping for the gardens begun by Lucullus which the man was now embellishing with singular magnificence, she sent in Suillius to accuse them both.  Sosibius, Britannicus’ tutor, was added who, under the appearance of friendship, was to warn Claudius to beware of power and wealth which threatened the throne.  Asiaticus, he said, the ringleader in the murder of Gajus Cæsar {Caligula}, had not been afraid to acknowledge it in an assembly of the Roman people and, further, to seek glory for the crime.  Famous for that in the City, and with a renown widely spread through the provinces, he was preparing a journey to the armies of Germany since, born in Vienne and supported by numerous and powerful connections, he had the means to incite the tribes of his country to insurrection.  Claudius, investigating no further, sent — with troops rushing as though to stifle a war — the Prætorian prefect Crispinus, by whom he was found at Bajæ, put in chains, and hurried to the City.

[11.2]  Neque data Senatus copia :  intra cubiculum auditur, Messalina coram et Suillio corruptionem militum, quos pecunia et stupro in omne flagitium obstrictos arguebat, exim adulterium Poppææ, postremum mollitiam corporis objectante.  Ad quod victo silentio prorupit reus et “Interroga,” inquit, “Suilli, filios tuos :  virum esse me fatebuntur.”  Ingressusque defensionem, commoto majorem in modum Claudio, Messalinæ quoque lacrimas excivit.  Quibus abluendis cubiculo egrediens monet Vitellium ne elabi reum sineret :  ipsa ad perniciem Poppææ festinat, subditis qui terrore carceris ad voluntariam mortem propellerent, adeo ignaro Cæsare ut paucos post dies epulantem apud se maritum ejus Scipionem percontaretur cur sine uxore discubuisset, atque ille functam fato responderet.

[11.2]  No opportunity of a Senate hearing was granted him:  he was heard in private chambers, in the presence of Messalina, with Suillius accusing him of corrupting the troops whom he had bound with money and homosexual acts into committing every shameful crime, furthermore of adultery with Poppæa, and finally of submitting to anal intercourse.  At this the accused broke silence and burst out, saying, “Ask your own sons, Suillius;  they will confess that I am a man.”  Then he entered on his defence, moving Claudius profoundly and even drawing tears from Messalina.  Leaving the chamber to dry them, she warned Vitellius not to let the man escape.  She herself hastened to bring about Poppæa’s destruction, hiring agents to drive her to suicide by terrorizing her with prison.  Cæsar was so unaware that a few days later he asked her husband Scipio, who was dining with him, why he had come to table without his wife, and the latter answered that she had passed away.

[11.3]  Sed consultanti super absolutione Asiatici flens Vitellius, commemorata vetustate amicitiæ, utque Antoniam principis matrem pariter observavissent, dein percursis Asiatici in Rem Publicam officiis recentique adversus Britanniam militia, quæque alia conciliandæ misericordiæ videbantur, liberum mortis arbitrium ei permisit ;  et secuta sunt Claudii verba in eandem clementiam.  Hortantibus dehinc quibusdam inediam et lenem exitum, remittere beneficium Asiaticus ait :  et usurpatis quibus insueverat exercitationibus, lauto corpore, hilare epulatus, quum se honestius calliditate Tiberii vel impetu G. Cæsaris periturum dixisset quam quod fraude muliebri et impudico Vitellii ore caderet, venas exsolvit, viso tamen ante rogo, jussoque transferri partem in aliam ne opacitas arborum vapore ignis minueretur :  tantum illi securitatis novissimæ fuit.

[11.3]  As Claudius was considering the acquittal of Asiaticus, Vitellius, with tears in his eyes, spoke of his old friendship with the accused, and how they had both equally paid homage to the emperor’s mother, Antonia.  He then briefly reviewed the services of Asiaticus to the State and his recent military service in the invasion of Britain, and everything else which seemed likely to win compassion, and suggested that he should be permitted the free choice of death.  Claudius’s reply was in the same tone of clemency.  Some friends urged on Asiaticus the quiet death of self-starvation, but Asiaticus he declined their benevolence with thanks.  He did his usual exercises and, his body washed and having dined gaily, after saying that he had would more honorably have died through the cunning of Tiberius or an outburst of Gajus Cæsar than by the treachery of a woman and the filthy mouth of Vitellius, he opened his veins, but only after having inspected his funeral pyre, and directed its removal to another spot, lest the trees’ shadiness be impaired by the fire’s heat.  Such was his tranquillity even to the last.

[11.4]  Vocantur post hæc patres, pergitque Suillius addere reos equites Romanos illustres, quibus Petra cognomentum.  At causa necis ex eo quod domum suam Mnesteris et Poppææ congressibus præbuissent.  Verum nocturnæ quietis species alteri objecta, tanquam vidisset Claudium spicea corona evinctum, spicis retro conversis, eaque imagine gravitatem annonæ dixisset.  (Quidam pampineam coronam albentibus foliis visam atque ita interpretatum tradidere, vergente autumno mortem principis ostendi.  Illud haud ambigitur, qualicumque insomnio ipsi fratrique perniciem allatam.)  Sestertium quindecies {15 * H$100,000 = H$1,500,000} et insignia præturæ Crispino decreta.  Adjecit Vitellius sestertium decies {10 * H$100,000 = H$1,000,000} Sosibio, quod Britannicum præceptis, Claudium consiliis juvaret.  Rogatus sententiam et Scipio, “Quum idem,” inquit, “de admissis Poppææ sentiam quod omnes, putate me idem dicere quod omnes,” eleganti temperamento inter conjugalem amorem et senatoriam necessitatem.

[11.4]  The senators were then convoked, and Suilius proceeded to add as defendants illustrious Roman knights whose surname was Petra.  The real cause of their execution was that they had lent their house for the meetings of Mnester and Poppæa.  But the imputation hurled against them was that of an apparition in nighttime slumber, to the effect that he had seen Claudius wreathed by a wheaten crown, the ears of wheet turned upside down, and on account of that vision he had annouced a crisis in the food supply.  (Some have transmitted that a vine-leaf crown with fading foliage had been seen and he had interpreted it to mean that the approach of autum portended the emperor’s death.  It is, however, beyond dispute that in consequence of a dream of some sort or other, death was inflicted on both the man and his brother.)  Fifteen hundred thousand sesterces {15 * H$100,000 = H$1,500,000} and the decorations of the praetorship were voted to Crispinus.  Vitellius added ten hundred thousand sesterces {10 * H$100,000 = H$1,000,000} for Sosibius, for giving Britannicus instructions and Claudius his counsels.  When Scipio, too, was asked his opinion, he replied, “Since I feel the same as everybody else about Poppæa’s offenses, just assume I say the same thing as everbody else.”  A graceful balance between spousal love and his senatorial constraints.

[11.5]  Continuus inde et sævus accusandis reis Suillius, multique audaciæ ejus æmuli ;  nam cuncta legum et magistratuum munia in se trahens princeps materiam prædandi patefecerat.  Nec quicquam publicæ mercis tam venale fuit quam advocatorum perfidia, adeo ut Samius, insignis eques Romanus, quadringentis nummorum milibus {400 * H$1,000 = H$400,000} Suillio datis et, cognita prævaricatione, ferro in domo ejus incubuerit.  Igitur, incipiente C. Silio consule designato, cujus de potentia et exitio in tempore memorabo, consurgunt patres legemque Cinciam flagitant, qua cavetur antiquitus ne quis ob causam orandam pecuniam donumve accipiat.

[11.5]  Thereafter Suillius was constant and savage in his accusations of defendants, and his audacity had many rivals.  By assuming to himself all the functions of laws and magistrates, the emperor had left everything wide open for plunder.  And of all commercial wares nothing was as marketable than the perfidy of defense lawyers — so much so that Samius, a distinguished Roman knight, who had had paid four hundred thousand sesterces {400 * H$1,000 = H$400,000} to Suillius, discovering his collusion with the adversary, fell on his sword in the lawyer’s house.  Upon this, on the initiative of consul-designate Silius (whose elevation and fall I will relate at the proper time), the senators rose up, and demanded the enforcement of the Cincian law, an old enactment forbidding any one from receiving a payment or gift for pleading a cause.

[11.6]  Deinde obstrepentibus eis quibus ea contumelia parabatur, discors Suillio Silius acriter incubuit, veterum oratorum exempla referens qui famam et posteros præmia eloquentiæ cogitavissent.  Pulcherrimam alioquin, et bonarum artium principem, sordidis ministeriis fœdari ;  ne fidem quidem integram manere ubi magnitudo quæstuum spectetur.  Quodsi in nullius mercedem negotia fiant, pauciora fore :  nunc inimicitias, accusationes, odia et injurias foveri, ut quomodo vis morborum pretia medentibus, sic fori tabes pecuniam advocatis ferat.  Meminissent Asinii, Messalæ ac recentiorum Arruntii et Æsernini :  ad summa provectos incorrupta vita et facundia.  Talia dicente consule designato, consentientibus aliis, parabatur sententia qua lege repetundarum tenerentur, quum Suillius et Cossutianus et ceteri qui non judicium — quippe in manifestos — sed pœnam statui videbant, circumsistunt Cæsarem, ante acta deprecantes.

[11.6]  When the men at whom this attack was levelled, loudly protested, Silius, who was antagonistic to Suilius, inveighed against him fiercely.  He cited as examples the orators of old who had thought fame and posterity the rewards of eloquence.  What would otherwise be the finest and principal of the liberal arts was being defiled by sordid administration;  not even honesty could remain intact when the size of the profits was eyed. But if lawsuits were conducted without gain to anyone, there would be fewer of them.  At present, enmities, accusations, hatreds and wrongs were being encouraged so that, as the virulence of disease brings cash to physicians, so the corruption of the forum brings money to lawyers.  They should remember {Gajus} Asinius {Polloi} and Messala {Corvinus}, and, in later days, {Lucius} Arruntius and {M. Claudius Marcellus} Æserninus, men raised to the highest honors by a blameless life and by eloquence.  So spoke the consul-designate, and others agreed with him.  A resolution was prepared that would make offenders liable under the extortion law, when Suillius and Cossutianus {Capito} and the rest, who saw that it was not a trial that was being arranged — against those who were indeed manifestly guilty — but their punishment, gathered round the emperor and begged pardon for their previous activities.

[11.7]  Et postquam annuit, agere incipiunt :  ¿ Quem illum tanta superbia esse, ut æternitatem famæ spe præsumat ?  Usui et rebus subsidium præparari ne quis inopia advocatorum potentibus obnoxius sit.  Neque tamen eloquentiam gratuito contingere :  omitti curas familiares ut quis se alienis negotiis intendat.  Multos militia, quosdam exercendo agros tolerare vitam :  nihil a quoquam expeti nisi cujus fructus ante providerit.  Facile Asinium et Messalam, inter Antonium et Augustum bellorum præmiis refertos, aut ditium familiarum heredes Æserninos et Arruntios magnum animum induisse.  Prompta sibi exempla, quantis mercedibus P. Clodius aut C. Curio contionari soliti sint.  Se modicos senatores qui, quieta Re Publica, nulla nisi pacis emolumenta peterent.  Cogitaret plebem quæ toga enitesceret :  sublatis studiorum pretiis, etiam studia peritura.

Ut minus decora hæc, ita haud frustra, dicta princeps ratus, capiendis pecuniis posuit modum — usque ad dena sestertia {10 * H$1,000 = H$10,000} — quem egressi, repetundarum tenerentur.

[11.7]  When he had nodded assent, they began to plead their cause.  “Who,” they asked, “can be so arrogant as to presume to hope for an eternity of renown?  A basis had to be prepared for practical and everyday ends, so that no one, because of lack of lawyers, would be at the mercy of the powerful.  But eloquence does not happen by itself:  private concerns must be neglected in order to devote oneself to the business of others.  Many support life by the profession of arms, some by cultivating land.  Nothing is striven for by any one unless he first foresees profit from it.  It was easy for Asinius and Messala, enriched with the prizes of the wars between Antony and Augustus, or for Arruntius and Æserninus, the heirs of wealthy families, to don magnanimity.  We have examples at hand.  How great were the fees for which Publius Clodius and Gajus Curio used to speak!  We are ordinary senators who, in a time of national tranquillity, are seeking only peacetime remuneration.  You must consider the masses, how they can shine in peacetime pursuits.  Take away the rewards of a profession, and the profession must perish.”

The emperor thought that these arguments, though less noble, were not unfounded.  He limited the fee which might be taken to ten thousand sesterces {10 * H$1,000 = H$10,000}, and those who exceeded this limit were to be liable to the penalties of extortion.

[11.8]  Sub idem tempus Mithridates, quem imperitasse Armeniis et jussu C. Cæsaris vinctum memoravi, monente Claudio in regnum remeavit, fisus Pharasmanis opibus.  Is rex Hiberis, idemque Mithridatis frater, nuntiabat discordare Parthos summaque imperii ambigua, minora sine cura haberi.  Nam Gotarzes inter pleraque sæva necem fratri Artabano conjugique ac filio ejus properaverat, unde metus ejus in ceteros, et accivere Vardanen.  Ille, ut erat magnis ausis promptus, biduo tria milia stadiorum invadit, ignarumque et exterritum Gotarzen proturbat ;  neque cunctatur quin proximas præfecturas corripiat, solis Seleucensibus dominationem ejus abnuentibus.  In quos, ut patris sui quoque defectores, ira magis quam ex usu præsenti accensus, implicatur obsidione urbis validæ et munimentis objecti amnis muroque et commeatibus firmatæ.  Interim Gotarzes, Daharum Hyrcanorumque opibus auctus, bellum renovat, coactusque Vardanes omittere Seleuciam, Bactrianos apud campos castra contulit.

[11.8]  Around this same time {actually ca. A.D. 43} Mithridates, of whom I have before spoken as having ruled Armenia, and having been imprisoned by order of Gajus Cæsar {Caligula}, returned to his kingdom at the urging of Claudius and relying on the help of Pharasmanes.  The latter, who was king of the Iberians and Mithridates’ brother, was reporting that the Parthians were in discord, and that the high command was feuding, with lesser matters being neglected.  Gotarzes, among his many cruelties, had rushed the murder of his brother Artabanus, with his wife and son.  Hence his people were in fear and called in Vardanes.  As a man ready for daring achievements, in two days Vardanes traversed 3,000 stades {~350 miles, an error or exaggeration} and drove out the surprised and terrified Gotarzes.  Nor did he delay in seizing the neighboring prefectures, the Seleucians alone refusing his rule.  Enflamed with rage at them (considering that they had been defectors from his father as well) rather than as the result of current practical interests, he became entangled in the siege of a powerful city, one secured by the fortifications of a river {(the Tigris)} alongside it and a wall and provisions.  Gotarzes meanwhile, aided by the resources of the Dahæ and Hyrcanians, renewed the war;  and Vardanes, compelled to abandon Seleucia, moved his camp to the plains of Bactria.

[11.9]  Tunc distractis Orientis viribus et quonam inclinarent incertis, casus Mithridati datus est occupandi Armeniam, vi militis Romani ad excidenda castellorum ardua, simul Hibero exercitu campos persultante.  Nec enim restitere Armenii, fuso qui prœlium ausus erat Demonacte præfecto.  Paululum cunctationis attulit rex minoris Armeniæ Cotys, versis illuc quibusdam procerum ;  dein litteris Cæsaris coërcitus, et cuncta in Mithridaten fluxere, atrociorem quam novo regno conduceret.  At Parthi imperatores, quum pugnam pararent, fœdus repente faciunt, cognitis popularium insidiis quas Gotarzes fratri patefecit ;  congressique primo cunctanter, dein, complexi dextras apud altaria deum, pepigere fraudem inimicorum ulcisci atque ipsi inter se concedere.  Potiorque Vardanes visus retinendo regno ;  at Gotarzes, ne quid æmulationis exsisteret, penitus in Hyrcaniam abiit.  Regressoque Vardani deditur Seleucia septimo post defectionem anno, non sine dedecore Parthorum quos una civitas tam diu eluserat.

[11.9]  Then, with the forces of the east divided and uncertain about which way to, the opportunity of occupying Armenia was presented to Mithridates, with the power of the Roman military destroying the hilltop fortresses while the Iberian army roved over the plains.  The Armenians made no resistance after their satrap, Demonax, had dared a battle and been routed.  Cotys, king of Lesser Armenia, to whom some of the chiefs had gone over, caused some delay, but he was restrained by a letter from Claudius, and everything went in favor of Mithridates, who showed more cruelty than was appropriate for a new regime.  The Parthian princes however, just when they were get ready for battle, suddenly made a treaty after discovering a conspiracy of the people which Gotarzes revealed to his brother.  At first they approached each other with hesitation;  then, joining their right hands at the altar of their gods, they made a pact to avenge the treachery of their enemies and to make concessions to one another.  Vardanes seemed the more capable of maintaining control of the kingdom.  On the other hand Gotarzes, to avoid all rivalry, retired deep into Hyrcania.  On the return of Vardanes, Seleucia surrendered, seven years after its revolt, to the disgrace of the Parthians whom a single city had flouted for so long.

[11.10]  Exim validissimas præfecturas invisit ;  et reciperare Armeniam avebat, ni a Vibio Marso, Syriæ legato, bellum minitante cohibitus foret.  Atque interim Gotarzes, pænitentia concessi regni et vocante nobilitate, cui in pace durius servitium est, contrahit copias.  Et hinc contra itum ad amnem Erinden ;  in cujus transgressu multum certato pervicit Vardanes, prosperisque prœliis medias nationes subegit ad flumen Sinden, quod Dahas Ariosque disterminat.  Ibi modus rebus secundis positus :  nam Parthi, quanquam victores, longinquam militiam aspernabantur.  Igitur exstructis monumentis quibus opes suas testabatur, nec cuiquam ante Arsacidarum, tributa illis de gentibus parta, regreditur ingens gloria atque eo ferocior et subjectis intolerantior ;  qui, dolo ante composito, incautum venationique intentum interfecere — primam intra juventam sed claritudine paucos inter seniorum regum, si perinde amorem inter populares quam metum apud hostes quæsivisset.

Nece Vardanis, turbatæ Parthorum res inter ambiguos, quis in regnum acciperetur.  Multi ad Gotarzen inclinabant, quidam ad Meherdaten (prolem Phraatis) obsidio nobis datum :  dein prævaluit Gotarzes ;  potitusque regiam per sævitiam ac luxum adegit Parthos mittere ad principem Romanum occultas preces quis permitti Meherdaten patrium ad fastigium orabant.

[11.10]  He then visited the strongest prefectures, and was craving to recover Armenia, had he not been checked by Vibius Marsus, legate of Syria, threatening war.  Meanwhile Gotarzes, regretting his concession of the kingdom and called on by the nobles for whom peacetime service is harder to bear, assembled his forces.  Hence he was opposed at the river Charindas, in the crossing of which , after much battling, Vardanes won a complete victory, and in a series of successful engagements he subdued the intervening tribes as far as the river Sindes {(perhaps the modern Tejen [or Tedzhen] river in Turkmenistan)} which separates the Dahæ and the Arians.  There a limit was put to his successes.  The Parthians, victorious though they were, would not put up with distant campaigning.  So after erecting monuments testifying to his powers, and that tribute from those peoples had never before been paid to any of the Arsacids, he returned mighty in glory, and therefore all the haughtier and more intolerable to his subjects.  In a previously arranged plot they killed him when he was unawares and concentrating on hunting — still in his early manhood yet in brilliancy to be ranked with a mere few of the older kings, if only he had sought to gain the love of his compatriots to the same degree as to inspire fear among his enemies.

With the murder of Vardanes {A.D. 45} the affairs of Parthia were thrown into chaos amid the confusion about who should be summoned to the throne.  Many inclined to Gotarzes, some to Meherdates (a descendant of Phraates) who had been given to us as a hostage.  Finally Gotarzes prevailed.  Established in the palace, he drove the Parthians by his cruelty and profligacy to send a secret entreaty to the Roman emperor {A.D. 48} that Meherdates might be allowed to mount the throne of his ancestors.

[11.11]  Eisdem consulibus, ludi sæculares octingentesimo post Romam conditam, quarto et sexagesimo quam Augustus ediderat, spectati sunt.  Utriusque principis rationes prætermitto, satis narratas libris quibus res imperatoris Domitiani composui.  Nam is quoque edidit ludos sæculares, eisque intentius affui, sacerdotio quindecimvirali præditus ac tunc prætor.  Quod non jactantia refero, sed quia collegio quindecimvirum antiquitus ea cura et ii magistratus potissimum exsequebantur officia cærimoniarum.  Sedente Claudio circensibus ludis, quum pueri nobiles equis ludicrum « Trojæ » inirent interque eos Britannicus imperatore genitus et L. Domitius adoptione mox in imperium et cognomentum Neronis ascitus, favor plebis acrior in Domitium loco præsagii acceptus est.  Vulgabaturque affuisse infantiæ ejus dracones in modum custodum, fabulosa et externis miraculis assimilata :  nam ipse, haudquaquam sui detractor, unam omnino anguem in cubiculo visam narrare solitus est.

[11.11]  During the time of the same consuls {Claudius & L. Vitellius, A.D. 47}, in the eight hundredth year after the foundation of Rome and the sixty-fourth after their celebration by Augustus that the centennial games were exhibited.  (I am passing over the calculations of the two emperors, having sufficiently discussed them in the books I composed on the history of Emperor Domitian;  for he too put on centennial games, at which I was present with particular attentiveness, being one of the priesthood of the Fifteen and praetor at the time — which I do not record out of vanity but because the college of Quindecimvirs has been responsible for them from antiquity, and it was those magistrates in particular who carried out the duties of the ceremonies.)  While Claudius was sitting watching the circus games, the boy nobles on horseback were embarking on the game of “Troy,” and among them was Britannicus, son of the emperor, and Lucius Domitius, by adoption later admitted into command and the surname of “Nero” — the fact that the goodwill of the plebs was keener toward Domitius was received as a prophecy.  It was publicized that serpents had been present around his cradle in the manner of guards, a fairy tale patterned after the fantasies of other lands.  For Nero himself, never a disparager of himself, used to say that only one snake, at most, had normally been seen in his bedroom.

[11.12]  Verum inclinatio populi supererat ex memoria Germanici, cujus illa reliqua suboles virilis ;  et matri Agrippinæ miseratio augebatur ob sævitiam Messalinæ quæ semper infesta et tunc commotior, quominus strueret crimina et accusatores, novo et furori proximo amore distinebatur.  Nam in C. Silium, juventutis Romanæ pulcherrimum, ita exarserat ut Juniam Silanam, nobilem feminam, matrimonio ejus exturbaret vacuoque adultero poteretur.  Neque Silius flagitii aut periculi nescius erat ;  sed certo si abnueret exitio et nonnulla fallendi spe, simul magnis præmiis, operire futura et præsentibus frui pro solacio habebat.  Illa non furtim sed multo comitatu ventitare domum, egressibus adhærescere, largiri opes, honores ;  postremo, velut translata jam fortuna, servi, liberti, paratus principis apud adulterum visebantur.

[11.12]  Something however of popular favor was bequeathed to him from the remembrance of Germanicus, whose only male descendant he was, and the pity felt for his mother Agrippina was increased by the cruelty of Messalina, who, always her enemy, and then more furious than ever, was only kept from planning an accusation and suborning informers by a new and almost insane passion.  She had grown so frantically enamoured of Gajus Silius, the handsomest of the young nobility of Rome, that she evicted Junia Silana, a noble lady, from her marriage to him and took control of the now available adulterer.  Silius was not unaware of his disgraceful action and his peril;  but — with death certain if he decline, with some hope of deception {(i.e., of Claudius)} and with the rewards great at the same time — he consoled himself by blocking out the future and enjoying the present.  She for her part — not stealthily but with a large escort — kept visiting his house, held onto him when he left it, showered him with wealth and honors;  finally, as though supreme power had been transferred, the slaves, the freedmen, the very accouterments of the emperor were to be seen at the adulterer’s house.

[11.13]  At Claudius matrimonii sui ignarus et munia censoria usurpans, theatralem populi lasciviam severis edictis increpuit, quod in Publium Pomponium consularem (is carmina scænæ dabat) inque feminas illustres probra jecerat.  Et lege lata sævitiam creditorum coërcuit, ne in mortem parentum pecunias filiis familiarum fenori darent.  Fontesque aquarum Simbruinis collibus deductos Urbi intulit.  Ac novas litterarum formas addidit vulgavitque, comperto Græcam quoque litteraturam non simul cœptam absolutamque.

[11.13]  Claudius meanwhile, ignorant of his own marriage and exercising his censorial responsibilities, published edicts severely chastising the misbehavior of the people in the theater for having hurled abuse at Gajus Pomponius, an ex-consul who furnished verses for the stage, and certain ladies of rank.  He introduced too a law restraining the cruel greed of the usurers, forbidding them to give interest-bearing loans, repayable on a father’s death, to the sons of families.  He also led into Rome spring waters diverted from the Simbruine hills.  And he likewise invented and published some new forms of letters, having discovered that even the Greek letter-system had not been begun and completed all at once.

[11.14]  Primi per figuras animalium Ægyptii sensus mentis effingebant (ea antiquissima monumenta memoriæ humanæ impressa saxis cernuntur), et litterarum semet inventores perhibent ;  inde Phœnicas, quia mari præpollebant, intulisse Græciæ, gloriamque adeptos, tanquam reppererint quæ acceperant.  Quippe fama est Cadmum, classe Phœnicum vectum, rudibus adhuc Græcorum populis artis ejus auctorem fuisse.  Quidam Cecropem Atheniensem, vel Linum Thebanum et, temporibus Trojanis, Palamedem Argivum memorant sedecim litterarum formas, mox alios, ac præcipuum Simoniden, ceteras repperisse.  At in Italia Etrusci ab Corinthio Demarato, Aborigines Arcade ab Evandro didicerunt ;  et forma litteris Latinis quæ veterrimis Græcorum.  Sed nobis quoque paucæ primum fuere, deinde additæ sunt.  Quo exemplo Claudius tres litteras adjecit, quæ usui imperitante eo, post oblitteratæ, aspiciuntur etiam nunc in ære publicandis plebi Senatus consultis per fora ac templa fixo.

[11.14]  The Egyptians were the first to depict the mind’s thoughts, and that by the figures of animals.  (These records, the most ancient of all human history, are still seen engraved on stone.)  The Egyptians also claim that they themselves are the inventors of letters;  from there the Phoenicians, because they were paramount at sea, brought them to Greece and appropriated the glory of supposedly having invented what they had accepted.  (Tradition indeed says that Cadmus, visiting Greece in a Phoenician fleet, was the teacher of this art to its yet barbarous tribes.  Some recall that Cecrops of Athens or Linus of Thebes, or Palamedes of Argos in Trojan times invented the shapes of sixteen letters, and that others, chiefly Simonides, invented the rest.)  In Italy the Etrurians learnt them from Demaratus of Corinth, and the Aborigines from the Arcadian Evander.  And indeed the forms of the Latin letters are those of the oldest of the Greeks, but in our case too they were few at first and subsequently added to.  Following this precedent Claudius added three letters {┣ = ü;  ᖵ = w;  Ͻ = ps & bs} which, in use during his reign but afterward consigned to oblivion, are observed even now on the bronze fixed in forums and temples for advertizing the Senate’s decisions to the plebs.

[11.15]  Rettulit deinde ad Senatum super collegio haruspicum, ne vetustissima Italiæ disciplina per desidiam exolesceret :  sæpe adversis Rei Publicæ temporibus accitos, quorum monitu redintegratas cærimonias et in posterum rectius habitas ;  primoresque Etruriæ sponte aut patrum Romanorum impulsu retinuisse scientiam et in familias propagasse :  quod nunc segnius fieri, publica circa bonas artes socordia, et quia externæ superstitiones valescant.  Et læta quidem in præsens omnia, sed benignitati deum gratiam referendam, ne ritus sacrorum inter ambigua culti per prospera oblitterarentur.  Factum ex eo Senatus consultum, viderent pontifices quæ retinenda firmandaque haruspicum.

[11.15]  He then brought before the Senate the subject of the college of diviners that, as he said, “the most ancient Italian lore might not be lost through negligence.  It had often happened in days adverse for the State that advisers had been summoned at whose advice ceremonies had been restored and observed more correctly for the future.  The nobles of Etruria, whether of their own accord or at the instigation of the Roman Senate, had retained this branch of knowledge and passed it down through their families.  This was now happening more sluggishly, given the public negligence of good practices and because foreign superstitions were growing in influence.  Everything was of course delightful at present, but they should show gratitude for this kindness of the gods so that the sacred rites performed in difficult times might not be lost to memory in prosperity.”  A decision of the Senate was accordingly passed, charging the pontiffs to see what should be retained or confirmed with respect to the diviners.

[11.16]  Eodem anno Cheruscorum gens regem Roma petivit, amissis per interna bella nobilibus et uno reliquo stirpis regiæ, qui apud Urbem habebatur nomine Italicus.  Paternum huic genus e Flavo, fratre Arminii, mater e Actumero principe Chattorum erat ;  ipse forma decorus et armis equisque in patrium nostrumque morem exercitus.  Igitur Cæsar auctum pecunia, additis stipatoribus, hortatur gentile decus magno animo capessere :  illum primum Romæ ortum nec obsidem, sed civem ire externum ad imperium.  Ac primo lætus Germanis adventus atque eo quod nullis discordiis imbutus, pari in omnes studio, ageret celebrari, coli, modo comitatem et temperantiam, nulli invisa, sæpius vinolentiam ac libidines, grata barbaris, usurpans.  Jamque apud proximos, jam longius clarescere, quum potentiam ejus suspectantes qui factionibus floruerant discedunt ad conterminos populos ac testificantur adimi veterem Germaniæ libertatem et Romanas opes insurgere.  ¿ Adeo neminem eisdem in terris ortum qui principem locum impleat, nisi exploratoris Flavi progenies super cunctos attollatur ?  Frustra Arminium præscribi :  cujus si filius hostili in solo adultus in regnum venisset, posse extimesci, infectum alimonio, servitio, cultu, omnibus externis :  at si paterna Italico mens esset, non alium infensius arma contra patriam ac deos penates quam parentem ejus exercuisse.

[11.16]  It was in this same year that the Cherusci asked Rome for a king.  They had lost all their nobles in their internal wars, and there was left but one scion of the royal line, Italicus by name, who lived in the City.  His paternal lineage derived from Flavus, brother of Arminius, his mother from Actumerus, a chieftain of the Chatti.  He himself had handsome good looks and was trained in arms and horsemanship according to his ancestral custom as well as ours.  So Cæsar, having provided him with funds and added an escort, urged him to take up his tribal honors with magnanimity.  “He was,” he said, “the first one born in Rome, not a hostage but a citizen, to go to a foreign command.”  At first his arrival was welcome to the Germans, and because of the fact that he was not stained by any of their disaffection but acted with equal enthusiasm toward all, he was celebrated and courted, sometimes practicing affability and moderation — which are resented by none —, more often drunkenness and lust, which are popular with barbarians.  He was growing in fame among his neighbors and even farther afield, when those who had flourished from factionalism, jealous of his power, departed to neighboring tribes and vouched that Germany was being robbed of her ancient freedom, and that the might of Rome was on the rise.  “Is there really,” they said, “no native of this country to fill the place of king without raising the son of Flavus the scout above all his fellows?  Invoking Arminius is pointless.  Even his son could be feared if, grown to adulthood on enemy soil, he had come to the throne poisoned by upbringing, servility, culture and everything foreign.  But if Italicus was imbued with the mind of his father, no one else had taken up arms against his fatherland and native gods more viciously than he.”

[11.17]  His atque talibus magnas copias coëgere ;  nec pauciores Italicum sequebantur.  Non enim irrupisse ad invitos sed accitum memorabat, quando nobilitate ceteros anteiret :  virtutem experirentur, an dignum se patruo Arminio, avo Actumero præberet.  Nec patrem rubori, quod fidem adversus Romanos volentibus Germanis sumptam nunquam omisisset.  Falso libertatis vocabulum obtendi ab eis qui privatim degeneres, in publicum exitiosi, nihil spei nisi per discordias habeant.  Astrepebat huic alacre vulgus ;  et magno inter barbaros prœlio victor rex ;  dein secunda fortuna ad superbiam prolapsus pulsusque ac rursus Langobardorum opibus refectus, per læta, per adversa, res Cheruscas afflictabat.

[11.17]By these and like appeals they assembled a large force.  And no fewer were those who followed Italicus.  “He had not burst in upon an unwilling people,” he reminded them, “but had been summoned because he surpassed the rest in nobility;  they should test his courage, to see whether he presented himself as worthy of his uncle Arminius and grandfather Actumerus;  he did not blush that his father had never abandoned the loyalty toward the Romans which he had taken up with the Germans’ blessing:  falsely was the designation ‘freedom’ being used as a screen by those who, lowborn personally and ruinous in public matters, had no hope except through their disaffections.”  The crowd bayed its eager approval of him and, after a great battle between the barbarians, the king was victorious.  Subsequently, in his good fortune, he slipped into arrogance and was banished;  and, restored in turn by the resources of the Langobards, he did serious damage to the interests of the Cheruscan nation.

[11.18]  Per idem tempus Chauci nulla dissensione domi, et morte Sanquinii alacres, dum Corbulo adventat, inferiorem Germaniam incursavere, duce Gannasco qui, natione Canninefas, auxiliare æs diu meritus, post transfuga, levibus navigiis prædabundus Gallorum maxime oram vastabat, non ignarus dites et imbelles esse.  At Corbulo provinciam ingressus, magna cum cura et mox gloria, cui principium illa militia fuit, triremes alveo Rheni, ceteras navium, ut quæque habiles, per æstuaria et fossas adegit ;  lintribusque hostium depressis et exturbato Gannasco, ubi præsentia satis composita sunt, legiones, operum et laboris ignavas, populationibus lætantes, veterem ad morem reduxit, ne quis agmine decederet nec pugnam nisi jussus iniret.  Stationes, vigiliæ, diurna nocturnaque munia in armis agitabantur ;  feruntque militem, quia vallum non accinctus, atque alium quia pugione tantum accinctus, foderet, morte punitos.  Quæ nimia — et incertum an falso aucta — originem tamen e severitate ducis traxere ;  intentumque et magnis delictis inexorabilem scias cui tantum asperitatis etiam adversus levia credebatur.

[11.18]  It was during the same period that the Chauci, free from dissension at home and emboldened by the death of Sanquinius, made, while Corbulo was still on the march, an inroad into Lower Germany under the leadership of Gannascus.  This man was of the tribe of the Canninefates, had earned auxiliary pay for a long time, had then deserted and, using light vessels, was now plundering in particular the coastline of the Gauls, not unaware of the fact they they wealthy and unwarlike.  Corbulo, on entering the province with great care followed by glory of which that campaign was he beginning, sent triremes up the channel of the Rhine and the rest of his vessels (depending on the suitability of each) up the estuaries and canals.  Having sunk the enemy’s skiffs and driven out Gannascus, when the immediate situation had been adequately settled, he reintroduced the legions — lazy at works and labor and delighting in plunder — to the old discipline :  no one was to leave the column or enter battle without having been ordered.  Sentries, night watches, day and night responsibilities were to carried out under arms.  One soldier, it was said, had suffered death for digging trenches without his sword, another for being girded only with his dagger as he dug.  These excesses, perhaps falsely exaggerated, nevertheless derived their origin from the leader’s strictness.  We may be sure that he was strict and implacable to serious offences, when such sternness against even trivialities was believed of him.

[11.19]  Ceterum is terror milites hostisque in diversum affecit :  nos virtutem auximus, barbari ferociam infregere.  Et natio Frisiorum, post rebellionem clade L. Apronii cœptam infensa aut male fida, datis obsidibus consedit apud agros a Corbulone descriptos :  idem Senatum, magistratus, leges imposuit.  Ac ne jussa exuerent, præsidium immunivit, missis qui majores Chaucos ad deditionem pellicerent, simul Gannascum dolo aggrederentur.  Nec irritæ aut degeneres insidiæ fuere adversus transfugam et violatorem fidei.  Sed cæde ejus motæ Chaucorum mentes, et Corbulo semina rebellionis præbebat, ut læta apud plerosque, ita apud quosdam sinistra fama.  ¿ Cur hostem conciret ?  Adversa in Rem Publicam casura :  sin prospere egisset, formidolosum paci virum insignem et ignavo principi prægravem.  Igitur Claudius adeo novam in Germanias vim prohibuit, ut referri præsidia cis Rhenum juberet.

[11.19]  This terror affected his own troops and the enemy in opposite ways.  Our men gained in valor;  the barbarians’ ferocity was broken.  The Frisians, who had been hostile or disloyal since the revolt begun with the defeat of Lucius Apronius, gave us hostages and settled down on territories marked out by Corbulo.  He also imposed a senate, magistrates, and laws.  So that they would not reject his orders, he built a garrison among them, while sending envoys to entice the Greater Chauci to capitulation and to attack Gannascus by stratagem.  This ambush on the life of a deserter and a traitor was not ineffective, nor was it anything dishonorable.  But the emotions of the Chauci were violently roused by his assassination, and Corbulo was now sowing the seeds of a revolt which, if happy news among most, was ominous among some.  “Why,” it was asked, “was he irritating the foe?  Any reverses will fall on the State.  If he is successful, so famous a hero will be a threat to peace, and extremely troublesome for a weak-willed emperor.”  Claudius accordingly forbade fresh attacks on Germany to such an extent that he ordered the garrisons to be withdrawn to this side of the Rhine.

[11.20]  Jam castra in hostili solo molienti Corbuloni eæ litteræ redduntur.  Ille re subita, quanquam multa simul offunderentur — metus ex imperatore, contemptio e barbaris, ludibrium apud socios — nihil aliud prolocutus quam “Beatos quondam duces Romanos,” signum receptui dedit.  Ut tamen miles otium exueret, inter Mosam Rhenumque trium et viginti milium spatio fossam perduxit qua incerta Oceani vitarentur.  Insignia tamen triumphi indulsit Cæsar, quamvis bellum negavisset.

Nec multo post Curtius Rufus eundem honorem adipiscitur, qui in agro Mattiaco recluserat specus quærendis venis argenti ;  unde tenuis fructus, nec in longum fuit.  At legionibus cum damno labor, effodere rivos, quæque in aperto gravia, humum infra moliri.  Quis subactus miles, et quia plures per provincias similia tolerabantur, componit occultas litteras nomine exercituum, precantium imperatorem ut, quibus permissurus esset exercitūs, triumphalia ante tribueret.

[11.20]  Corbulo was in the process of setting up camp on enemy soil when the letter reached him.  Surprised as he was, and many as were the thoughts which crowded on him — thoughts of peril from the emperor, of scorn from the barbarians, of ridicule from the allies — he said nothing but this, “Happy the Roman generals of old,” and gave the signal for retreat.  To keep his soldiers free from sloth, he dug a canal of twenty-three miles long between the Rhine and the Meuse by which to avoid the uncertainties of the ocean.  The emperor, though he had forbidden war, nonetheless granted him triumphal distinctions.

Soon afterwards Curtius Rufus obtained the same honor.  He had opened mines in the territory of the Mattiaci for working certain veins of silver.  The proceeds were slim and not long-lasting.  It was not only labor but loss for the legionaries :  they dug drainage channels and labored underground doing what is difficult enough in the open.  Worn down by all this, and because similar hardships were being endured in several provinces, the soldiers wrote a secret dispatch in the name of the armies, begging the emperor to give triumphal distinctions in advance to those to whom he was going to entrust his forces.

[11.21]  De origine Curtii Rufi, quem gladiatore genitum quidam prodidere, neque falsa prompserim et vera exsequi pudet.  Postquam adolevit, sectator quæstoris cui Africa obtigerat, dum in oppido Hadrumeto vacuis per medium diei porticibus secretus agitat, oblata ei species muliebris ultra modum humanum et audita est vox “Tu es, Rufe, qui in hanc provinciam pro consule venies.”  Tali omine in spem sublatus degressusque in Urbem largitione amicorum, simul acri ingenio quæsturam et mox nobiles inter candidatos, præturam, principis suffragio, assequitur, quum hisce verbis Tiberius dedecus natalium ejus velavisset :  “Curtius Rufus videtur mihi ex se natus.”  Longa post hæc senecta, et adversus superiores tristi adulatione, arrogans minoribus, inter pares difficilis, consulare imperium, triumphi insignia ac postremo Africam obtinuit ;  atque ibi defunctus fatale præsagium implevit.

[11.21]  Of the birth of Curtius Rufus, whom some affirm to have been the son of a gladiator, I would not want to promulgate lies, yet it is embarrassing to detail the truth.  On reaching manhood he became and attendant to a quæstor to whom Africa had been allotted, and he was spending time alone at midday in an empty portico in the town of Hadrumetum {= Sousse in modern Tunisia}, when he was confronted by a female apparition of greater than human stature, and heard the voice, “Thou, Rufus, art the man who will one day come into this province as proconsul.”  Raised high in hope by such an omen, he returned to Rome, where, through the lavish expenditure of his friends and his own sharp mind, he obtained the quæstorship, and, subsequently, in competition with well-born candidates, the praetorship, by the vote of the emperor Tiberius, who had veiled the humiliating facts of his birth, saying, “Curtius Rufus seems to me to have been born of himself.”  Afterwards, throughout a long old age of disgusting sycophancy to those above him, of arrogance to those beneath him, and of irritation to his equals, he gained consular power, triumphal insignia and, lastly, Africa.  There he died, and so fulfilled the prophecy of his destiny.

[11.22]  Interea Romæ, nullis palam neque cognitis mox causis, Cn. Nonius eques Romanus ferro accinctus reperitur in cœtu salutantium principem.  Nam postquam tormentis dilaniabatur, de se non infitiatus, conscios non edidit — incertum an occultans.

Eisdem consulibus, P. Dolabella censuit spectaculum gladiatorum per omnes annos celebrandum pecunia eorum qui quæsturam adipiscerentur.  Apud majores, virtutis id præmium fuerat, cunctisque civium, si bonis artibus fiderent, licitum petere magistratus ;  ac ne ætas quidem distinguebatur quin prima juventa consulatum et dictaturas inirent.  Sed quæstores regibus etiam tum imperantibus instituti sunt, quod lex curiata ostendit ab L. Bruto repetita.  Mansitque consulibus potestas deligendi, donec eum quoque honorem populus mandaret.  Creatique primum Valerius Potitus et Æmilius Mamercus sexagesimo tertio anno post Tarquinios exactos, ut rem militarem comitarentur.  Dein, gliscentibus negotiis, duo additi qui Romæ curarent.  Mox duplicatus numerus, stipendiaria jam Italia et accedentibus provinciarum vectigalibus.  Post, lege Sullæ, viginti creati supplendo Senatui, cui judicia tradiderat.  Et quanquam equites judicia recuperavissent, quæstura tamen ex dignitate candidatorum aut facilitate tribuentium gratuito concedebatur, donec sententia Dolabellæ velut venundaretur.

[11.22]  At Rome meanwhile, without any motive then known or subsequently ascertained, Gnæus Nonius, a Roman knight, was found wearing a sword amid a crowd paying its respects to the emperor.  The man did not deny his own guilt while being torn to pieces by torture, but gave up no accomplices — it being uncertain whether he was hiding anything or not.

During the same consulship {a.D. 47}, Publius Dolabella proposed that a spectacle of gladiators should be annually exhibited at the expense of those who obtained the quæstorship.  In our ancestors’ days this honor had been a reward of virtue, and it was lawful for all citizens who trusted their good qualities to seek magistracies;  not even a differentiation of age prevented them from embarking on consulship or dictatorships in early youth.  The quæstors indeed were appointed while the kings still ruled, as the revival by Brutus of the lex curiata plainly shows {509 B.C.}.  The consuls retained the power of selecting them, till the people bestowed this office as well as others.  The first so created were Valerius Potitus and Æmilius Mamercus sixty-three years after the expulsion of the Tarquins {i.e., 446 B.C., but the wrong date}, and they were to be assigned to military accounting.  As official business increased, two more were added to attend to affairs at Rome.  This number was again doubled as Italy became taxpaying and revenues also came in from the provinces {267 B.C.}.  Afterward, by a law of Sulla, twenty were appointed to fill up the Senate {81 B.C.}, to which he had entrusted judicial functions.  And even though the knights had recovered the judicial functions {70 B.C., through Pompey & Crassus}, still the quæstorship was granted at no cost in accordance with the candidates’ status or by the friendliness of the electors, till at Dolabella’s suggestion it was, so to speak, put up for sale.

[11.23]  A. Vitellio L. Vipstano consulibus, quum de supplendo Senatu agitaretur, primoresque Galliæ quæ « Comata » appellatur — fœdera et civitatem Romanam pridem assecuti — jus adipiscendorum in Urbe honorum expeterent, multus ea super re variusque rumor.  Et studiis diversis apud principem certabatur asseverantium non adeo ægram Italiam ut Senatum suppeditare Urbi suæ nequiret.  Suffecisse olim indigenas consanguineis populis ;  nec pænitere veteris Rei Publicæ.  Quin adhuc memorari exempla quæ priscis moribus ad virtutem et gloriam Romana indoles prodiderit.  ¿ An parum, quod Veneti et Insubres Curiam irruperint, nisi cœtus alienigenarum, velut capta sit civitas, inferatur ?  ¿ Quem, ultra, honorem residuis nobilium ;  aut si quis pauper e Latio senator foret ?  Oppleturos omnia divites illos quorum avi proavique, hostilium nationum duces, exercitus nostros ferro vique ceciderint, divum Julium apud Alesiam obsederint.  Recentia hæc ;  ¿ Quid si memoria eorum oriretur qui, sub Capitolio et arce Romana manibus eorundem stratis, perissent ?  Fruerentur sane vocabulo civitatis :  insignia patrum, decora magistratuum ne vulgarent.

[11.23]  In the consulship {a.D. 48} of Aulus Vitellius and Lucius Vipstanus {Poplicola Messalla} the question of filling up the Senate was discussed, and the chief men of Gallia Comata, as it was called, who had long possessed the rights of allies and of Roman citizens, sought the privilege of obtaining public offices in the City.  There was much talk of every kind on the subject, and it was argued before the emperor with vehement opposition.  “Italy,” it was asserted, “is not so feeble as to be unable to furnish its own capital City with a senate.  Once our native-born citizens sufficed for peoples of our own kin, and no one had regrets about the Republic of the past.  Men still remembered the examples which, under the early mores, the Roman character produced in respect of manliness and renown.  Was it not enough that the Veneti and Insubres {(borderland peoples in northern Italy)} had burst into the Curia, without a throng of aliens being brought in, as if the community had been captured?  What distinctions would there henceforth be for the remnants of our noble houses, or for any impoverished senator from Latium?  Every place will be crowded with these millionaires, whose ancestors of the second and third generations at the head of hostile tribes destroyed our armies with fire and sword, and actually besieged the divine Julius at Alesia.  These are recent events ;  but what if there were to spring up the memory of those who perished at the foot of a Capitol and Roman citadel destroyed by the hands of the same men ?  Let them enjoy indeed the title of citizens, but let them not vulgarise the distinctions of the Senate and the honors of office.”

[11.24]  His atque talibus haud permotus princeps et statim contra disseruit et, vocato Senatu, ita exorsus est :  “Majores mei, quorum antiquissimus Clausus, origine Sabina, simul in civitatem Romanam et in familias patriciorum ascitus est, hortantur uti paribus consiliis in Re Publica capessenda, transferendo huc quod usquam egregium fuerit.  Neque enim ignoro Julios Alba, Coruncanios Camerio, Porcios Tusculo, et — ne vetera ultra scrutemur — Etruria Lucaniaque et omni Italia in Senatum accitos, postremo ipsam ad Alpes promotam ut non modo singuli viritim, sed terræ, gentes in nomen nostrum coalescerent.  Tunc solida domi quies ;  et adversus externa floruimus, quum Transpadani in civitatem recepti, quum — specie deductarum per orbem terræ legionum, additis provincialium validissimis — fesso imperio subventum est.  ¿ Num pænitet Balbos ex Hispania, nec minus insignes viros e Gallia Narbonensi, transivisse ?  Manent posteri eorum, nec amore in hanc patriam nobis concedunt.  ¿ Quid aliud exitio Lacedæmoniis et Atheniensibus fuit, quanquam armis pollerent, nisi quod victos pro alienigenis arcebant ?  At conditor nostri Romulus tantum sapientia valuit, ut plerosque populos eodem die hostes, dein cives habuerit.  Advenæ in nos regnaverunt :  libertinorum filiis magistratus mandare non — ut plerique falluntur — repens, sed priori populo factitatum est.  “At cum Senonibus pugnavimus” ;  scilicet — ¿ Vulsci et Æqui nunquam adversam nobis aciem instruxere ?   “Capti a Gallis sumus” :  sed et Tuscis obsides dedimus et Samnitium jugum subiimus.  Ac tamen, si cuncta bella recenseas, nullum breviore spatio quam adversus Gallos confectum :  continua inde ac fida pax.  Jam moribus, artibus, affinitatibus nostris mixti aurum et opes suas inferant potius quam separati habeant.  Omnia, patres conscripti, quæ nunc vetustissima creduntur, nova fuere :  plebeji magistratus post patricios, Latini post plebejos, ceterarum Italiæ gentium post Latinos.  Inveterascet hoc quoque, et quod hodie exemplis tuemur, inter exempla erit.”

[11.24]  Unmoved by these and similar argurments, the emperor immediately discoursed from the opposite point of view and, convoking the Senate, began in this way :  “My ancestors, of whom the most ancient, Clausus of Sabine origin, was assumed at one and the same time into Roman citizenship and into the families of the patricians, urge using similar policies in political life, namely the transferring here of whatever proves to be exceptional elsewhere.  For I am not unaware that the Julii came from Alba, the Coruncanii from Camerium, the Porcii from Tusculum, and — not to explore the past any further — others from Etruria, Lucania and the whole of Italy, and finally that the country itself was advanced to the Alps so that not only single individuals but territories and tribes might unite in our name.  There was unalloyed domestic calm;  and in confronting the external world we flourished alike when the Transpadanes were received into citizenship and when — under the guise of settling our legions throughout the world, we enrolled in our ranks the most vigorous of the provincials — our debilitated empire was revived.  Are we sorry that the Balbi came to us from Spain, and other men no less distinguished from Narbonese Gaul?  Their descendants are still among us, and do not yield to us in love for this fatherland.  What was the ruin of Sparta and Athens, but the fact that, mighty as they were in war, they excluded the vanquished as being aliens?  Our founder Romulus, on the other hand, was so wise that he regarded many peoples as enemies and then as fellow-citizens on the very same day.  Immigrants have reigned over us.  That freedmen’s sons should be entrusted with public offices is not, as many wrongly think, something recent, but was done habitually by the people earlier.  “But,” it will be said, “we have fought with the Senones.”  I suppose then that the Volsci and Æqui {(tribes of central Italy)} never drew up their battle lines against us.  “We were captured by the Gauls.”  Well, we also gave hostages to the Etruscans, and passed under the yoke of the Samnites.  On the whole, if you were to review all our wars, none was finished in a shorter time than that with the Gauls.  From that time on there has been an unbroken and loyal peace.  Now, merged as they are with us by conventions, attainments and relationships, let them bring in their gold and their wealth rather than keep it to themselves.  Everything, Senators, which is now held to be of the highest antiquity, was once new.  Plebeian magistrates came after the patrician ones;  Latin magistrates after the plebeian ones;  magistrates of other Italian peoples after the Latin ones.  This too will grow old, and what we are today defending through precedents, will be itself a precedent.”

[11.25]  Orationem principis secuto patrum consulto, primi Ædui senatorum in Urbe jus adepti sunt.  Datum id fœderi antiquo, et quia soli Gallorum « fraternitatis » nomen cum populo Romano usurpant.

Eisdem diebus in numerum patriciorum ascivit Cæsar vetustissimum quemque e Senatu aut quibus clari parentes fuerant — paucis jam reliquis familiarum, quas Romulus majorum et L. Brutus minorum gentium appellaverant, exhaustis etiam quas dictator Cæsar lege Cassia et princeps Augustus lege Sænia sublegere ;  lætaque hæc in Rem Publicam munia multo gaudio censoris inibantur.  Famosos probris quonam modo Senatu depelleret anxius, mitem et recens repertam quam ex severitate prisca rationem adhibuit, monendo secum quisque de se consultaret peteretque jus exuendi ordinis :  facilem ejus rei veniam ;  et motos Senatu excusatosque simul propositurum — ut judicium censorum ac pudor sponte cedentium permixta ignominiam mollirent.  Ob ea Vipstanus consul rettulit Patrem Senatus appellandum esse Claudium :  quippe, promiscum Patris Patriæ cognomentum — nova in Rem Publicam merita non usitatis vocabulis honoranda.  Sed ipse cohibuit consulem ut nimium assentantem.  Condiditque lustrum quo censa sunt civium LVIIII {quinquagies novies centena milia :  (50 + 9) * 100,000 = 5,900,000} + LXXXIIII {octoginta quattuor milia :  + 84,000 = 5,984,000} + LXXII {septuaginta duo :  + 72 = 5,984,072}.

Isque illi finis inscitiæ erga domum suam fuit.  Haud multo post, flagitia uxoris noscere ac punire adactus est — ut deinde ardesceret in nuptias incestas.

[11.25]  The emperor’s speech was followed by a decree of the Senate, and the Ædui were the first to obtain the right of becoming senators in the City.  This compliment was paid to their ancient alliance, and to the fact that they alone of the Gauls use the name of “brotherhood” with the Roman people.

About the same time the emperor enrolled in the ranks of the patricians the most senior senators and such as had had distinguished parents.  By now few of the families that Romulus had called the “Greater” and Lucius Brutus had called the “Lesser” were left, and even those were exhausted which the Dictator Cæsar by the Cassian {54/44 B.C.} and the emperor Augustus by the Sænian law {30 B.C.} had appointed as their replacements.  These acts, welcome to the State, were undertaken with hearty gladness by the censor {i.e., Claudius himself}.  Nervous about how he was to rid the Senate of notorious reprobates, he preferred a gentle method, recently devised, to one which accorded with the sternness of antiquity, and advised each of them to examine his own case and seek the right of laying aside his rank.  Permission, he said, would be readily obtained.  He would publish in the same list those who had been expelled and those who had been allowed to retire, that by this merging of the decision of the censors and the modesty of voluntary resignation the disgrace might be softened.  For this, the consul Vipstanus moved that Claudius should be called “Father of the Senate.”  The title of “Father of the Fatherland” had, he argued, become banal;  new services ought to be recognized by unusual titles.  The emperor, however, himself stopped the consul’s flattery as extravagant.  He also closed the lustrum, the census for which gave a total of 5,984,072 citizens.

Then too ended his blindness as to his domestic affairs.  He was soon compelled to acknowledge and punish his wife’s infamies — thereby ensuring that he would burn for an incestuous wedding later on.

[11.26]  Jam Messalina, facilitate adulteriorum in fastidium versa, ad incognitas libidines profluebat, quum abrumpi dissimulationem etiam Silius — sive fatali vecordia an imminentium periculorum remedium ipsa pericula ratus — urgebat :  quippe non eo ventum ut senectam principis opperirentur.  Insontibus innoxia consilia ;  flagitiis manifestis subsidium ab audacia petendum.  Adesse conscios paria metuentes.  Se cælibem, orbum, nuptiis et adoptando Britannico paratum.  Mansuram eandem Messalinæ potentiam, addita securitate, si prævenirent Claudium, ut insidiis incautum, ita iræ properum.  Segniter eæ voces acceptæ, non amore in maritum, sed ne Silius summa adeptus sperneret adulteram, scelusque inter ancipitia probatum veris mox pretiis æstimaret.  Nomen tamen « matrimonii » concupivit ob magnitudinem infamiæ, cujus apud prodigos novissima voluptas est.  Nec ultra expectato quam dum sacrificii gratia Claudius Ostiam proficisceretur, cuncta nuptiarum sollemnia celebrat.

[11.26]  Messalina, already grown weary of the very facility of her adulteries, was now drifting into hitherto unrecognized lusts, when even Silius, either through some fatal infatuation or because he imagined that, amid the dangers which hung over him, danger itself was the best safety, urged the breaking off of all concealment.  “They were not,” he said, “in such an extremity as to have to wait for the emperor’s old age.  Riskfree plans were for the guiltless ;  for manifest crimes the refuge was to be sought in audacity.  They had accomplices in all who feared the same fate.  For himself, as he had neither wife nor child, he was ready to marry and to adopt Britannicus.  Messalina would have the same power as before, with the additional advantage of security, if only they took Claudius by surprise, who was as unsuspecting of ambush as he was quick to anger.”  The suggestion was received unenthusiastically, not because she loved her husband, but out of fear that Silius, on reaching the top, would spurn an adulteress and soon appraise at its true price a crime he had approved only amid risks.  But she intensely desired the label of “marriage” due to its enormity of scandal — the ultimate pleasure for the dissolute.  She waited only till Claudius was setting out for Ostia to perform a sacrifice, and then celebrated all the solemnities of a wedding.

[11.27]  Haud sum ignarus fabulosum visum iri, tantum ullis mortalium securitatis fuisse — in civitate omnium gnara et nihil reticente — nedum consulem designatum cum uxore principis, prædicta die, adhibitis qui obsignarent, velut suscipiendorum liberorum causa convenisse, atque illam audisse auspicum verba, flammeum, sacrificasse apud deos ;  discubitum inter convivas, oscula, complexus, noctem denique actam licentia conjugali.  Sed nihil compositum miraculi causa, verum audita scriptaque senioribus tradam.

[11.27]  I am by no means unaware that it will seem fictional for there to have been such lack of concern by any mortals — in a city aware of everything and silent on nothing —, let alone that a consul designate, on an appointed day, in the presence of signatories, should have come together with the emperor’s wife as if for the purpose of having children in legitimate marriage;  that she should have listened to the words of the priestly wedding-witnesses, taken the bridal veil, should have sacrificed to the gods ;  that they should have reclined at table among party guests ;  and that there were kisses, embraces and, finally, a night spent in spousal licence.  But nothing is composed for the sake of fantasy :  I am only relating what was heard and written about by our elders.

[11.28]  Igitur domus principis inhorruerat — maximeque quos penes potentia et, si res verterentur, formido —, non jam secretis colloquiis, sed aperte fremere :  dum histrio cubiculum principis insultaverit, dedecus quidem illatum, sed excidium procul afuisse ;  nunc juvenem nobilem, dignitate formæ, vi mentis ac propinquo consulatu majorem ad spem accingi — nec enim occultum quid post tale matrimonium superesset.  Subibat sine dubio metus, reputantes hebetem Claudium et uxori devinctum multasque mortes jussu Messalinæ patratas.  Rursus, ipsa facilitas imperatoris fiduciam dabat, si atrocitate criminis prævaluissent, posse opprimi damnatam antequam ream ;  sed in eo discrimen verti, si defensio audiretur — utque clausæ aures etiam confitenti forent.

[11.28]  As a resutl the emperor’s court shuddered — and in particular those among whom the power lay and, if things should change, there would be fear —, no longer in secret conversations but growling openly:  “As long as an actor {i.e., Mnester, 11.4},” they said, “had been dancing around the emperor’s bedroom, it certainly brought disgrace, but their own destruction had been far off.  Now, a young noble of stately beauty, of vigorous intellect, with a forthcoming consulship, was preparing himself for a greater prospect.  There was no hiding what was to follow such a marriage.”  Without question fear crept over them when they thought of the dullness of Claudius, shackled to his wife, and of the many murders perpetrated at Messalina’s bidding.  On the other hand, the very complaisance of the emperor inspired the confidence that if they prevailed owing to the abhorrent nature of the charge, she might be crushed, condemned before being tried.  But the issue turned on whether her defense would be heard — and that his ears would be closed even against her confession.

[11.29]  Ac primo Callistus, jam mihi circa necem G. Cæsaris narratus, et Appianæ cædis molitor Narcissus, flagrantissimaque eo in tempore gratia Pallas, agitavere num Messalinam secretis minis depellerent amore Silii, cuncta alia dissimulantes.  Dein metu ne ad perniciem ultro traherentur, desistunt — Pallas per ignaviam, Callistus prioris quoque regiæ peritus et potentiam cautis quam acribus consiliis tutius haberi.  Perstitit Narcissus, solum id immutans, ne quo sermone præsciam criminis et accusatoris faceret.  Ipse ad occasiones intentus, longa apud Ostiam Cæsaris mora, duas pælices quarum is corpori maxime insueverat, largitione ac promissis et, uxore dejecta, plus potentiæ ostentando, perpulit delationem subire.

[11.29]  At first Callistus, already mentioned by me in connection with the assassination of Gajus Cæsar {Caligula}, Narcissus, the engineer of Appius’ death, and Pallas, then in glowing favor, debated whether they might deflect Messalina from her passion for Silius by secret threats, keeping quiet about everything else.  Then, fearing that they themselves would be dragged to ruin, they abandoned the idea — Pallas out of cowardice and Callistus, with his additional experience in the former administration, aware that power is more securely maintained through careful plans rather than impetuous ones.  Narcissus persevered, his only change being not by any talk to make her aware beforehand of the charge or the accuser.  Carefully watching for his chance during Cæsar’s long delay at Ostia, using largesse and promises and pointing out that, with the wife removed the greater their power, he induced two of the courtesans to whose bodies the man was especially habituated to undertake the denunciation.

[11.30]  Exin Calpurnia (id pælici nomen), ubi datum secretum, genibus Cæsaris provoluta nupsisse Messalinam Silio exclamat ;  simul Cleopatram, quæ opperiens astabat, an idem comperisset interrogat atque, illa annuente, cieri Narcissum postulat.  Is veniam in præteritum petens quod Titios, Vettios, Plautios dissimulavisset.  Nec nunc adulteria objecturum ait.  Ne domum, servitia et ceteros fortunæ paratus reposceret.  Frueretur immo his — sed redderet uxorem rumperetque tabulas nuptiales.  “¿ An discidium,” inquit, “ tuum nosti ?  Nam matrimonium Silii vidit populus et Senatus et miles ;  ac ni propere agis, tenet Urbem maritus.”

[11.30]  Thereupon Calpurnia (that was the courtesan’s name), as soon as some privacy was granted, throwing herself at the emperor’s knees, cried out that Messalina was married to Silius.  At the same time she asked Cleopatra, who was standing near, waiting, whether she knew it and, at Cleopatra’s nodding assent, she demanded that Narcissus be summoned.  Narcissus begged pardon for the past, for having concealed the Titius’s, Vettius’s and Plautius’s.  Even now, he said, he would not make charges of adultery.  Claudius ought not to demand back the palace, the slaves and other accouterments of fortune.  Let him enjoy these things — but let him give back the wife and break the wedding tablets.  “Do you know,” he said, “of your divorce?  The people, the army, the Senate saw the marriage of Silius.  If you don’t act quickly, the husband will rule the City.”

[11.31]  Tum potissimos amicorum vocat, primumque rei frumentariæ præfectum Turranium, post Lusium Getam Prætorianis impositum percontatur.  Quis fatentibus certatim ceteri circumstrepunt, « iret in castra, firmaret Prætorias cohortes, securitati antequam vindictæ consuleret. »  Satis constat eo pavore offusum Claudium ut identidem interrogaret, ¿ an ipse imperii potens ?  ¿ an Silius privatus esset ?

At Messalina non alias solutior luxu, adulto autumno simulacrum vindemiæ per domum celebrabat.  Urgeri prela, fluere lacus ;  et feminæ pellibus accinctæ assultabant ut sacrificantes vel insanientes Bacchæ;  ipsa crine fluxo thyrsum quatiens, juxtaque Silius hedera vinctus, gerere cothurnos, jacere caput, strepente circum procaci choro.

Ferunt Vettium Valentem, lascivia in præaltam arborem conisum, interrogantibus quid aspiceret, respondisse tempestatem ab Ostia atrocem ;  sive cœperat ea species, seu forte lapsa vox in præsagium vertit.

[11.31]  At that Claudius called the most powerful of his friends — first Turranius, the prefect of the grain supply, then he questioned Lusius Geta, head of the Prætorians.  After they had conceded it, the others drowned him with their rival yelling to go to the camp, make sure of the Prætorian cohorts, and worry about security before vengeance.  It is well known that Claudius was so overwhelmed by fear that he asked repeatedly, was he in control of the command structure?,  was Silius a private citizen?

Messalina, on the other hand, at no other time more dissolute in her extravagance, was celebrating a simulation of the wine harvest throughout her house.  The winepresses were being squeezed;  the vats were overflowing;  women girt with skins were dancing like sacrificing or raving devotees of Bacchus ;  she herself, with her hair streaming and shaking a wand of Bacchus, and Silius alongside her crowned with ivy, were wearing stage boots, tossing their heads back and forth to the loud singing of a lewd chorus all around.

They say that Vettius Valens, playfully clambering up a very high tree, when asked what he saw, answered that it was a fearsome storm coming from Ostia ;  either that sight had just emerged, or a remark dropped by chance turned into an omen.

[11.32]  Non rumor interea, sed undique nuntii incedunt, qui gnara Claudio cuncta et venire promptum ultioni afferrent.  Igitur Messalina Lucullianos in hortos, Silius dissimulando metu ad munia fori digrediuntur.  Ceteris passim dilabentibus affuere centuriones, inditaque sunt vincla, ut quis reperiebatur in publico aut per latebras.  Messalina tamen, quanquam res adversæ consilium eximerent, ire obviam et aspici a marito, quod sæpe subsidium habuerat, haud segniter intendit, misitque ut Britannicus et Octavia in complexam patris pergerent.  Et Vibidiam, virginum Vestalium vetustissimam, oravit pontificis maximi aures adire, clementiam expetere.  Atque interim, tribus omnino comitantibus — id repente solitudinis erat — spatium Urbis pedibus emensa, vehiculo quo purgamenta hortorum egeruntur Ostiensem viam intrat, nulla cujusquam misericordia quia flagitiorum deformitas prævalebat.

[11.32]  Meanwhile it was no rumor but messengers from all parts that brought the news that everything was known to Claudius, and that he was coming, bent on vengeance.  At this Messalina departed for the gardens of Lucullus, and Silius, to conceal his fear, for his business in the forum.  As the others were slipping away in all directions, centurions met and shackled them as found, either in public or in hiding.  But Messalina, though the adverse situation deprived her of strategies, without delay resolved to meet and be seen by her husband, which had often been her salvation;  and she sent Britannicus and Octavia to go and embrace their father.  She besought Vibidia, the eldest of the Vestal Virgins, to ask an audience of the supreme pontiff {i.e., the emperor himself} and beg for mercy.  Meanwhile, with only three companions — so alone did she suddenly find herself —, she traversed the whole length of the city on foot and, mounting a cart by which the clearings from gardens are carried off, started along the road to Ostia — to the pity of no one, because the hideousness of her crimes was overwhelming.

[11.33]  Trepidabatur nihilo minus a Cæsare :  quippe Getæ Prætorii præfecto haud satis fidebat, ad honesta seu prava juxta levi.  Ergo Narcissus, assumptis quibus idem metus, non aliam spem incolumitatis Cæsaris affirmat quam si jus militum uno illo die in aliquem libertorum transferret, seque offert suscepturum.  Ac ne, dum in Urbem vehitur, ad pænitentiam a L. Vitellio et Largo Cæcina mutaretur, in eodem gestamine sedem poscit sumitque.

[11.33]  Nonetheless there was trepidation on Cæsar’s part.  He die not much trust Geta, the prefect of the Prætorians, a man easily swayed to good or evil alike.  Narcissus, thus, gathering those of the same fear, affirmed there was no other hope of rescuing Cæsar other then if for that one day military authority were transferred to one of the freedment, and offered to take up the duty himself.  And so that on his return to Rome Claudius would not be induced by Lucius Vitellius and Largus Cæcina to change his mind to regret, he asked for and took a seat in the emperor’s carriage.

[11.34]  Crebra posthæc fama fuit, inter diversas principis voces — quum modo incusaret flagitia uxoris, aliquando ad memoriam conjugii et infantiam liberorum revolveretur —, non aliud prolocutum Vitellium quam “¡ O facinus !  ¡ O scelus !”  Instabat quidem Narcissus aperire ambages et veri copiam facere ;  sed non ideo pervicit quin suspensa et quo ducerentur inclinatura responderet, exemploque ejus Largus Cæcina uteretur.

Et jam erat in aspectu Messalina, clamitabatque audiret Octaviæ et Britannici matrem, quum obstrepere accusator, Silium et nuptias referens ;  simul codicillos libidinum indices tradidit, quis visus Cæsaris averteret.  Nec multo post Urbem ingredienti offerebantur communes liberi, nisi Narcissus amoveri eos jussisset.  Vibidiam depellere nequivit quin multa cum invidia flagitaret ne indefensa conjunx exitio daretur.  Igitur auditurum principem et fore diluendi criminis facultatem respondit ;  iret interim virgo et sacra capesseret.

[11.34]  It was currently reported in after times that while the emperor broke into contradictory exclamations, now inveighing against the infamies of his wife, and now, returning in thought to the remembrance of his love and of his infant children, Vitellius said nothing but, “What wrongdoing!  what a crime!”  Narcissus certainly kept pressing him to explain these ambiguous words and make their true meaning clearly intelligible;  but he could not succeed in keeping him from responding with ambiguities and with what would go in whatever way they were interpreted, nor in keeping Largus Cæcina from following his example.

And Messalina was now in view, and was crying out that the emperor should listen to the mother of Octavia and Britannicus, when her accuser yelled out, referring to Silius and the wedding.  At the same moment, to divert Cæsar’s eyes from her, he handed him notes detailing her debaucheries.  Shortly afterwards, as he was entering Rome, their mutual children were about to be brought to him, but Narcissus ordered them to be removed.  Vibidia he was unable to keep from indignantly demanding that a wife should not be given up to death without a hearing.  So he replied that the emperor would hear her and there would be an opportunity of disproving the charge.  Meanwhile the Virgin was to go and perform her sacred duties.

[11.35]  Mirum inter hæc silentium Claudii, Vitellius ignaro propior :  omnia liberto obœdiebant.  Patefieri domum adulteri atque illuc deduci imperatorem jubet.  Ac primum in vestibulo effigiem patris Silii consulto Senatus abolitam demonstrat, tum quicquid avitum Neronibus et Drusis — in pretium probri cessisse.  Incensumque et ad minas erumpentem castris infert, parata contione militum ;  apud quos præmonente Narcisso pauca verba fecit :  nam etsi justum, dolorem pudor impediebat.  Continuus dehinc cohortium clamor nomina reorum et pœnas flagitantium ;  admotusque Silius tribunali non defensionem, non moras temptavit, precatus ut mors acceleraretur.  Eādem constantiā et illustres equites Romani ;  ea cupido maturæ necis fuit.  Et Titium Proculum, custodem a Silio Messalinæ datum et indicium offerentem, Vettium Valentem confessum, et Pompejum Urbicum, ac Saufejum Trogum ex consciis, tradi ad supplicium jubet.  Decrius quoque Calpurnianus, vigilum præfectus, Sulpicius Rufus, ludi procurator, Juncus Vergilianus, senator, eadem pœna affecti.

[11.35]  All throughout, Claudius kept an amazing silence;  Vitellius was close to incomprehension.  Everything was under the freedman’s control.  By his order, the adulterer’s house was opened and the emperor led there.  First, in the vestibule, he pointed out the statue of Silius’s father, which a decree of the Senate had directed to be destroyed;  then everything inherited from the Neros and Drususes — given as a reward for the adultery.  Then he led the emperor, furious and bursting out in menace, into the camp, where the soldiers had been assembled.  After a prologue from Narcissus he spoke a few words to them.  For shame inhibited his indignation, albeit justified.  There wa an unbroken roar from the cohorts, demanding the names of the culprits and their punishment.  Brought up to the platform, Silius tried for neither defense nor delay, begging that his death be speeded up.  Illustrious Roman knights, too, were of the same fortitude;  that was their desire — for a quick death.  Titius Proculus, a guard given by Silius to Messalina and offering to give evidence, Vettius Valens, who had confessed, together with Pompeius Urbicus and Saufejus Trogus from among her accomplices, were ordered to execution.  Decrius Calpurnianus too, chief of the firemen, Sulpicius Rufus, manager of the Gladiators’ school, and Juncus Virgilianus, a senator, were similarly punished.

[11.36]  Solus Mnester cunctationem attulit, dilaniata veste clamitans aspiceret verberum notas, reminisceretur vocis, qua se obnoxium jussis Messalinæ dedisset :  aliis largitione aut spei magnitudine, sibi ex necessitate culpam ;  nec cuiquam ante pereundum fuisse, si Silius rerum poteretur.  Commotum his et pronum ad misericordiam Cæsarem perpulere liberti ne tot illustribus viris interfectis histrioni consuleretur :  sponte an coactus, tam magna peccavisset, nihil rēferre.

Ne Trauli quidem Montani equitis Romani defensio recepta est.  Is, modesta juventa, sed corpore insigni, accitus ultro, noctemque intra unam a Messalina proturbatus erat, paribus lasciviis ad cupidinem et fastidia.  Suillio Cæsonino et Plautio Laterano mors remittitur, huic ob patrui egregium meritum ;  Cæsoninus vitiis protectus est, tanquam in illo fœdissimo cœtu passus muliebria.

[11.36]  Mnester alone occasioned a pause.  Rending his clothes, he kept shouting for him to look at the scars of his stripes and remember the words by which he had delivered Mnester, subject to the commands of Messalina.  The guilt of others had been the result of presents or of the magnitude of their ambition;  his, of compulsion.  He would have been the first victim if Silius had obtained empire.  Moved by these words and leaning toward pity, Cæsar was compelled by his freedmen not to pay heed to an actor when so many illustrious men had been killed.  “It made no difference whether he had sinned so greatly from choice or compulsion.”

Not even the defense of Traulus Montanus, a Roman knight, was admitted.  A modest young man of extraordinary handsomeness, without his doing anything he had been summoned and dismissed within a single night by Messalina, who was equally uncontrolled in her lusts and revulsions.  In the cases of Suilius Cæsoninus and Plautius Lateranus, execution was remitted.  The latter was saved by the distinguished service of his uncle;  Cæsoninus was protected by his very vices, as having submitted to anal intercourse amid that loathsome crowd.

[11.37]  Interim Messalina Lucullianis in hortis prolatare vitam, componere preces, nonnulla spe et aliquando ira :  tantum inter extrema superbiæ gerebat.  Ac ni cædem ejus Narcissus properavisset, verterat pernicies in accusatorem.  Nam Claudius, domum regressus et tempestivis epulis delenitus, ubi vino incaluit, iri jubet nuntiarique miseræ (hoc enim verbo usum ferunt) dicendam ad causam postera die adesset.  Quod ubi auditum et languescere ira, redire amor ac, si cunctarentur, propinqua nox et uxorii cubiculi memoria timebantur, prorumpit Narcissus denuntiatque centurionibus et tribuno, qui aderat, exsequi cædem — ita imperatorem jubere.  Custos et exactor e libertis Euodus datur ;  isque raptim in hortos prægressus repperit fusam humi, assidente matre Lepida quæ, florenti filiæ haud concors, supremis ejus necessitatibus ad miserationem evicta erat, suadebatque ne percussorem opperiretur :  transisse vitam neque aliud quam morti decus quærendum.  Sed animo per libidines corrupto nihil honestum inerat ;  lacrimæque et questus irriti ducebantur, quum impetu venientium pulsæ fores, astititque tribunus per silentium, at libertus increpans multis et servilibus probris.

[11.37]  Messalina meanwhile, in the gardens of Lucullus, was prolonging her life, and composing a plea with some hope and occasionally anger.  Such was her pride even in his desperate situation.  If Narcissus had not hastened her death, ruin would have recoiled on her accuser.  For, Claudius, having returned home and softened by an early dinner, after the wine had warmed him, bade some one go and tell the “pitiable woman” (this is the word they say he used) to come on the morrow and plead her cause.  On hearing this, given that the anger was abating, love returning and that, if they delayed, the approaching night and memory of his wife’s bedroom were to be feared, Narcissus rushed out and ordered the centurions and the tribune on guard to carry out her execution — the emperor was ordering it.  Evodus, one of the freedmen, was appointed as guard and executioner.  Quickly going to the gardens, he found Messalina stretched upon the ground, while by her side sat Lepida, her mother, who, though by no means friendly with her daughter while the latter held power, was now melted to pity by her inevitable doom, and urged her not to wait for the executioner.  “Life,” she said, “was over;  all that could be looked for was honor in death.”  But in a mind so corrupted by lusts nothing noble remained.  Her tears and idle complaints were still being drawn out when the gates were burst open by the blows of the newcomers, and the tribune stood there in silence while the freeman screamed at her with a torrent of abuse approprate for slaves.

[11.38]  Tunc primum fortunam suam introspexit, ferrumque accepit quod, frustra jugulo aut pectori per trepidationem admovens, ictu tribuni transigitur.  Corpus matri concessum.  Nuntiatumque Claudio epulanti perisse Messalinam, non distincto sua an aliena manu.  Nec ille quæsivit, poposcitque poculum et solita convivio celebravit.  Ne secutis quidem diebus odii, gaudii, iræ, tristitiæ, ullius denique humani affectus signa dedit, non quum lætantes accusatores aspiceret, non quum filios mærentes.  Juvitque oblivionem ejus Senatus, censendo nomen et effigies privatis ac publicis locis demovendas.  Decreta Narcisso quæstoria insignia — levissimum fastidio ejus, quum super Pallantem et Callistum ageret —, ** {ob consilia} ** honesta quidem, sed ex quis deterrima orirentur et tristitia multis.

[11.38]  Then for the first time she realized her fate and took up a sword which, putting it up to her throat or breast in vain because of her trembling, was driven through her by a blow from the tribune.  Her body was given up to her mother.  Claudius was still at the banquet when told Messalina had died, with no mention of whether it was by her own or another’s hand.  Nor did he ask the question, but called for the cup and carried on with the usual routine of the banquet.  During the days which followed he showed no sign of hatred or joy, anger or sadness, in a word, of any human emotion, either when he looked on her lighthearted accusers or on her weeping children.  The Senate assisted his forgetfulness by decreeing that her name and her statues should be removed from all places, public or private.  Narcissus was decreed quæstorian insignia — the merest triviality for one so disdainful, since he acted above Pallas and Callistus —, ** {out of intentions} ** certainly honorable, but from which the worst consequences and grief would arise for many.