o. 76.] DEATH OF ILLUSTRIOUS PERSONS. -153 saluted "Imperator," an ancient honour, usually rendered to the old Roman captains, who, upon their successful exploits for their country, were saluted with shouts of joy and vehement exultation from their victorious armies: and there have been at once several Imperators, without any preeminence of one over the rest. It was a title vouchsafed to some even by Augustus; and now, for the last time, by Tiberius to Blæsus. 75. This year died two illustrious men; the first, Asinius Saloninus, distinguished as the grandson of Marcus Agrippa and Asinius Pollio; half-brother of Drusus, and the intended husband of the emperor's granddaughter. The second, Ateius Capito, mentioned above; in civil acquirements, the most eminent man in Rome; for pedigree, his grandfather was only a centurion under Sylla, but his father attained the rank of prætor. Augustus had pushed him early into the consulship, that, by the honour of that office, he might set him above Antistius Labeo, who excelled in the same accomplishments; for that age produced together these two ornaments of peace: but Labeo possessed the genuine spirit of liberty, and therefore enjoyed a larger share of popularity; while Capito gained by obsequiousness greater credit with those who bore rule. The former, as he was never suffered to rise beyond the prætorship, derived favour from the injustice done him; the other, from having obtained the consulate of which he was considered unworthy, was on that account an object of aversion. 76. Junia too, now sixty-four years after the battle of Philippi, finished her course; by birth the daughter of the sister of Cato, sister of M. Brutus, and wife of C. Cassius. Her will was the subject of much talk amongst the populace; since being immensely rich, and having honourably distinguished with legacies almost all the great men of Rome, she omitted Tiberius,an omission which drew from him no indications of offended dignity, nor did he hinder her panegyric from being pronounced from the rostra, nor her funeral from being celebrated with all the other customary solemnities. The images of twenty of the most illustrious familiesthe Manlii, the Quinctii, and other names of equal splendour, were carried before it. Those of Brutus and Cassius were not displayed, but for that very reason they shone with preeminent lustre. BOOK IV. 1. WHEN Caius Asinius and Caius Antistius were consuls, Tiberius was in the ninth year of his reign; during the whole of which he saw the state undisturbed by commotion, and his family flourishing (for he regarded the death of Germanicus as one of the lucky events which had befallen him); but now, on a sudden, fortune began to work confusion and trouble; Tiberius himself to tyrannise, or encourage and support others in tyrannical proceedings. The origin and cause of this change is attributable to Ælius Sejanus, commander of the prætorian guards, whose prevailing influence I have already mentioned. I will now unfold the particulars of his birth, his character, and the atrocious act by which he sought to grasp the sovereign power. He was born at Vulsinii; his father was Sejus Strabo, a Roman knight; in early youth he attached himself to Caius Cæsar, grandson of the deified Augustus; and was reported to have prostituted himself to Apicius, a rich man and a noted spendthrift. Soon after, he gained such an ascendancy over Tiberius by various arts, that though he was close and mysterious in his intercourse with others, he threw off all restraint and reserve with him. This was not so much effected by superior sagacity (for it was in this that he was surpassed by Tiberius) as the displeasure with which the gods regarded the Roman state, to which he was equally fatal in the height of his power and in his death. His person was hardy and equal to fatigues; his spirit daring; expert in disguising his own iniquities, prompt to spy out the failings of others; at once fawning and imperious; with an exterior of assumed modesty, his heart insatiably lusted for supreme domination; and with this view he engaged sometimes in profusion, largesses, and luxury; but more frequently gave himself to business and watching, practices no less dangerous, when counterfeited by ambition for the acquisition of empire. e. 3.] CORRUPT PRACTICES OF SEJANUS. 155 2. The authority of his commission over the guards, which was but moderate before his time, he extended, by gathering into one camp all the prætorian cohorts then dispersed over the city; that thus united, they might receive his orders simultaneously, and by continually beholding their own numbers and strength, and by familiar intercourse, conceive a confidence in themselves, and strike terror into others. He pretended, "that the soldiers, while they lived scattered, became debauched; that when gathered into a body, in any hasty emergency, a larger force might be brought up at once to give aid; and that when their camp was fixed remote from the allurements of the town, they would in their discipline be more exact and severe. When the encampment was finished, he began gradually to creep into the good graces of the soldiers, by conversing with them, and addressing them by name: he also chose the centurions and the tribunes himself. Nor did he fail to strengthen his interest in the senate by getting those who were of his party invested with honours and the command of provinces; Tiberius yielding to him in everything, and seconding his views with such zeal, that not in conversation only, but in his speeches to the senate and people, he frequently made honourable mention of him as his associate in the toils of government; nay, he allowed his effigies to be adored in the several theatres, in the forum, and at the head-quarters1 of the legions. 3. But the imperial house full of Cæsars; the emperor's son, in the vigour of manhood, and his grandsons grown up, were obstacles to his ambition: and because to cutthem all off at once was dangerous, the success of his treacherous plot required that the horrid deeds should be perpetrated at intervals. He however chose the more secret method, and to begin with Drusus, against whom he was impelled by recent motives of resentment. For Drusus, impatient of a rival, and in temper irascible, bad lifted his hand against Sejanus, 1 The word translated "head-quarters" is principia, which signifies the broad space left between the tents of the legions and the tribunes in a Roman camp. This space formed a wide street, running across the whole encampment, and thus dividing it into two parts. On the marking out of the principia depended the laying down of all other parts, and all the lines of tents led up to it, as the main thoroughfare. 2 Drusus, and the three sons of Germanicus; Nero, Drusus, and Caligula. in an altercation which happened to arise between them, and, as he prepared to resist, given him a blow on the face. Carefully considering therefore every means of revenge, the most opportune seemed to be to have recourse to Livia, his wife: she was the sister of Germanicus, and though in her younger days she was not handsome, she grew up surpassingly beautiful. Pretending to be violently enamoured of her, he tempted her to adultery; and having once triumphed over her honour, (nor will a woman who has sacrificed her chastity stick at any other iniquity,) he led her on to entertain the project of a marriage with him, a partnership in the empire, and the murder of her husband. Thus the niece of Augustus, the daughter-in-law of Tiberius, the mother of children by Drusus, disgraced herself, her ancestors, and her posterity, by a connexion with an adulterer from a municipal town; exchanging an honourable certainty for guilty prospects which might never be realized. Eudemus, the friend and physician of Livia, who, under colour of his profession, was frequently with her in private, was admitted into the plot. Sejanus too, to avoid the jealousy of his mistress, repudiated Apicata, his wife, by whom he had three children. But still the enormity of the crime induced fear, delay, and frequently opposite, counsels. 4. In the beginning of this year, Drusus, one of the offspring of Germanicus, put on the manly gown; and upon him the senate conferred the same honours decreed to his brother Nero. A speech was added by Tiberius, with high encomiums on his son, "that he showed the tenderness of a father to the children of his brother." For Drusus, however difficult it be for power and unanimity to subsist between equals, was esteemed kind, certainly not ill-disposed, towards these youths. Now again was revived by Tiberius his stale and oft counterfeited purpose of a progress into the provinces. He pretended "the multitude of veterans to be discharged, and the necessity of recruiting the armies; for there was a deficiency of volunteers, or if there were a sufficient supply, 1 Pliny the elder gives a dark picture of the physicians of his times. They had their opportunities to administer poison, to make wills, and manage intrigues. "Quid enim venenorum fertilius? aut unde plures, testamentorum insidia? Jam vero et adulteria in principum domibus, ut Eudemi in Livia Drusi Cæsaris."-Lib. xxix. s. 8. c. 5.] ROMAN FLEETS AND LEGIONS. 157 they were inferior in courage and conduct, as those who volunteered were generally desperate and loose characters." He likewise cursorily recounted the number of the legions, and what countries they defended, a detail which I think it behoves me also to repeat, that thence may appear what was then the complement of the Roman forces, what kings their confederates, and how much more narrow the limits of the empire were then than now.' 5. Italy was guarded by two fleets, in the two seas; one at Misenum, one at Ravenna; and the nearest coast of Gaul by the galleys taken by Augustus at the battle of Actium and sent ably manned to Forojulium. But the chief strength lay upon the Rhine; it consisted of eight legions, a common resource against the Germans and the Gauls. Spain, lately subdued, was held in subjection by three. King Juba2 had received Mauritania by gift from the Roman people: the rest of Africa was occupied by two legions; and Egypt by a similar number. Four legions kept in subjection all that is comprehended in the vast range of country commencing with Syria, and extending as far as the Euphrates and bordering upon the Iberians, Albanians, and other territories, whose princes are protected against foreign powers by our greatness. Thrace was held by Rhemetalces, and the sons of Cotys; and both banks of the Danube by four legions; two in Pannonia, two in Mosia. In Dalmatia likewise were placed two; who, by the situation of the country, were at hand to support the former in the rear, and had not far to march into Italy, were any sudden succours required there: though Rome too had her peculiar soldiery; three city cohorts, and nine prætorian, levied chiefly out of Etruria and Umbria, or from the ancient Latium and the old Roman 1 In the time of Tiberius, Syene, a city strongly garrisoned, at the farther extremity of Egypt, was the boundary of the Roman empire. Trajan enlarged the limits as far as the Red Sea. 2 Juba's father was king of Numidia. He attached himself to Pompey's party, and took a decided part against Julius Cæsar. Even after the death of Pompey, he stood at bay with Cæsar, and at length received a total overthrow in the battle of Thapsus. The son was led to Rome, to walk in Cæsar's triumph. Educated at the court of Augustus, and distinguished by his talents, Augustus gave him in marriage the young Cleopatra, daughter of the famous Cleopatra, by Mark Antony, and sent him (Numidia being then a Roman province) to reign in Mauritania, A.U.C. 724. |