c. 47.]

QUESTION OF THE SUCCESSION.

243

affection, but as yet a child: the son of Germanicus had arrived at the vigour of youth, and the favour of the people attended him, a motive this with his grandfather to hate him. He had even debates with himself about Claudius, as he was a sedate character and inclined to liberal studies; but his deficiency in mental vigour formed an impediment. In case he sought a successor apart from his own family, he dreaded lest the memory of Augustus, lest the name of the Cæsars should be scorned and degraded. For, it was not so much that he cared to gratify the present generation, as that he was desirous of standing well with posterity. Still wavering, and his strength decaying, he was soon induced to leave to the decision of fortune a question for which he was unequal, though he dropped some expressions from which it might be gathered that he had an insight into futurity: for he upbraided Macro, in no obscure and indirect terms, "with forsaking the setting sun and turning to the rising:" and of Caligula, who in some incidental conversation ridiculed Sylla, he foretold, "that he would have all Sylla's vices, and none of his virtues." At the same time, embracing the younger of his grandsons,' not without many tears, while the countenance of Caligula assumed a stern and angry aspect, he said to him, "Thou wilt slay him, and another shall slay thee." But, while his illness became more and more serious, he relinquished nothing of his libidinous excesses, affecting strength of constitution by showing how he could bear illness. He was wont, too, to ridicule the physician's art, and those who, after the age of thirty, needed to be informed by any one else what benefited or injured their constitutions.

47. At Rome, meanwhile, were sown the seeds that were destined to yield a harvest of blood after the decease of Tiberius. Lælius Balbus had charged Acutia, some time the wife of Publius Vitellius, with high treason; and, as the senate were, after her condemnation, decreeing a reward to the accuser, Junius Otho, tribune of the people, interposed his veto hence their mutual hate, and afterwards the exile

1 This was the son of Drusus, who had been cut off by Sejanus. (Book iv. 8.) He was afterwards put to death by Caligula. (See Suet. in Calig s. 23.) Caligula himself died by the assassin's dagger. (Suet. in Calig. s. 58.)

2 For Publius Vitellius, see book v. 8.

of Otho. Then Albucilla, infamous for her many amours, who had been married to Satrius Secundus,' the man who revealed the conspiracy of Sejanus, was impeached of impiety towards the prince. In the charge were involved, as her accomplices and her adulterers, Cneius Domitius, Vibius Marsus, and Lucius Arruntius. Of the noble descent of Domitius I have spoken before: Marsus, too, was distinguished by the ancient dignities of his house, and his own fame for learning. The minutes, however, transmitted to the senate, imported, "that in the examination of the witnesses, and torture of the slaves, Macro had presided: and as there came not any letter from the emperor against the accused, it was suspected, that, while he was ill, and perhaps without his privity, the accusations were in great measure forged, in consequence of the notorious enmity of Macro to Arruntius.

48. Domitius therefore by preparing for his defence, and Marsus by seeming determined to starve himself to death, protracted their lives. Arruntius, to the importunity of his friends, urging him to try delays and evasions, answered, "that the same measures were not honourable to all men alike he had lived long enough; his only regret was, that exposed on all sides to derision and peril, he had submitted to bear thus far an old age loaded with anxieties; long obnoxious to the malice of Sejanus, now of Macro, always of some minion of power; not because he was guilty of any crime, but because he was intolerant of the grossest iniquities. Grant that the few and last days of Tiberius could be got over, yet how could he escape all that he would have to endure under the youth who threatened to succeed him? When the mind of Tiberius, a man of consummate experience, underwent such a convulsion and transformation from the potent influence of imperial power, was it likely that Caligula, who had scarce outgrown his childhood, ignorant of everything, or nursed and principled in the worst, would follow a course more righteous under the guidance of Macro; the same Macro, who, as the more expert villain, having been selected for the task of crushing Sejanus, had brought the commonwealth to a state of wretchedness the most abject, by his numerous atrocities? He had now before him," he said,

1 Satrius Secundus had been the active agent of Sejanus. See book iv. 34; and this book, c. 8.

c. 50.]

DEATH OF TIBERIUS.

245

"a prospect of slavery still more embittered; and therefore it was that he withdrew at once from the horrors which had been enacted, and those that impended." While pouring forth these warnings with the intense emotion of a prophet, he opened his veins. That Arruntius was wise in resorting to suicide the following events will testify. Albucilla, after inflicting an ineffectual wound upon herself, was, by order of the senate, dragged to prison. As to the ministers of her lusts, it was decreed, "that Carsidius Sacerdos, of prætorian rank, should be banished to an island; Pontius Fregellanus expelled the senate; and that upon Lælius Balbus the same penalty be inflicted." The senators gave the latter judgment with feelings of joy, as he was accounted a man of turbulent eloquence, and zealous in his efforts against the innocent.

49. About the same time, Sextus Papinius, of a consular family, chose a sudden and frightful end, by throwing himself down from an eminence. The cause was ascribed to his mother, who, after many repulses, had, by fondling and excitement, brought him into a situation from which he could escape by death only. She was therefore accused in the senate; and, though she embraced the knees of the fathers, and pleaded "the natural tenderness of a mother's grief, and the greater weakness of a woman's spirit under such a calamity," with other motives of pity in the same doleful strain, she was banished Rome for ten years, till her younger son was past the slippery period of youth.

50. As for Tiberius, his body was now wasted and his strength exhausted, but his dissimulation failed him not. He exhibited the same inflexibility of mind, the same energy in his looks and discourse; and even sometimes by affected vivacity tried to hide his decaying strength, though too manifest to be concealed. And after much shifting of places, he settled at length at the promontory of Misenum, in a villa of which Lucullus was once lord. There it was discovered that his end was approaching in the following manner :-In his train was a physician, named Charicles, noted in his profession, not indeed to prescribe for the prince in cases of

We are told by Plutarch, that this villa, formerly the property of Caius Marius, was purchased by Lucullus at an immense price. (Plutarch, Life of Marius.) Brotiers says, the ruins are still to be seen, near the promontory of Misenum.

indisposition, but that he might have some one to consult if he thought proper. Charicles, as if he were departing to attend his own affairs, and taking hold of his hand under pretence of taking leave, felt his pulse. But he did not escape detection, for he instantly ordered the entertainment to be renewed; whether incensed, and thence the more concealing his displeasure, is uncertain; but at table he continued beyond his wont, as if to do honour to his friend on his departure. Charicles, however, assured Macro "that life was ebbing fast, and could not outlast two days. Hence the whole court was in a bustle with consultations, and expresses were despatched to the generals and armies. On the seventeenth before the calends of April, he was believed to have finished his mortal career, having ceased to breathe and Caligula, in the midst of a great throng of persons, paying their congratulations, was already going forth to make a solemn entrance on the sovereignty, when suddenly a notice came, "that Tiberius had recovered his sight and voice, and had called for some persons to give him food to restore him." The consternation was universal: the concourse about Caligula dispersed in all directions, every man affecting sorrow, or feigning ignorance; he himself stood fixed in silence,-fallen from the highest hopes, he now expected the worst. Macro, undismayed, ordered the old man to be smothered with a quantity of clothes, and the doorway to be cleared. Thus expired Tiberius, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.

51. His father was Nero, and he was on both sides a branch of the Claudian house, though his mother had been ingrafted by adoptions into the Livian, and next into the Julian family. From his first infancy, his life was chequered by various vicissitudes and perils: for then as a voluntary exile he followed his proscribed father; and when taken as a stepson into the family of Augustus, he struggled with many rivals, while Marcellus and Agrippa, and after them the Cæsars Caius and Lucius, flourished. His brother Drusus, too, enjoyed a greater degree of favour with the Roman people than himself. But his greatest embarrassment arose out of his marriage with Julia, whether he should connive at the prostitution of his wife, or repudiate her. Afterwards, upon his return from Rhodes, he found the prince's family bereft of heirs, and continued its sole support for twelve years. For near four-and

c. 51.]

ASIATICUS AND POPPEA ACCUSED.

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twenty years he ruled the Roman state with absolute sway. His manners also varied with the conditions of his fortune: his conduct was exemplary, and his reputation high, while in a private capacity, or holding dignities under Augustus; but while Germanicus and Drusus were alive, his manners were reserved and mysterious, artfully assuming the merit of virtues to which he had no claim. And while his mother lived his character exhibited a compound of good and evil. While he loved or feared Sejanus, though detested for his cruelties, he observed a secresy and caution in the gratification of his lusts; but at last, when all restraints of shame and fear were removed, and he was left to the uncontrolled bent of his genius, he broke out at once into acts of atrocious villany and revolting depravity.

1.

*

BOOK XI.1

FOR Messalina, who believed that Valerius Asiaticus, who had been twice consul, was engaged in an adulterous intercourse with Poppaa, was bent upon his ruin; and as she equally coveted his fine gardens, commenced by Lucullus, but carried out on an extended scale, and adorned in a style of unexampled magnificence by himself, she suborned Suilius to accuse both him and her. In the plot was joined Sosibius, tutor to Britannicus, who under the mask of friendship was to warn Claudius "to beware of power and wealth in private hands, as dangerous to the interests of princes; that Asiaticus had been the principal promoter of the assassination of Caligula, nor feared to avow it in a public assembly

1 The former part of this book, comprising no less than six years, is lost, with other parts of Tacitus. Claudius succeeded to Caligula, who was put to death by Chærea and other conspirators, on the 24th of January, A.U.C. 794. The present book begins abruptly in the year of Rome 800, when Claudius had reigned six years. The very first sentence is imperfect. The historian, beyond all doubt, had been speaking of Messalina and Poppaa Sabina; but neither of them is mentioned in the mutilated text.

2 Suilius has been already mentioned, Annals, book iv. 31. See also book xiii. 42.