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Κύρια The Annals: The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero (Oxford World's Classics)
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oxford world's classics THE ANNALS Gaius (or Publius: the evidence is ambiguous) Cornelius Tacitus is widely regarded as the greatest of all Roman historians. We know relatively little about his life. He was born around ad 56, and is known to have engaged in the standard political career of a young Roman aristocrat, holding the offices of quaestor (in 81 or 82), praetor (in 88), and consul (in 97), along with a variety of other administrative and military posts, including (by 88) membership of the college of priests known as the quindecimviri sacris faciundis. He was governor of Asia (a province of the empire consisting of part of modern Turkey) 112–13. In a high-profile trial in 99–100 he and his friend Pliny the Younger successfully prosecuted Marius Priscus for corruption while governor of Africa. Tacitus probably lived beyond 117; but his precise date of death is unknown. He was betrothed in 77 to the daughter of Julius Agricola, later governor of Britain, and married her shortly afterwards: her name, however, is unknown. Tacitus' writings include the Agricola and the Germania, both published in 98. The date of a third work, the Dialogue on Orators, is disputed; some have thought it his first work, but it may well postdate both the Agricola and the Germania. All three of these survive complete. His major works were the Histories (published around 109) and the Annals (published some time after 117); only about a third of the former and just over half of the latter survive. J. C. Yardley has translated Livy's The Dawn of the Roman Empire (Books 31–40) and Hannibal's War (Books 21–30) for Oxford World's Classics, Justin for the American Philological Association's Classical Resources series, and Curtius Rufus for Penguin Classics. He is also the author of Justin and Pompeius Trogus (2003) and (with Waldemar Heckel) Alexander the Great (2004). Anthony A. Barrett was formerly Professor and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia. He is currently studying Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Ce; ltic at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. His most recent books are Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome (2002) and (as editor and contributor) Lives of the Caesars (2007). oxford world's classics For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics have brought readers closer to the world's great literature. Now with over 700 titles—from the 4,000-year-old myths of Mesopotamia to the twentieth century's greatest novels—the series makes available lesser-known as well as celebrated writing. The pocket-sized hardbacks of the early years contained introductions by Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and other literary figures which enriched the experience of reading. Today the series is recognized for its fine scholarship and reliability in texts that span world literature, drama and poetry, religion, philosophy and politics. Each edition includes perceptive commentary and essential background information to meet the changing needs of readers. OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS TACITUS The Annals The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero Translated by J. C. YARDLEY With an Introduction and Notes by ANTHONY A. BARRETT 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York Translation © J. C. Yardley 2008 Introduction, glossaries, select bibliography, explanatory notes © Anthony A. Barrett 2008 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as an Oxford World's Classics paperback 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by Cepha Imaging Private Ltd., Bangalore, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Clays Ltd., St Ives plc. ISBN 978-0-19-282421-9 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 CONTENTS Abbreviations vii Introduction ix Note on the Text and Translation xxx Select Bibliography xxxii Chronology of Significant Events xxxiv Map of the Roman Empire in the Julio-Claudian Period xxxvi THE ANNALS book one book two book three book four book five (fragment) book six book eleven book twelve book thirteen book fourteen book fifteen book sixteen Appendix 1: List of Variations from the Teubner Text 1 3 50 95 136 179 182 215 236 270 303 338 377 394 Appendix 2: The Julio-Claudian Family Tree 395 Explanatory Notes 397 Glossary of Roman Terms 503 Glossary of Peoples and Places 510 Index 527 This page intentionally left blank ABBREVIATIONS CIL Josephus, AJ Livy, Per. Ovid, Ex P. Philo, Leg. Pliny, NH Pliny, Ep. Plutarch, Caes. RG Seneca, Contr. Seneca, Apoc. Ep. QN Suetonius, Aug. Cal. Claud. Jul. Tib. Vesp. Vit. Tacitus, Agr. Ann. Germ. Hist. Val. Max. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum Josephus, Jewish Antiquities Livy, Periochae Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto Philo, Legatio ad Gaium Pliny the Elder, Natural History Pliny the Younger, Epistulae Plutarch, Caesar Res Gestae Seneca the Elder, Controversiae Seneca the Younger, Apocolocyntosis Epistulae Quaestiones naturales Suetonius, Augustus Caligula Claudius The Deified Julius Tiberius Vespasian Vitellius Tacitus, Agricola Annals Germania Histories Valerius Maximus This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION Tacitus' Life The life of ancient Rome's greatest historian, Publius Cornelius Tacitus, is known in broad outline, but many of the important details are either missing or contentious. Even his name is uncertain. The only surviving manuscript of the opening books of the Annals, the Medicean, dating to the ninth century ad and carrying considerable authority, calls him Publius, and that name has become more or less established by tradition. But Sidonius Apollonaris, a bishop and poet of considerable standing in the fifth century, creates an element of doubt, giving him the praenomen Gaius. A letter about Tacitus written by his good friend Pliny the Younger (Ep. 9.23) suggests very strongly that the two men came from the same general area. Pliny was a native of Como, in northern Italy. Tacitus may likewise have originated from the Gallic area of northern Italy or perhaps from the highly Romanized province of Gallia Narbonensis in what is now southern France. His forebears would at some point have received citizenship under the patronage of a now unknown Roman official with the distinguished nomen of 'Cornelius' who would have continued to be honoured in the names of the descendants of the newly enfranchised Italians (just as many 'Gallic' Italians bore Julius Caesar's nomen Julius). The final element of his name, the cognomen 'Tacitus', is not a common one, and it is very possible that the historian is the son of the Cornelius Tacitus, equestrian procurator (financial officer) of Gallia Belgica, mentioned by his friend's uncle, Pliny the Elder, in his encyclopaedic work, the Historia Naturalis (NH 7.76). If this identification is correct, it would make Tacitus a member of the equestrian class, in the rank below that of senator, and his entry into the Roman Senate would have marked him as a novus homo, a 'new man', who obtained access to that body despite having no senators in his family line. A number of rules prescribed the age at which ambitious Romans could enter the various magistracies open to them. Since we know the dates when Tacitus assumed some of his offices (see below), we can be reasonably confident that he was born not long after ad 55 and x introduction would thus have come into the world just after Nero succeeded Claudius as emperor. Nero committed suicide in 68. Tacitus as a young boy could well have witnessed first-hand the crisis that then afflicted Italy and southern Gaul as a succession of military leaders vied to replace the last, discredited, member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The ultimate victory of Vespasian, emperor 69–79, brought a period of relative calm. It is during his reign that we have the first datable event of Tacitus' life. In 77 he married the daughter of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, soon to be appointed governor of Britain. We also know that he was able to go to Rome to begin a public career. We have some details of that career from his own writing. In a striking line of the Histories, he credits three emperors with his progress. He claims that his public life was 'begun by Vespasian, enhanced by Titus, and still further advanced by Domitian' (Hist. 1.1.3). Scholars supplement this statement with information derived from a marble funerary inscription that has long been known but only recently identified by the distinguished historian Géza Alföldy as almost certainly belonging to the tomb of Tacitus.1 The inscription reveals that the deceased was a member of a board of ten, with responsibility for judging lawsuits. This was one of the standard minor magistracies, known as the 'vigintivirate', held by young men at the beginning of their public careers, presumably in Tacitus' case under Vespasian. The next office in the inscription is lost, but may well have been that of tribune (military officer) in a legion, a common form of service for young men ambitious for a public career. Tacitus says that his career was enhanced under Titus, which may mean that in about 81 he held the quaestorship. This office, open under Augustus to men in at least their twenty-fifth year and generally involving financial duties, was a key stage in a public career, since it gave the holder access to the Senate. The Rome inscription speaks of the deceased as having been 'quaestor of Augustus', a signal honour, since of the twenty quaestors elected only two had this special designation, being chosen personally by the emperor to represent him in the Senate during his absences. It would, in that case, have been very 1 CIL VI.1574; see Géza Alföldy, 'Bricht der Schweigsame sein Schweigen? Eine Grabinschrift in Rom', Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts, römische Abteilung, 102 (1995), 251–68; A. R. Birley, 'The Life and Death of Cornelius Tacitus', Historia, 49 (2000), 230–47. introduction xi appropriate to acknowledge the special favour of Titus. The quaestorship was often followed by one of two offices, that of aedile, concerned mainly with municipal administration, or of tribune, appointed to protect the rights and interests of the plebeians. The inscription speaks of Tacitus having followed this second option. As the third element of imperial favour, Tacitus also says that he was advanced by Domitian. This is doubtless explained by a comment in the Annals that in 88 he obtained the praetorship (Ann. 11.11). Eighteen praetors were elected annually at this period, their duties relating to the administration of justice. At the same time as he was praetor, Tacitus tells us, he was also a member of an important priestly college, the board of fifteen charged with supervising certain religious ceremonies (quindecimvir sacris faciundis), an important duty in 88, when Domitian chose to celebrate the Secular Games, one of the most important events in Rome's calendar. Between 89 and 93 Tacitus was absent from Rome, perhaps with some military responsibility or as governor of a minor province. His absence, at a time when Domitian's autocracy was at its most vicious, was propitious, since that period saw the execution of a number of important Romans. He seems to have returned to Rome by the autumn of 93, and was present there during the treason trials taking place in the city.2 Whether he was absent for the next three years we have no way of telling, but in any case the situation was much improved for the senatorial order in general by the assassination in September 96 of Domitian, to be succeeded by Marcus Cocceius Nerva. Perhaps the elderly Nerva's most significant contribution to Roman history was his adoption in 97 of Marcus Ulpius Traianus, the future emperor Trajan, who would succeed Nerva in January 98 and usher in an era deemed by Gibbon, perhaps not totally without justification, as the happiest period of human history. The year 97 was also important for Tacitus personally, since towards the end of it he held the most senior administrative post available in Rome, the consulship, in accordance with the practice whereby the two consuls appointed initially in any year (ordinarii) would assume office on 1 January but often step down and be succeeded by 'suffect' consuls. The consulship was open to men aged 42 and older unless 2 We know this from the Agricola, which contains useful incidental biographical information on Tacitus. xii introduction they had ex-consuls in their family line, which made it available from a much earlier age, possibly 32. As consul, Tacitus delivered the oration at the funeral of the highly regarded Lucius Verginius Rufus (Pliny, Ep. 2.1). There would have been several options open for Tacitus after his consulship but we have no record of any immediate office. We do know that, along with Pliny the Younger, he represented the province of Africa against its former governor Marius Priscus on a charge of extortion in a case that began in early 99 and ended in January 100 (Pliny, Ep. 2.11). Pliny opened, speaking for five hours. Tacitus did the summing up, and Pliny testifies to his impressive and persuasive eloquence. They were successful, and Cornutus Tertullus, the consul-designate for the following year, spoke before the Senate of their commendable performance. Pliny is our richest source of information on Tacitus' character and personality. He wrote eleven letters to Tacitus, and mentions him in three more. Their tone is intimate, and Pliny speaks warmly of their close friendship, expressing pleasure that their names will forever be linked through their writings (Ep. 9.14). He is especially taken by an anecdote that Tacitus told him, of how a stranger asked Tacitus his identity, and when the reply was, 'Surely you know me from my writing', the stranger wanted to know if he was Tacitus or Pliny (Ep. 9.23). Pliny also says he desires immortality by the inclusion of one of his cases in Tacitus' history, which he believes, presciently, will be eternal, although this proved not to be true of Pliny's case, if it was ever included (Ep. 7.33). He receives a speech sent to him by Tacitus for criticism (Ep. 8.7), but concedes his friend's superiority as an orator (Ep. 7.20). In one letter Pliny gives his view of the right length for speeches, long and full rather than brief, but he tellingly says that his mind could be changed by Tacitus (Ep. 1.20). Pliny seeks his friend's assistance in finding teachers for a school he is attempting to fund at Comum, his birthplace (Ep. 4.13). He agrees to support a young candidate for office as a favour to Tacitus (Ep. 6.9). There is also a good deal of light banter. Pliny laments that he cannot do serious work when relaxing in the country (Ep. 9.10), but he also reports that when he went on a hunting trip he took his writing materials with him, for which he expects to be teased (Ep. 1.6). Other letters show Pliny communicating with Tacitus as a historian. In two, he responds to requests for detailed accounts of the introduction xiii eruption of Vesuvius, during which his uncle, the Elder Pliny, lost his life (Ep. 6.16, 20). Tacitus was absent from Rome in 104 and 105 (Pliny, Ep. 4.13). He may have held some administrative post in a province, but we have no way of knowing. Beyond his joint prosecution of Marius Priscus, there is only one further public service recorded after the consulship, in an inscription from the province of Asia when Tacitus was governor there, probably 112/13.3 The proconsulship of Asia was generally regarded, with Africa, as one of the twin pinnacles of the senatorial career. It has been suggested that this tenure of office in Asia explains Tacitus' great interest in events in that province. No further office is known. Nor do we know the date of Tacitus' death. He almost certainly survived Trajan. But how long he survived into Hadrian's reign is far from certain. At best we can perhaps say that he died between 117 and 130. Previous Historians The earliest Roman history in any form approaching the modern concept of history can be dated to the end of the third century bc, when Quintus Fabius Pictor, a patrician member of the Senate, produced a history written in Greek, a work that foreshadowed successive histories by placing stress on Roman character as an important element in Rome's worldly success. Further histories were written in Greek, but by the second century the tradition was established of history written in Latin. The celebrated man of firmness, Marcus Porcius Cato, censor (magistrate in charge of public morality, among other things) in 184 bc, wrote a history of Rome in Latin in seven books. Its early part, to which the generic title of Origines most properly belongs, dealt with the origins of Rome and other cities of Italy. By Book 4 he had reached the First Punic War (264–241) and in the final book he included contemporary events, right down to the year of his death (149). His work has survived only in fragments, but their pervasive attitude is one of a deep conservatism, a trait that would be found in subsequent historians. There was much historical activity in the years following Cato's death, but Cicero could still write disparagingly in 55 bc in his work 'On the Orator' (De Oratore 2.52) 3 L'Année Epigraphique, 180.110 (Mylasa). xiv introduction that the earlier Roman histories were no more than an 'annalistic confection'. If Cicero's comment was justified at the time, however, the situation was very soon rectified by the publication of the first two works of Roman history written in Latin to have survived, Caesar's Civil War (Bellum Civile) and Gallic War (Bellum Gallicum). These are composed in brilliant, uncluttered narrative, meant at least in part to serve a purpose beyond pure historical exposition, that of justifying Caesar in the action he took against not only his foreign enemies, but also his political foes. Moreover, as if further to counter the slur on Roman historiography, shortly after Caesar's death in 44 Sallust undertook his Catilina, a masterly account of the notorious conspiracy of 63 bc headed by a disaffected member of the nobility, Lucius Sergius Catilina. It is suffused by the notion of the role that virtus plays in human affairs, and particularly in the political decline that occurred in Rome in the decades down to Catiline. Sallust's descriptions of aristocratic behaviour show him to be deeply troubled by the moral decadence of Rome and of the old Roman aristocracy, whose degeneracy he paints in the blackest colours. Sallust's next work, the Jugurtha, focuses more on military narrative. But here, too, he dwells upon the feebleness of the Senate and of the aristocracy. He reverted to the themes of moral decline in his final work, the annalistic Histories, which has survived only in fragments. Sallust is considered to have had a considerable influence on Tacitus, in his Latin style and in his view of history as a demonstration of social disintegration. Perhaps second only to Tacitus in stature as a Roman historian is Livy, who began his magisterial work on Roman history about ad 27. The work covered an enormous time-span, from the founding of Rome—hence its title Ab Urbe Condita—down to the death of Drusus, son of Livia, in 9 bc. Thirty-five books survive of the 142 Livy wrote. It could perhaps be argued that the very scale of Livy's history precluded any deep analysis of sources, and by and large he seems to have been satisfied simply to draw on previous authorities. Livy was undoubtedly a great stylist, praised for his 'milky richness' (lactea ubertas) as Quintilian described it in his great work on oratory, the Institutio Oratoria, but Livy cannot claim an important place in the development of historiography, and Quintilian concedes that Sallust was the greater historian. introduction xv In its structure, Livy's history was annalistic, meaning that its narrative was organized on a year-by-year basis. This method was by no means Livy's innovation. It is difficult to say when annalistic Roman history was first written. It may not have been before the mid-second century bc in a meaningful sense, but certainly an influential landmark seems to have been reached in that period with the composition of annales maximi by Publius Mucius Scaevola, the chief priest (Pontifex Maximus), in eighty books, from Rome's origins to his own day. In this work Scaevola set out formally on a year-by-year basis the chief business of the state, military, civil, and religious. In fact, an annalistic structure made much sense for republican history, since the change of consul would have major impact on the affairs of the state. Of the historians between Livy and Tacitus, only Velleius Paterculus has survived in substance. Born in about 19 bc, of equestrian stock, Velleius pursued a military career, before moving through the senatorial ranks to the praetorship in ad 16. His Historiae Romanae is a compendium of Roman history from the legendary past, as far back as the Trojan War, down to ad 30. The earlier parts are missing and must have been summary indeed. He becomes more detailed as he reaches his own day, focusing very much on the figure of Tiberius. His esteem for his old commander has won him many detractors, but it is only fair to note that his coverage of Rome's second emperor, which contrasts with the darker picture given by Tacitus, is limited to Tiberius' successful period as a military commander and to the earlier part of his reign, before things started to go awry. The Annals On Nerva's accession, Tacitus pondered the idea of an account of the grim period of Domitian that had preceded it, but in 97–8, when he was in his early forties, he opted to write first a shorter piece, inspired by affection, the Agricola. This was intended to record the career of his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, who died in 93 (Agr. 3) and in keeping with the traditions of ancient biography it is something of a eulogy of its subject. Agricola's reputation was based largely on his governorship of Britain and much of the work is devoted to those seven years. But the book is also an attack on xvi introduction Domitian, whose repressive regime may well have coloured Tacitus' general views on the principate. He records how Domitian spitefully held back Agricola, and at the beginning of the Agricola he speaks of the problems of recovering his voice after fifteen years of forced silence. But for all that, there is no evidence that Tacitus or his career suffered under Domitian; in fact, that career may have flourished. As noted above, Tacitus credits the emperor in the Histories for his personal advancement. Already in the Agricola Tacitus was beginning to manifest his distinctive Latin style, and this would reach its fullest expression later, in the Annals. That style is in many ways remarkable, and perhaps no other ancient writer has imposed his mark so distinctively on the language. Tacitean Latin is always recognizable as such. Like Sallust, Tacitus rejected Ciceronian verbosity in favour of pointed concision and trenchant epigrams. Moreover, in both vocabulary and syntax, he showed a penchant for the unusual and the striking. He went out of his way to use words that were poetic and archaic. It might be argued that archaisms were intended to evoke an earlier, perhaps purer, age but much of the time it seems that he was intent on producing a startling effect. In this also he was perhaps a disciple of Sallust, who was reputed to have hired an assistant to scour Cato for archaisms that he could use. The Agricola was followed soon after by the Germania, an ethnographic study of the peoples of Germany, contrasting their simple integrity with the decaying morals of Rome of Tacitus' own time. It is also seen by some scholars as a missive to Trajan about the enormous danger to Rome posed by the Germans, whom Domitian claimed to have subdued, with more triumphs than victories as Tacitus worded it (Germ. 37). If so, it missed its mark, since Trajan preferred to maintain the Domitianic myth, and placed his military focus on Dacia and the Danube frontier then turned to Parthia. The Germania may have been followed by the Dialogus de Oratoribus (Dialogue on Orators), on the familiar theme of the decline of the standards of oratory. This work pretends to reflect a discussion that Tacitus had heard in the year 75. It lacks much of the distinctiveness of Tacitus' style, and some have argued that it should be placed early in Tacitus' career or that it was not written by him at all. The broad consensus of modern scholars, however, is that the work is by Tacitus, probably written after the Germania. introduction xvii If Tacitus did indeed write the Dialogus just after the turn of the century, he may already have been working on the great historical survey adumbrated in the Agricola (Agr. 3.3). At some point Pliny sent Tacitus an account (Ep. 6.16) of the eruption of Vesuvius in August 79, to assist in a historical work Tacitus was then writing. This work must clearly have been the Histories. It takes its beginning from the point when the consuls took up office, on 1 January 69, while the latter half of 68 after the death of Nero is covered in a brief retrospective. This arrangement is testimony to Tacitus' strong commitment to the 'annalistic' format of his great historical works, where events are generally followed in sequence through the course of the year. The exception is that in the Annals events on the frontiers, in areas like Britain and the Parthian empire, are grouped in small clusters of years, in violation of the annalistic scheme, a diversion that is sometimes, though not invariably, signalled by Tacitus himself (6.38, 12.40, 13.9). The Histories ended with the death of Domitian in 96. We know from Pliny that Tacitus was writing this work in 106/7 and that Pliny was convinced that it would be immortal (Ep. 7.33.1). In the preface to the Histories, Tacitus declared it as his intention, when he had finished the task in hand, to go back to the happier times under Nerva and Trajan (Hist. 1.1.4). He seems, however, to have abandoned this plan and in his most celebrated work, the Annals, went back to the death of Augustus to write the history of the succeeding emperors to the death of Nero (ad 14–68). We do not know when he began this, but we do have an indication that he was already well into the work in 116, since his reference to the Euphrates at Ann. 4.5 suggests that he wrote this section after Trajan's final defeat of the Parthians, which belongs to that year. Together, the Histories and Annals made up thirty books, but there is no agreement on how they were divided.4 Traditionally, sixteen are assigned to the Annals, fourteen to the Histories, although some scholars assign two more to the Annals, arguing for a hexadic structure, with six books allotted to Tiberius, six to Caligula and Claudius, and the same number to Nero. Of the thirty books referred to by St Jerome, some half have survived, the first five books of the Histories down to ad 70 (the last in a fragmentary state), Books 1–6 of the Annals (Book 5 being very 4 St Jerome, the famous scholar and teacher of the late fourth and early fifth century, provides the information that there were thirty books. xviii introduction fragmentary) covering the reign of Tiberius, and Books 11–16 (the first and last books in this final grouping are not complete) beginning midway through Claudius' reign and breaking off two years before the end of Nero's. We cannot even be sure that Tacitus had finished the Annals before his death. Tacitus' method seems now to have undergone something of a modification. He discards the long Preface employed in the Histories, beginning the Annals with a very short prefatory comment on Rome's earlier history and with the briefest of programmatic statements, namely that he will say a few words about Augustus, then cover Tiberius and the rest (Ann. 1.1). Elsewhere, he reveals that it was his intention, should he have time later, to write the history of Augustus (see Ann. 3.24). He did not cover this reign in detail in the Annals, perhaps because he thought that the accession of Tiberius was of such great symbolic importance in marking the point where the personal autocracy of Augustus became the institutionalized autocracy of Rome. It is also noteworthy that in this later work he feels somewhat freed from the annalistic shadow, through not obliging himself to begin with the consuls of ad 15. The transition of power from Augustus to Tiberius is more crucial than blind adherence to strict annalistic procedure. Tacitus' views as a historian are patent in the Annals. He was deeply opposed to the principate as a constitutional form, and committed to the republican system of senatorial government. This is not to say that he could not recognize the benefits brought to Rome by the relatively enlightened reigns of Nerva and Trajan, but it was a system that was bound to have a corrosive effect on the ruled, if not necessarily on the ruler. We should be careful of Tacitus' famous claim to write sine ira et studio, 'without rancour or bias' (Ann. 1.1), an echo of the claim made in the Histories, 'without partiality and without hatred' (Hist. 1.1). It is indeed the case that in only a very few instances do we need to feel that he has presented facts with deliberate dishonesty. But behind the 'facts' lurk his own prejudices. His ascription of motives, and his reporting of rumours and supposedly widely held beliefs, have an inevitable impact on the reader. Ironically, Tacitus seems to have flourished under the imperial system, even under the despised and despotic Domitian, and his consulship and his governorship of Asia show him in many ways to have been a 'company man'. The antipathy towards the system that introduction xix emerges from the Annals is thus all the more surprising. It was a system under which he seems to have done so well. There is general agreement that the great masterpiece of the Annals is the account of Tiberius, who is depicted as a deeply complex and fundamentally deceptive individual. His natural shyness is characterized as arrogance, his acts of generosity as hypocritical. To some degree the apparently unique fullness and complexity of Tiberius' portrait may be accidental. No reign has survived intact, but a smaller portion of Tiberius is missing than of any other emperor and, importantly, only in his case do we have both the beginning and the end (almost all of Book 5 and the beginning of Book 6 are lost, so we have a gap of about two years between ad 29 and 31). In a sense, it can be said that the tone is set in the preliminary chapters, when Augustus seductively and hypocritically strips the Romans of their political independence. Tacitus concedes that under Augustus there was 'no fear for the moment' (1.4) and in the reported discussions that attended his funeral many pointed to the great benefits of the Augustan age and the limited use that Augustus had made of force (1.9). But Augustus had established a system that was inherently corrupt, and Tacitus' great achievement was to trace the degradation of Roman politics through the course of Tiberius' reign, to show that his character and personality were unable to withstand this debasing force of the imperial system. Few rulers provide as powerful an object lesson of the truth of Lord Acton's much repeated sententia about the corrupting effect of absolute power. In his obituary of the emperor at the end of Book 6, Tacitus divides Tiberius' life into various phases. He excelled as a private individual, and as a military commander, under Augustus. The first part of his reign, down to about ad 22, was in many respects positive. He at least put on a show of virtue while his natural and adopted sons, Drusus and Germanicus, were alive. He then went into a phase of mixed good and evil during the lifetime of his mother Livia. We thus see his character evolve in his relationship with other people who seemed to exercise some restraint over him. This early phase is covered in the first three books, which form a triad, balancing the second triad, Books 4–6, which covers the disastrous second half of the reign, when Tiberius slips into an ever more despicable despotism. The division is distinctly marked at the beginning of Book 4, where we learn that in this year (ad 23) a xx introduction change for the worse occurred, the cause being the evil effect of Sejanus. In 26 Sejanus persuaded Tiberius to leave Rome, ultimately for the island of Capri. The loss of much of Book 5 is most unfortunate, since it would have traced the growth of Sejanus' power, leading to the pinnacle of his success, when he joined Tiberius as a colleague in the consulship in January 31. We also lose the fall of Sejanus in October of that year. Under the influence of Sejanus, Tiberius lapsed into savagery, although he kept his lusts concealed. Finally, freed of him, Tiberius rushed headlong into crime and scandal, as he became increasingly bitter and distrustful. In this final phase we realize that, ironically, Sejanus had exercised a restraining influence of sorts. After Book 6, the loss of Books 7–10, and the first part of 11, means that the entire account of Caligula (37–41) is missing. Scattered references to that emperor from elsewhere in the Annals, alluding to his 'monstrous personality' (6.20) or 'disturbed mind' (13.3), leave no doubt that Tacitus would have been hostile. In their broad structure, the books that treat the reigns of Claudius and of Nero after him follow the same pattern as those of the first half of the extant Annals. They exhibit the same mixture of military and domestic affairs, and within the latter domestic context the same blend of relations between the emperor and the Senate, and the emperor and his family (and close advisers). We are missing roughly half of Claudius' reign, down to mid-47. Whether the early lost books presented a more sympathetic Claudius we cannot, in their absence, know. When the narrative resumes, the emphasis has begun to fall on the efforts of those in the court to manipulate the emperor, namely his freedmen and his wives. In the Tiberian books, by contrast, while Livia is a powerful figure, her role is played out largely in the background. Women like Messalina and Agrippina the Younger take centre stage in the Claudian period. And while Tiberius was swayed by a Sallustius or a Sejanus, under Claudius it is freedmen like Narcissus and Pallas who seem to be shaping 'policy'. As a consequence, Claudius does not have the forceful and dominant role of Tiberius. The last four extant books of the Annals cover all but the last two years of Nero's reign. At one level, the beginning of the reign seems promising, as Nero is guided by Seneca and Burrus, and seeks to rule prudently and generously, deferring to the Senate. But Nero, like introduction xxi Tiberius, had come to power through a mother's machinations and, ominously, the beginning of his reign, like that of Tiberius', is marked by murder. Very soon the narrative changes to the theme of sexual indulgence, cruelty, and self-degradation on the stage. The extant Annals break off in the midst of a reign of terror against the senators. Thus, while we may discern the same theme of the corruption of power as we did during Tiberius' reign, Nero is in fact treated quite differently. Both Nero and Tiberius are amoral tyrants who cause fear and dread in their subjects. But Tiberius had once been a great man, and had he not become emperor that greatness would probably have survived intact. His flaws did not become apparent until he assumed power, when his character did not have the strength to resist the corrupting forces of the system devised by Augustus. Nero was merely despicable, lacking any redeeming qualities. There is also a subtle change in technique observable from the earlier to the later books. The focus moves somewhat from the personality of the emperor and his direct impact on events to colourful set-pieces that are recognized as superb examples of dramatic narrative: the marriage of Messalina and Silius, the murder of Agrippina, the fire of Rome. The Pisonian conspiracy is given an extended narrative treatment missing in any of the other treason accounts of Tiberius' reign. Thus there is in the latter part of the extant Annals a dramatic tension and literary art that is generally not found in the earlier books. Tacitus' Use of Sources There is no general agreement on the use that Tacitus made of documentary evidence. Although for the modern historian primary evidence is supreme, and the modern historian will feel obliged, wherever possible, to consult primary archives, there was no such zeal among ancient historians, who saw their role as much more that of improving on the work of their predecessors. Tacitus does on occasion use direct oral evidence. At Ann. 3.16, he reports being told by older men how Gnaeus Cornelius Piso was often seen carrying a document (it supposedly held secret instructions from Tiberius against Germanicus) and also hearing from his elders the otherwise incredible account of what happened at the wedding of Messalina and Gaius Silius (Ann. 11.27). xxii introduction The evidence for Tacitus' use of archival as opposed to oral information is far from clear-cut. To a degree the problem is the shadowy nature of some of this archival evidence. That is certainly the case of the daily record, the acta diurna. Its contents are a matter of considerable speculation, but, usefully for the historians of the period, it would doubtless have contained much information on the activities of the imperial family. Tacitus refers to his use of it on a number of occasions (Ann. 3.3, 13.31, 16.22), commenting on one occasion (13.31) on the trivial nature of its contents. We are on somewhat surer ground with the deliberations of the Senate, recorded in the acta senatus. We know that when the actual senatorial decrees (consulta) had been passed copies of their texts were deposited in the treasury, and it is likely that the same happened to general proceedings, the acta, although we do not know how detailed the reports might have been. Scholars like Ronald Syme have argued that Tacitus' achievements as a historian can be attributed to a large degree to his extensive use of senatorial records. Many of the details preserved in the Annals, such as the motions and the counterproposals with names attached to them, suggest a familiarity with such material, but whether they come from direct personal consultation or through an intermediary cannot be determined. There is, however, only one instance of Tacitus' referring to his own direct consultation of the records, at Ann. 15.74, where he says that he finds in the records of the Senate (commentarii senatus) that the consuldesignate Cerialis Anicius proposed a temple to the deified Nero. Recently discovered decrees have allowed us to make a comparison between Tacitus and the primary evidence. The decree passed by the Senate on 10 December following the trial of Piso on the charge of murdering Germanicus (the senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre) in ad 20 is now known to us from fragments discovered in Spain since the 1980s, arguably the most important Latin epigraphic discovery of the twentieth century. It has offered an excellent opportunity to test Tacitus' account of the trial and its aftermath. It does indicate that he had drawn considerably on the senatorial decree and in many respects represents it faithfully, for instance in the acknowledgement that the decision to stay proceedings against Plancina, Piso's wife, came about through the intervention of Livia. But while it is undisputed that his account does ultimately derive from the decree, we once again cannot be sure if he examined it in person. Of course, introduction xxiii we know that in the case of this decree copies were made on bronze and posted throughout the empire, so even a close familiarity with the text does not mean that the original acta were consulted. A somewhat different story is told by another document known to us from Spanish discoveries, the Tabula Siarensis, recreated from bronze fragments found in 1982 in the Spanish town of Siara, supplementing an inscription already known since 1947 from the town of Heba in Etruria (the Tabula Hebana). These list the honours approved by the Senate for the late Germanicus towards the end of ad 19. Tacitus clearly had access to the decree, but because it suited his agenda to create the impression that Germanicus was wronged, even after death, he chooses to present the information in such a way as to create a distinctly negative impression of Tiberius (and his mother). He asserts that they were absent from the ceremonies that took place in Rome to mark the death, and that even Germanicus' mother Antonia did not take part (under pressure from Tiberius and Livia, he claims). But the extant record of the honours shows that Tiberius was actively involved in selecting tributes for Germanicus, and consulted Antonia and Livia among others. Tacitus comments on the public displeasure that Germanicus received only modest funerary ceremonies in Rome (Ann. 2.83, 3.3–5). But the Tabula records a mass of honours. To highlight only one example, Tacitus notes that there were complaints at the absence of eulogies. But the Tabula records that eulogies were in fact delivered in the Senate, and by none other than Tiberius himself (along with his son Drusus). Thus Tacitus' knowledge of primary evidence is no guarantee that he will faithfully replicate it. When it came to recording the spoken word, we do know that Tacitus exercised the privilege claimed by Greek and Roman writers to rewrite speeches rather than reproduce the originals. This is nicely illustrated by Claudius' speech on the introduction of the Gauls into the Roman Senate, where we can compare Tacitus' version (Ann. 11.24) with the record of the actual speech, substantially preserved in bronze panels at Lyons,5 to which Tacitus would almost certainly have had direct access, should he have chosen to avail himself of it. It is hard to conclude that he did not make use of the original speech since there are so many points in common. That said, 5 H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae d Selectae (1892–1916), 212. xxiv introduction his version is barely even a loose paraphrase of the original. Clearly the historian saw it as his role to capture the spirit of the occasion rather than to present a documentary record of it. Similarly, it was not the general practice of ancient historians to identify their secondary sources. Tacitus rarely mentions his sources by name. He will more often refer vaguely to scriptores (writers) or even more vaguely to such groups as quidam ('certain people'; see 1.29, 2.40), and when he does on the rare occasion mention a source by name it is often on issues that are, surprisingly, not of great political or historical importance. His main motive seems not to be to establish the integrity of a statement on a weighty matter, but rather to engage in a form of one-upmanship with his predecessors. Sometimes he makes use of speeches and private memoirs. He cites the journals of the great commander Corbulo about the state of the Parthian and Roman forces when the latter were blockaded in Armenia (15.16). When he cites the memoirs of Agrippina the Younger for evidence that her mother sought permission from Tiberius to remarry (Ann. 4.53), he proudly asserts that the information had not been noted by the scriptores annalium. He refers to Tiberius' speeches on two occasions (1.81, 2.63), and once quotes one of his letters (6.6), accurately, we can surmise, since it reappears almost verbatim in Suetonius (Tib. 67.1). For the later parts of the Annals Tacitus would have used writers close to his own period. One of these is familiar to modern readers. Pliny the Elder, uncle of Tacitus' friend Pliny the Younger, was a man of equestrian rank who held a number of procuratorships under Vespasian and ended up as commander of the fleet at Misenum in Campania. As noted earlier, he died during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79. The elder Pliny was a prolific writer, who wrote a history of the Bella Germaniae (The German Wars) in twenty books, to which Tacitus refers. In the story of Agrippina's famous stance at the surviving bridge over the Rhine as she welcomed the retreating Roman troops, Tacitus cites that work (Ann. 1.69). Pliny also wrote an annalistic history in thirty-one books, totally lost, which Tacitus would almost certainly have used, since we know he did draw on Pliny's encyclopedic Historia Naturalis for general historical information, for instance in the description of Agrippina presiding introduction xxv at the Fucine lake in a golden cloak (12.56; Pliny, NH 33.63; see also Dio 60.33.3). Other Tacitean sources are little more than names. Cluvius Rufus is thought to have been a suffect consul under Caligula. He performed as the herald of Nero for his performances in Rome, and was assigned the same responsibility when Nero went on his Greek tour in 67 (Suetonius, Nero 21.2; Dio 63.14.3). His history may have covered the reigns of Claudius and Nero and some have seen him as Tacitus' main source for that section of the Annals. All Tacitus' references to him relate to the reign of Nero, although Syme argues that he might have been used in the lost Caligulan or Claudian chapters. Another historian mentioned by name is Fabius Rusticus, whom Tacitus describes as the most eloquent of the moderns, as Livy was of the ancients. Fabius published a history in ad 83/4, but we do not know where it began or ended. Some have suggested that he might have continued a history written by Seneca the Elder. There is no general agreement on how widely Tacitus consulted these secondary sources. One school of thought is that he tends to rely on a single authority, the other, a view promoted by Syme, is that he would weigh up a number of different sources and then reach an independent opinion. They are rarely named. At Ann. 14.2 he balances the claims of Fabius Rusticus and Cluvius Rufus (supported by other unnamed authorities) about whether it was Nero or his mother Agrippina who initiated their incestuous relationship, and at Ann. 13.20 he cites these two along with the elder Pliny on the issue of whether Nero questioned Burrus' loyalty in ad 55. Fabius Rusticus is cited as the sole authority for the claim that Gavius Silvanus, the praetorian tribune charged with issuing the death writ to Seneca in 65, sought the clearance of the praetorian prefect before going ahead (Ann. 15.61), while Pliny's claim that Antonia, Claudius' daughter, lent her weight to the Pisonian conspiracy is treated with considerable scepticism (15.53). The relationship between Tacitus and our other two important sources for the Julio-Claudian period is far from settled. Tacitus and Suetonius are generally thought to be independent of each other, despite a number of similarities. The case that Dio made use of Tacitus is perhaps somewhat stronger, but it is also possible that all three writers drew on independent sources that are now lost. introduction xxvi Afterlife For all the acclaim garnered by Tacitus' works in their day from an individual like Pliny, their survival owes as much to chance as to their perceived importance. There is in fact little evidence that Tacitus had much of an impact on immediately succeeding generations. His namesake, the emperor Tacitus of the third century, imagined himself to be descended from the historian and felt obliged to issue an order that copies of his works should be made to rescue him from the neglect (incuria) of readers.6 Admittedly, in the fourth century Ammianus Marcellinus defined his own work as a continuation of Tacitus, which might point to a revival of interest, but Ammianus seems to have been an exception. Christian writers generally scorned Tacitus because of his anti-Christian bias, and while the fifthcentury historian and theologian Orosius might quote liberally from him (from the Histories) he had little respect for him as a historian. In the sixth century the chronicler Cassiodorus' reference to 'a certain Cornelius' when citing the Germania (45.4–5) suggests that Tacitus had by then sunk into a considerable obscurity. 7 During the Middle Ages copies of the Annals would certainly have been made, but there is no evidence that they were known outside the monasteries. Of these copies, remarkably, only two have survived, containing roughly the first and second halves of the work. The earliest is the first Medicean, written in the ninth century, possibly in Fulda, containing Books 1–6. The later Medicean, embracing Books 11–16 (and all of the extant Histories), was written in the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino in the eleventh century, and remained virtually unknown until it was brought to Florence by Boccaccio in the second half of the fourteenth century. These two manuscripts are the source of all we know of the text of both the Annals and the Histories (the 'minor' works of Tacitus were transmitted in a single manuscript of which only a small portion has survived, copied in Fulda or the neighbouring monastery at Hersfeld in the ninth century). Printed editions of the Annals began in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and consisted of only the later books, those preserved in the second Medicean, the source for the editions. The first 6 7 Historia Augusta (Tacitus) 10.3. Orosius, Adversus Paganos 1.5.1; Cassiodorus, Variae 5.2. introduction xxvii Medicean did not come to light for some six hundred years after it was copied, when it was purchased by Pope Leo X and brought to Rome. Under the auspices of the Pope, a text of Annals 1–6, based directly on the first Medicean, was published in 1515. It was not in fact until 1607 that a 'complete' text of the Annals, based on both primary manuscripts, was produced. In the fifteenth century the morally uplifting works of Cicero and Livy were generally favoured, but already from the beginning of that century we see Tacitus making inroads. In 1404 the republican Leonardo Bruni cited him for evidence of how despotic emperors had crushed the virtues and inherent genius of the Roman people. In Italy, his impact began to be felt perhaps most strongly after the foreign invasions and the ruthless sack of Rome in 1527. The old ideals of Cicero and Livy now seemed out of vogue and Tacitus' dark political visions of the cruelty and hypocrisy of rulers resonated with writers like Francesco Guicciardini, who saw in Tacitus a disturbing double message, that he could teach decent people the prudence needed to live under tyrants, but could also teach tyrants how to impose their tyranny. The late sixteenth century saw a great surge of interest in Tacitus and in the early part of the next century more editions of him were produced than of any other ancient Greek or Roman historian. The spread of absolutism and of institutions like the Inquisition saw him as a champion of liberties. Alternatively, he could also be seen as a threat to the established order. Jesuit thinkers saw him as a menace and attacked him for his disloyalty and for his questioning of authority. While a writer like Tacitus can capture the mood of the times and as a consequence be much cited and quoted by other writers to buttress their views, actual influence is more difficult to substantiate. It is perhaps only in Germany that Tacitus can be seen to have influenced history. In the fifteenth century Pope Pius II used the newly rediscovered Germania in a letter to the Chancellor of Mainz to counter charges of corruption of the papacy. While Pius did have his supporters, acquaintance with the Germania produced results opposite to what he had sought and stirred a nascent German nationalism. Anti-clerical writers contrasted the virtues of the Germans of old with the vices of both ancient and contemporary Rome. The publication in 1515 of the early books of the Annals created a German hero, Arminius, who became a symbol of German nationalism and xxviii introduction leader of a people who were untainted both morally and racially. Renamed Hermann by Martin Luther, he became the symbol of German nationalism. The Hermann of the famous monumental Hermannsdenkmal, erected in the mid-nineteenth century, supposedly near the site of the Varian disaster in the Teutoburg Forest, and in our own time a sacred monument of veneration by white supremacists, is a phenomenon that descends in a direct line from Tacitus' Arminius. Happily, Tacitus' effect has generally been much more benign. His name seems omnipresent from the Renaissance on. The scholarly James I of England alludes to him constantly in his 1603 Precepts on the Arts of Governing. Francis Bacon thought he could not be outranked for his moral stance or for his wisdom. Montaigne admired his political insights; Edward Gibbon was so indebted to him that his magnificent prose style, with its linguistic subtleties and sophisticated ironies, reads almost like a translated text of Tacitus. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, opponents in many spheres, were united in admiring Tacitus more than any other ancient author. It is the case that in the nineteenth century, as the study of history became much more professional, more 'scientific', the reputation of Tacitus as a historian declined, given that his emotionalism and deep prejudices were seen to have coloured his judgement. In particular, he was subjected to criticism by the great German scholar Mommsen. This hostility has since waned. Tacitus' experience of the destructiveness of tyranny has made the Annals a work of special relevance to the contemporary reader in the light of our experience of the last century. The dark pessimism engendered by two world wars, and especially the deep cynicism that marked the second half of the twentieth century, when governments sought to hide reality under a veneer of hypocritical 'spin', is totally in tune with the dark message of the Annals and its grim picture of imperial duplicity. Moreover, our view of history is now more sophisticated. In an age when 'scientific' history has been unscrupulously exploited by authorities in the service of political agenda, Tacitus' claims to freedom from bias are still met with scepticism but also with the acknowledgement that no historical writing can possibly be untainted by the ira and studium that he forswore. As a consequence, since the Second World War Tacitus has enjoyed something of a introduction xxix renaissance, among both lay and scholarly readers. A digital survey of books in the British Library published on him since 1945 reveals no fewer than 261 items. This is admittedly a rough and ready statistic, but perhaps a good sign that Tacitus' work is indeed on course to acquire the immortality that his friend Pliny predicted. NOTE ON THE TEXT AND TRANSLATION The translation is based on the Teubner text of H. Heubner (editio correctior, 1994). In a very few places I have accepted readings different from Heubner's, and the places where these affect the translation are to be found in the Appendix. There are also occasional divergences from Heubner's punctuation (e.g. at 2.37.2, 6.34.1, 12.68.2), but as punctuation reflects editorial interpretation rather than manuscript readings these are not indicated. For the most part the ancient names have been retained for people (Pompey is an exception, to assist the reader to differentiate Julius Caesar's rival from his also-famous son, Sextus Pompeius) and for places, except where these are usually referred to by historians in their modern forms (Rome, of course, but also Naples, Rhodes, Britain, etc.). In the case of rivers, the ancient names are again retained, for the most part, except for the major ones of Germany and France that occur with some frequency in the text (Rhine, Elbe, Rhône) and England's Thames. Places and rivers, with their modern names, can be found in the Glossary. As for the emperors, who are often referred to simply as 'Caesar', I have generally tried to avoid confusion by supplying the commonly used name (Tiberius, Claudius, or Nero). I have consulted numerous other translations, most of them to be found in the Select Bibliography, and the standard commentaries also listed there: the indispensable Furneaux on the entire œuvre; Miller, Goodyear, Woodman and Martin, Shotter, and Martin, on the individual books of the first Medicean; Woodcock and Miller on Books 14 and 15 respectively. The book I probably consulted more frequently than any other in the four years it has taken to bring this work to fruition is the translation of A. J. Woodman, a fascinating version of Tacitean Latin into an English equivalent. I hope my translation will be seen as a complement—and indeed a compliment— to Professor Woodman's, from which, replete as it is with new and interesting insights, I have learned much. Although the preparation of the various components of this volume reflected a division of labour, the book as a whole is the result note on the text and translation xxxi of very close collaboration, since each of the authors read through the other's chapters and improved the other's contributions with countless suggestions and observations. But it is also a collaborative venture in a broader sense, since the task of completing it was considerably lightened by the generous assistance of a number of individuals. The authors express their gratitude first of all to Judith Luna, editor of the Oxford World's Classics series, for initially offering us the project, and for seeing it through with characteristic efficiency and courtesy, and to Elizabeth Stratford for her usual thorough copy-editing (now experienced for the third time by one of the authors). They also wish to thank Laura Gagné, currently a doctoral student at the University of Toronto, for her compilation of the index, and Chris Kelk, Doreen Barrett, and Laura Gagné for their generous offers, quickly snapped up, to proofread the entire work. The translator has debts of gratitude to record. Chris Pelling and Dexter Hoyos both read parts of the translation and offered many valuable suggestions and much appreciated encouragement. John Jacobs (Yale University) also deserves special mention. Having generously offered his services as a proofreader, he provided me with a thorough critique of the translation and notes, pointing out many omissions and infelicities. Although I am sure that errors remain, thanks to him they are far fewer than they would otherwise have been. J.C.Y. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Tacitus' Life Alf öldy, G., 'Bricht der Schweigsame sein Schweigen? Eine Grabinschrift in Rom', Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts, römische Abteilung, 102 (1995), 251–68. Birley, A. R., 'The Life and Death of Cornelius Tacitus', Historia, 49 (2000), 230–47. Editions Borzsák, I., Cornelii Taciti libri qui supersunt, vol. i (Leipzig, 1992). Fisher, C. D., Tacitus: Annales (Oxford, 1906). Heubner, H., Cornelii Taciti libri qui supersunt (Stuttgart, 1994). Wellesley, K., Cornelii Taciti libri qui supersunt, vol. ii (Leipzig, 1986). Commentaries Benario, H. W. B., Tacitus Annals 11 and 12 (Lanham, Md., 1983). Furneaux, H., The Annals of Tacitus (Oxford, vol. i 18962, vol. ii 19072). Goodyear, F. R. D., The Annals of Tacitus, vol. i (Cambridge, 1972). —— The Annals of Tacitus, vol. ii (Cambridge, 1981). Koesterman, E., Cornelius Tacitus: Annalen (Heidelberg, 1963–7). Martin, R., and Woodman, A. J., Annals: Book IV. Tacitus (Cambridge, 1989). Martin, R., Tacitus: Annals V and VI (Warminster, 2001). Miller, N., Tacitus: Annals Book 1 (London, 1963). —— Tacitus: Annals 14 (Bristol, 1987). —— Annalium Liber XV (London, 1963). Shotter, D. C. A., Cornelius Tacitus: Annals IV (Warminster, 1989). Woodcock, E. C., The Annals of Tacitus, Book XIV (London, 1939). Woodman, A. J., and Martin, R., The Annals of Tacitus, Book 3 (Cambridge, 1996). Translations The Works of Tacitus, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (London, 1864–77). Tacitus: The Annals of Imperial Rome, translated by Michael Grant (Harmondsworth, revised edn. 1959). Tacito: Annali, translated and edited by Lidia Pighetti, 2 vols. (Milan, 1984–94). select bibliography xxxiii Tacite: Annales, translated and edited by Pierre Wuilleumier, revised and corrected by Joseph Hellegouarc'h, 4 vols. (Paris, 1990–6). Tacitus: The Annals, translated with an Introduction and Notes by A. J. Woodman (Indianapolis and Cambridge, 2004). General Books on Tacitus Benario, H. W. B., An Introduction to Tacitus (Athens, Ga., 1975). Luce, T. J., and Woodman, A. J. (eds.), Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition (Princeton, 1993). Martin, R., Tacitus (London, 1981). Mellor, R., Tacitus (London, 1993). —— (ed.), Tacitus: The Clasical Heritage (New York, 1995). Syme, R., Tacitus (Oxford, 1958). Walker, B., The Annals of Tacitus: A Study in the Writing of History (Manchester, 1952). Woodman, A. J., Tacitus Reviewed (Oxford, 1998). General Books on the Period Barrett, A. A., Agrippina: Sex, Power and Politics in the Early Empire (London and New Haven, 1996). Champlin, E., Nero (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 2003). Griffin, M. T., Nero: The End of a Dynasty (London, 20002). Levick, B., Claudius (New Haven and London, 1990). —— Tiberius the Politician (London, 1976). Matyszak, P., The Sons of Caesar: Imperial Rome's First Dynasty (New York and London, 2006). Seager, R., Tiberius (London, 20052). Shotter, D., Nero (London, 2005). —— Tiberius Caesar (London, 20042). Talbert, R., The Senate of Imperial Rome (Princeton, 1984). Wiedemann, T., The Julio-Claudian Emperors (London, 1989). Further Reading in Oxford World's Classics Pliny the Younger, Complete Letters, translated and edited by P. G. Walsh. Plutarch, Roman Lives, translated by R. Waterfield, edited by P. A. Stadter. Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, translated and edited by C. Edwards. Tacitus, The Histories, translated by W. H. Fyfe, revised and edited by D. S. Levene. —— Agricola, Germany, translated and edited by A. R. Birley. CHRONOLOGY OF SIGNIFICANT EVENTS Bold type indicates events covered in detail in the extant Annals. bc: 63 44 43 31 27 25 21 11 10 6 ad: 2 4 9 12 14 16 19 20 23 26 29 31 33 37 41 43 Birth of Octavian (23 September). Assassination of Julius Caesar (15 March). Formation of the Triumvirate of Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus. Battle of Actium and defeat of Antony and Cleopatra. The Octavian settlement. Marriage of Julia and Marcellus. Marriage of Julia and Agrippa. Marriage of Julia and Tiberius. Birth of Claudius. Tiberius' retirement to Rhodes. Return of Tiberius. Death of Lucius Caesar. Death of Gaius Caesar. Adoption of Tiberius by Augustus. Disaster of Quinctilius Varus in Germany. Birth of Caligula. Death of Augustus. Accession of Tiberius. Trial of Libo Drusus. Death of Germanicus (19 October). Trial of Calpurnius Piso and Plancina. Death of Drusus, son of Tiberius. Departure of Tiberius for Capri. Death of Livia. Downfall of Sejanus. Death of Nero, son of Germanicus. Death of Drusus, son of Germanicus. Death of Agrippina the Elder. Death of Tiberius. Accession of Caligula. Birth of Nero (15 December). Assassination of Caligula. Accession of Claudius. Claudian invasion of Britain. chronology 47 48 49 50 51 53 54 55 59 60 62 64 65 66 68 xxxv Fall of Valerius Asiaticus. Messalina–Silius scandal. Marriage of Claudius and Agrippina the Younger. Adoption of Nero by Claudius. Appointment of Burrus as prefect of guard. Marriage of Nero and Octavia. Death of Claudius. Accession of Nero. Murder of Britannicus. Tacitus' birth probably occurs in this period. Murder of Agrippina. Boudiccan rebellion. Death of Burrus. Fire of Rome. Persecution of Christians. Pisonian conspiracy. Nero's tour of Greece. Suicide of Nero. The Roman Empire in the Julio-Claudian Period This page intentionally left blank THE ANNALS This page intentionally left blank BOOK ONE 1. Kings first governed the city of Rome; liberty and the consulship were established by Lucius Brutus.* Dictatorships were employed to meet crises. The rule of the decemvirs* lasted no more than two years, and the consular authority of the military tribunes* was also short-lived. The ascendancy of Cinna* was not of long duration, nor that of Sulla; and the dominance of Pompey and Crassus* swiftly passed to Caesar, the armed might of Lepidus and Antonius to Augustus. Augustus then brought a world exhausted from civil dissension under his authority, with the title of 'First Citizen'. The Roman people of old had their successes and their failures related by famous authors; and there was no shortage of fine minds for recording the Augustan period, until the groundswell of obsequiousness frightened them off. The histories of Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, and Nero were distorted because of fear while they reigned, and, when they were gone, were composed with animosities still fresh. Hence my decision to deal only briefly with Augustus— and specifically with the final days—and then to move on to the principate of Tiberius and its aftermath, without rancour or bias,* far removed as I am from motives for these. 2. After Brutus and Cassius* were killed, there was no longer a state military force; and when Pompeius* had been vanquished in Sicily, Lepidus discarded, and Antonius killed, even the Julian party was left with no leader other than Caesar Octavian.* Dropping the title 'triumvir', Octavian presented himself as a consul, and as a man satisfied to hold tribunician authority in order to safeguard the people. Then, by seducing the military with donatives, the masses with grain allowances, and everybody with the pleasure of peace, he gradually increased his powers, drawing to himself the functions of Senate, magistrates, and laws. He met no resistance. The most dynamic men had fallen in battle or through the proscriptions; and the remaining nobles rose to wealth and offices in proportion to their appetite for servitude. Having benefited from the revolution, they preferred the security of the current regime to the dangers of the old. The provinces* were not averse to this arrangement, either. Rivalries between the powerful and the greed of magistrates had raised doubts 4 book one ad 14 about the rule of the Senate and people, and there was little help to be had from the laws, which were constantly undermined by violence, political engineering and, most importantly, by graft. 3. To bolster his supremacy, Augustus* promoted his sister's son, Claudius Marcellus,* still just a boy, to the positions of pontiff and curule aedile. He also elevated Marcus Agrippa*—a man of low birth but a fine soldier, and his partner in victory—with repeated consulships, and later, when Marcellus died, took him as his son-inlaw. His stepsons, Tiberius Nero and Claudius Drusus,* he honoured with the title Imperator, despite his own family being still intact. For he had brought into the house of the Caesars Agrippa's sons, Gaius and Lucius, and, despite feigning opposition to the idea, had passionately wished to see them styled 'Princes of the Youth' and made consuls-designate even before they had set aside the toga of boyhood. After Agrippa's demise, Lucius and Gaius Caesar were taken off by premature natural deaths, or else by the machinations of their stepmother, Livia,* Lucius en route for the Spanish armies, and Gaius as he was returning from Armenia incapacitated by a wound.* Drusus was long deceased; Tiberius was the only surviving stepson; everything shifted towards him. He was adopted as son, as colleague in power, as partner in tribunician authority, and put on display throughout the armed forces, his mother not acting surreptitiously as before, but with open encouragement. In fact, Livia had got such a hold on the ageing Augustus that he banished to the island of Planasia his only surviving grandson, Agrippa Postumus.* It is true that the man was a stranger to all decent qualities and possessed of a block-headed pride in his physical strength, but he had been found guilty of no misconduct. In contrast to this treatment, Augustus put Drusus' son Germanicus* at the head of eight legions on the Rhine and ordered his adoption by Tiberius, despite there already being an adolescent son* in Tiberius' house. This was meant to increase the number of supports for his power. At that time no war remained except that against the Germans, fought to erase the disgrace of the loss of the army under Quinctilius Varus* rather than from a desire to advance the bounds of empire or win some worthwhile prize. At home there was tranquillity, and officials bore the same titles as before. Younger people had been born after the victory at Actium and even the old, for the most part, had ad 14 chapters 2‒5 5 been born during the period of the civil wars, leaving only a minute fraction that had witnessed the republic. 4. Thus the nature of the state had changed, and no trace of the old integrity of character was anywhere to be found. Equality had been discarded, and everybody focused on the emperor's commands. There was no fear for the moment, as long as Augustus' age and strength could sustain the man himself, his house and the peace. When he grew weak with advanced age and attendant physical infirmity, when the end was near and hopes of change arose, a few chatted idly about the benefits of freedom; more feared war, others wanted it. The great majority disparaged their forthcoming masters with gossip of various kinds. Agrippa was a savage who had been incensed by insult, it was said; in age and experience he was unequal to such great responsibility. Tiberius Nero had maturity as far as years went, and a distinguished military record; but he also had that old, ingrained arrogance* of the Claudian family and, despite all efforts to suppress them, numerous hints of his viciousness broke through to the surface. He had also been brought up from his earliest years in a ruling house, it was noted. Consulships and triumphs had been heaped on him when he was young, and even in his years of exile on Rhodes* (passed off as 'retirement') resentment, hypocritical behaviour and covert depravity were the focus of his life. Then there was his mother with her female capriciousness. They would be slaves to a woman and two youngsters along with her; these would tyrannize the state for the time being, and later tear it to shreds. 5. As people made these and other such observations, Augustus' health took a turn for the worse, and some suspected foul play on his wife's part. In fact, the rumour had spread that, taking a select few into his confidence and accompanied only by Fabius Maximus,* Augustus had a few months earlier sailed to Planasia* to visit Agrippa. On the island there were, reportedly, floods of tears and gestures of affection from both parties, arousing expectations that the young man would be taken back into his grandfather's house. This, it was said, Maximus had divulged to his wife, Marcia, who in turn divulged it to Livia. The emperor came to know about it, and shortly afterwards, Maximus passed away—whether it was suicide or not is unclear—and Marcia was apparently heard sobbing at his funeral, blaming herself for causing her husband's death. Whatever the truth* of the matter, Tiberius was summoned home by an urgent 6 book one ad 14 letter from his mother when he had barely set foot in Illyricum, and it is not known for sure whether he found Augustus still breathing or already lifeless when he reached him in the town of Nola.* For Livia had kept the house and surrounding streets strictly guarded, with encouraging bulletins issued periodically until all the measures that the crisis demanded were put in place. At that point notice was simultaneously given that Augustus had died and that Tiberius was in power. 6. The first criminal act* of the new principate was the murder of Postumus Agrippa. Agrippa was caught off-guard and unarmed, but a determined centurion still had trouble dispatching him. Tiberius said nothing of the matter in the Senate. He pretended that his father had left orders for the tribune in charge of guarding him not to put off killing Agrippa as soon as he himself had lived his last day. There is no doubt that Augustus had made many bitter complaints about the young man's character and had secured ratification of Agrippa's exile by senatorial decree. But he never brought himself to murder one of his own, and that he would have killed a grandson to provide security for a stepson beggared belief. The more likely explanation* is that Tiberius and Livia hurriedly effected the assassination of a young man whom they eyed with suspicion and loathing, Tiberius out of fear, and Livia from a stepmother's hatred. When the centurion followed standard military procedure and reported that his 'orders had been carried out', Tiberius replied that he had given no such orders and that what had been done had to be accounted for before the Senate. Sallustius Crispus* was party to the secret—it was he who had sent the written instructions to the tribune—and when he heard of this he feared that he might be made the scapegoat, and that lying or revealing the truth would be equally dangerous. He therefore cautioned Livia not to let word get out of the inner workings of the palace, of advice given by friends or of services performed by soldiers, and to see that Tiberius did not undermine the strength of the principate by bringing everything before the Senate. The rule of governing, he said, was that accounts balanced only when set before one person. 7. In Rome,* meanwhile, they all rushed into servitude—consuls, senators, and knights. The higher the rank, the greater the hypocrisy and haste. With expressions composed to show neither pleasure at the passing of one emperor nor too much gloom at another's inauguration, ad 14 chapters 5‒8 7 they blended tears and joy, grief and sycophancy. The consuls Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius were the first to swear allegiance to Tiberius Caesar, and, in the consuls' presence, Seius Strabo* and Gaius Turranius* followed (Strabo was prefect of the praetorian cohorts, and Turranius prefect of the grain supply*). Next came the Senate, the military, and the people. In fact, Tiberius used the consuls to initiate every action, as though he was acting under the old republic and in two minds about taking power. Even the proclamation with which he now summoned the Senate to the Curia he made only under the title of his tribunician authority, conferred on him under Augustus. The wording of the proclamation was brief and low-key. It stated that he would raise the question of honours to be paid to his father—and meanwhile he was not leaving Augustus' body—and that this was the only official duty that he was assuming. However, on Augustus' death he had given the password to the praetorian cohorts as Imperator; he had sentries, armed guards, and the other trappings of the court; he had a military escort into the Forum, a military escort into the Curia. He sent dispatches to the armies as if he had succeeded to the principate, and there was no trace of indecision—except in his addresses in the Senate. The principal reason for this was his fear of Germanicus.* For Germanicus had at his disposal so many legions, innumerable allied auxiliaries, and awesome support amongst the people—and he might prefer to hold power rather than wait for it. Tiberius also made some concession to popular opinion, wishing to appear to have been summoned and chosen by the state rather than to have crept into it through a wife's scheming and a dodderer's adoption. Later on it was understood that he had feigned the indecisiveness in order to fathom out the inclinations of the leading men; he would distort their words and expressions to give them a criminal intent, and keep them in mental storage. 8. On the first day of the Senate Tiberius permitted no business other than Augustus' obsequies. The will of the deceased was brought in by the Vestal Virgins,* and it named Tiberius and Livia* as heirs. Livia was adopted into the Julian family and given the Augustan name. Augustus had entered his grandsons and greatgrandsons as heirs in default, and third in line the highest-ranked men of the state (most of whom he loathed, but it was done for show, 8 book one ad 14 and to boost his reputation with posterity). His bequests did not exceed the norm for a private citizen, apart from the gifts of 43,500,000 sesterces to the common people, a thousand each to soldiers of the praetorian cohorts, and three hundred per man to legionaries and members of the cohorts composed of Roman citizens. Discussion of funeral honours followed, and the most impressive proposals were those of Asinius Gallus,* that the cortège be taken through the triumphal gate,* and Lucius Arruntius,* that it be preceded by the titles of laws Augustus had passed and the names of peoples he had conquered. A further proposal, from Messala Valerius,* was that the oath of allegiance to Tiberius be renewed each year. Asked by Tiberius if he had brought forth this suggestion on his instructions, Messalla replied that he had spoken of his own accord, and that where interests of state were involved he would rely solely on his own judgement, even at the risk of causing offence. That was the only form of obsequiousness still left to try. The senators called out for the body to be carried to the pyre on the shoulders of members of their order. Tiberius spared them this responsibility with a condescending restraint, and issued a warning to the masses by official edict. They had once by their excess of enthusiasm disrupted the funeral of the deified Julius,* he said, and they must not now try to have Augustus cremated in the Forum instead of at the resting place reserved for him in the Campus Martius. On the day of the funeral the soldiers virtually stood on guard. There was much mirth amongst those who had personally seen—or been told of it by their parents—that day when servitude was still new, and the attempt to regain liberty came to nothing, the day when the murder of the dictator Caesar was seen by some as the worst of deeds and by others as the finest. Now, they said, an aged emperor who had long ruled, and even provided his heirs with the means to repress the state, needed military protection so that his burial could proceed peacefully! 9. After that there was much chatter about Augustus himself. The majority expressed wonder over banalities: the day on which he once assumed power was the same date as the last day of his life, and he had ended that life at Nola in the same house and bedroom as his father Octavius. Much was said, too, about the number of his consulships*—equal to those of Valerius Corvus and Gaius Marius put together—and about his uninterrupted thirty-seven years of ad 14 chapters 8‒10 9 tribunician authority, the twenty-one occasions on which he won the title Imperator, and other honours, held many times or newly conferred. In discriminating circles, however, his life variously received praise or criticism. Some saw him driven to a civil conflict—one that could not be planned for or fought by honourable means—by loyalty to his father and the plight of the state, in which the laws then had no place. Many were the concessions he had made to Antonius, they said, and many to Lepidus—just as long as he could exact vengeance from his father's killers. After Lepidus lapsed into indolent senility and Antonius' debauchery proved his undoing, the only remedy for the divided country was the rule of one man. And yet the political organization had not meant monarchy or a dictatorship, but merely accepting the title 'First Citizen'. Now the empire's bounds were the Ocean or far-off rivers. There was an integrated complex of legions, of provinces, of fleets—of everything. There was justice amongst the citizens, restraint towards the allies. The city itself had been marvellously embellished.* The use of force had been rare, and only to assure peace elsewhere. 10. The contrary view was that Augustus' loyalty to his father and the crises faced by the state had been just a façade. In fact, these people said, it was lust for supremacy that had led Augustus to mobilize veterans with largesse, to raise an army while he was still a boy and a private citizen, to bribe a consul's legions* and to feign support for the Pompeian party.* Soon he appropriated the insignia and authority of a praetor by a decree of the Senate. Then Hirtius and Pansa* were killed. Perhaps it was the enemy that saw them off, or perhaps it was a case of Pansa having poison applied to a wound, and Hirtius dying at the hands of his own soldiers in a plot masterminded by Octavian. In any case, Octavian then took over the troops of both, seized the consulship against the Senate's will, and turned against the state the arms he had been given to combat Antonius. The ensuing proscription of citizens and apportionment of lands did not find favour even with those who carried them out. It is true that the deaths of Cassius and the Brutuses were a concession to an inherited feud (though private animosities should be surrendered to the public good), but Pompeius* was hoodwinked with a bogus peace, Lepidus with an illusory friendship. Subsequently Antonius was lured on by the treaties of Tarentum and Brundisium* and by marriage to the sister, and with his death paid the price for that treacherous connection. 10 book one ad 14 Certainly peace followed, but a bloody one—witness the defeats of Lollius* and Varus, the killings at Rome of men like Varro, Egnatius, and Iullus.* Augustus' personal life did not escape criticism either. There was the stealing of Nero's wife* and the ridiculous consulting of the pontiffs on whether she could legitimately marry if she had conceived a child but not yet given birth; there was the extravagant lifestyle of Vedius Pollio;* and finally there was Livia, detrimental to the state as a mother, detrimental to the house of the Caesars as a stepmother. In wanting himself worshipped with temples* and godlike effigies, and with flamens and priests, they said, Augustus had left no room for honours to be paid to the gods. Even his adoption of Tiberius as his successor was not based on affection, or on regard for the state. No, they continued, he recognized Tiberius' arrogance and ruthlessness, and had sought renown from the worst of comparisons. For it is true that a few years earlier, when requesting of the Senate a second term of tribunician authority for Tiberius, Augustus had, in an otherwise complimentary address, thrown in certain observations about the man's demeanour, lifestyle, and habits. While apparently vindicating Tiberius, these were really meant as an affront. At all events, the obsequies were duly performed, and Augustus was officially granted his temple and heavenly honours. 11. After that the prayers were addressed to Tiberius. He offered sundry comments on the greatness of the empire and his own lack of ambition. Only the deified Augustus had the mental qualities capable of shouldering such a burden, he observed, and when he himself had been invited by Augustus to share his responsibilities, he had learned from experience how arduous, and how subject to fortune, the task of worldwide rule actually was. In fact, their community relied on the support of many distinguished men, he said, and within it they should not make one individual responsible for everything—it would be easier for a number of people to work together to carry out the duties of state. The address was more impressive than persuasive. Even on subjects where he was not trying to obfuscate, Tiberius' language was always, whether by nature or from practice, vague and obscure, but on that occasion he was trying to cover up completely his true feelings, and so it became all the more convoluted and equivocal. The senators, whose only fear was that they might appear to understand ad 14 chapters 10‒13 11 him, burst into tearful laments and appeals, holding out their hands to the gods, to the statue of Augustus, and to the knees of Tiberius himself. At that point he ordered a document* to be brought out and read aloud. In it were catalogued the resources of the state: the number of citizens and allies under arms; all the fleets, client kingdoms, and provinces; all taxes direct and indirect; and all necessary expenditures and gifts. Augustus had listed everything in his own handwriting, and had added the recommendation, through fear, perhaps, or from jealousy, that the empire be restricted to its existing frontiers. 12. Meanwhile, as the Senate lapsed into the most cringing entreaties, Tiberius casually remarked that, while he was not up to the task of the entire administration of the state, he would take responsibility for any part of it that he might be assigned. Then Asinius Gallus said: 'Please, Caesar, which area of government would you like to be assigned?' Flustered by the unexpected question, Tiberius fell silent for a moment. Then, gathering his thoughts, he answered that his diffidence would not let him choose or refuse any area of something that he would prefer to be excused from altogether. Gallus, who had surmised Tiberius' displeasure from his expression, added that the point of his question was not to have him compartmentalize functions that should not be divided, but to get from Tiberius himself an admission that the state was one body, and that it should be directed by one man's mind. He added a eulogy of Augustus, and reminded Tiberius of his victories and his many years of fine service as a civilian. Not even with that did he assuage the man's anger, however. For Gallus had long been hated by him because of his marriage to Marcus Agrippa's daughter, Vipsania,* who had once been Tiberius' wife. This suggested that Gallus had ambitions beyond those of a private citizen, and that he retained the characteristic aggressiveness of his father, Asinius Pollio. 13. After this Lucius Arruntius, whose remarks differed little from those of Gallus, caused just as much offence. In fact, while Tiberius had no long-standing grudge against Arruntius, he suspected him because he was wealthy and enterprising, with outstanding qualities and a correspondingly high public profile. Now Augustus, in his final conversations, had discussed possible candidates for the principate, noting those who, though suitable, would refuse it, those who were 12 book one ad 14 unfit but would want it, and those who were both capable and eager to have it. He had named Marcus Lepidus* as competent but uninterested, Asinius Gallus as eager but inadequate, and Lucius Arruntius as one who was not unqualified and who, given the opportunity, would venture to take it. On the identity of the first two there is agreement, but some sources have Gnaeus Piso* instead of Arruntius, and with the exception of Lepidus all of them were soon unjustly convicted on various charges trumped up by Tiberius. Quintus Haterius and Mamercus Scaurus* also provoked his suspicious nature, Haterius by saying 'How long, Caesar, are you going to let the republic be without a head?' and Scaurus for remarking that, since Tiberius had not vetoed the consuls' motion by using his tribunician authority, there remained hope that the Senate's prayers would not be ineffectual. Haterius received an immediate tonguelashing, but Scaurus, for whom Tiberius felt a more deep-seated resentment, he simply passed by in silence. Then, worn down by the general outcry and individual appeals, he gradually shifted his stance, not going so far as to say he was accepting the power, but ending his refusals and their petitioning. It is a well-known fact that Haterius went into the Palatium to apologize, threw himself down at the knees of Tiberius, who was taking a walk, and only just missed being killed by the guards because Tiberius fell over, either accidentally or because he was tripped by Haterius' grasp on him. The emperor's attitude was not softened by the danger that a man of such distinction had faced, until Haterius made an appeal to Augusta and was protected by her anxious intercession. 14. Much senatorial adulation* was focused on Augusta,* too, some proposing that she be styled 'Parent', and others 'Mother', of the nation, and several that the words 'Son of Julia' be added to the emperor's name. Tiberius insisted that honours paid to women should be circumscribed, and that he would show similar restraint with regard to those paid to himself; but he was really tormented with jealousy, and felt that the promotion of a woman was a slight to himself. So he would not permit her even to be assigned a lictor,* and vetoed an 'altar of adoption' and other such honours. On the other hand he requested proconsular imperium for Germanicus Caesar, and had a delegation sent to him to confer it, and also to console him in his sorrow over the death of Augustus. The reason for the same ad 14 chapters 13‒16 13 request not being made for Drusus was that Drusus was consuldesignate and then present in the city. Tiberius nominated* twelve candidates for the praetorship, the number passed on to him by Augustus, and though the Senate urged him to increase it he swore an oath never to go beyond that figure. 15. It was at this time that elections* were first transferred from the Campus to the Senate; for, up to that date, though the most important elections reflected the emperor's choice, some were still left to the partiality of the people voting in their tribes. The people, apart from some idle chatter, did not protest against the removal of this right, and the Senate, freed from having to offer bribes and from humiliating canvassing, was happy to comply. Tiberius undertook to recommend no more than four candidates whose appointment would not be rejected or contested. The plebeian tribunes meanwhile made a petition to put on games, at their own expense, which were to be added to the calendar and called the Augustal Games,* after Augustus. In fact, money from the treasury was authorized for the event, and it was also decided that the tribunes should be entitled to wear triumphal garb in the Circus, but they were not allowed to ride in the chariot. Before long the celebration of the games was turned over to that praetor allotted the jurisdiction between citizens and foreigners. 16. Such was the state of civic affairs when a mutiny broke out amongst the legions in Pannonia.* There were no fresh reasons for it; it was simply that the change of emperors offered the prospect of unrestricted rioting and hopes of deriving profit from civil war. Three legions had been quartered together for the summer under the command of Junius Blaesus,* and when he heard of Augustus' passing and Tiberius' accession Blaesus had suspended routine duties for mourning, or rejoicing. That was the start of the men's unruly behaviour. They became fractious, lending an ear to what any good-for-nothing had to say; and eventually they were hungry for extravagant and easy living, and averse to discipline and hard work. There was in the camp a certain Percennius who had once been a leader of a claque in the theatres and had then become a common soldier. He had a ready tongue and, from rousing support in the theatre, had learned how to stir up a crowd. Percennius worked gradually on the men, who were naive and uncertain what the conditions of service would be like after Augustus. He held conversations with them 14 book one ad 14 at night, or when the day turned towards evening, and gathered about him all the most undesirable elements, when better men had slipped away. 17. Eventually, after finding others who were ready to assist with the mutiny, he asked the men, as though in a public harangue, why they obeyed like slaves the few centurions they had, and the even fewer tribunes. When would they dare to demand a solution to their problems, he asked, if they would not approach a new emperor, still unsure of himself, with their appeals, or their swords. Their inertia over so many years* had been a big enough mistake—enduring thirty or forty campaign seasons that turned them into old men, most of them maimed from their wounds! Even discharge did not end their service, he continued; encamped next to their standard, they endured the very same hardships under a different name! And anyone surviving all the perils was still hauled off to remote lands where he would be given some boggy marsh or hilly desert as so-called 'farmland'. Indeed, a soldier's life was hard and unrewarding, he said. Body and soul, he was worth ten asses a day, and from that his clothing, weapons, and tents were to be purchased, and bribes found to avoid the brutality of the centurions and gain exemption from chores. But the lash and wounds, the harsh winters and exhausting summers, savage war and profitless peace—there was certainly no end to those! And there would be no relief unless terms were established for entering service, with a denarius a day as their pay, and the sixteenth year marking the end of their duty—and no being kept on under the standards after that, but a cash payment of their gratuity being made to them in the same camp. The praetorian cohorts* received pay of two denarii, and were sent home after sixteen years— could it be that they faced more dangers? He was not belittling the praetorians' guard-duty in the city, he said, but in their own case it was a matter of living amongst savage tribes and having the enemy in view from their tents! 18. There was noisy approval from the crowd as various grievances surfaced. Some indignantly pointed to stripes from the lash, others to their grey hair, and the majority to their threadbare clothing and unclad limbs. Finally they reached such a pitch of fury that they mooted the idea of merging the three legions into one. They were deterred by their rivalry, as each man wanted for his own legion the honour of providing the name; and so they changed tack, and ad 14 chapters 16‒20 15 placed together the three eagles* and the standards of the cohorts. At the same time they proceeded to pile up clods of earth and build a platform, to make the spot more prominent. As they were forging ahead with this, Blaesus appeared. He began to reprimand them, and to pull them back one at a time, shouting: 'Stain your hands with my blood instead! It will be a lesser crime for you to kill a legate than to revolt against the emperor. Either I shall live and keep my legions loyal, or be killed and make you regret your actions all the sooner.' 19. The turf kept rising none the less, and it was only when it had reached the men's chests that Blaesus' determination paid off and they abandoned the undertaking. Blaesus then made an eloquent address, explaining that soldiers' petitions should not be communicated to the emperor by means of mutiny and civil disorder. Those serving in the past, he said, had not made such radical proposals to their commanders, nor had they themselves to the deified Augustus—and, besides, to burden an emperor with worries at the start of his reign was very bad timing. But even if they intended to claim in peacetime what even victors in civil wars had not demanded, why were they considering violent action, abandoning their customary obedience and the discipline that was rightly expected of them? He then recommended that they choose some representatives and give them their instructions in his presence. The men cried out that Blaesus' son, a tribune, should take charge of the delegation and request military discharge for them after sixteen years—they would give him his other instructions once that met with success. There was a measure of peace after the young man's departure. The soldiers were very self-satisfied, however: that their commander's son was presenting their common cause showed that force had extorted what they would not have gained by good behaviour. 20. Before the mutiny began, some maniples had been sent off to Nauportus to work on roads, bridges, and other projects, and on hearing about the disorder in the camp they pulled up their standards and plundered the nearest villages, including Nauportus itself, which was the size of a town. When the centurions tried to stop them, they subjected them to derision and insults, and finally to beatings. The anger was particularly directed against the camp prefect,* Aufidienus Rufus. They pulled him from his wagon, loaded him with baggage, and drove him forward at the head of the column, 16 book one ad 14 sneeringly asking him if he was enjoying such heavy packs and such long marches. Rufus, in fact, had spent a long time as a private before becoming a centurion and, shortly afterwards, camp prefect. He had been trying to reintroduce the stringent discipline of former days and, being an old hand at hard physical labour, he was all the more exacting because he had endured it himself. 21. The arrival of these troops revived the mutiny, and men wandered off to pillage the surrounding districts. To intimidate the others, Blaesus ordered a lashing and imprisonment for a few, particularly those loaded with plunder; for even at that stage the legate was still obeyed by his centurions and the best of the private soldiers. The men struggled with those dragging them off; they grabbed the knees of those around them; at one moment they called on individuals by name, and at the next on the century, the cohort, and the legion to which they variously belonged, crying out that they all faced the same danger. At the same time they heaped insults on their commander, appealed to the gods in heaven, and did everything possible to stir up resentment, pity, fear, and anger. All rushed to the spot. Breaking into the guardhouse, they released the prisoners and accepted into their ranks deserters and men convicted of capital crimes. 22. The violence now flared up even more, and the mutiny acquired additional leaders. A certain Vibulenus, a common soldier, was lifted onto the shoulders of bystanders before Blaesus' dais, and he addressed his disorderly colleagues, who were eagerly waiting to see what he had in mind. 'Yes, you have restored light and breath to these innocent unfortunates,' he said, 'but who can restore life to my brother, who can restore my brother to me? He was sent to you from the army in Germany* to discuss our collective interests, but last night he had him murdered by the gladiators* he maintains and keeps under arms to kill his soldiers. Answer me, Blaesus—where did you dispose of the body? Even enemies do not begrudge burial! When I have satisfied my grief with kisses and tears, tell them to butcher me, too. Only let these men here bury us—killed not for any crime, but because we were acting for the good of the legions!' 23. Vibulenus made his words all the more provocative by weeping and beating his breast and face with his hands. Then he flung aside the men on whose shoulders he was being carried, and threw himself on his face at the feet of one man after another. Such was the ad 14 chapters 20‒25 17 distress and animosity that he aroused that some of the soldiers put in irons the gladiators amongst Blaesus' slaves, and others the rest of his servants. Another group poured out to look for the corpse. They were close to killing the commander—but it quickly became known that no corpse was to be found, that the slaves denied the murder under torture, and that Vibulenus had never had a brother. Instead, they drove off the tribunes and the camp prefect, plundering their baggage when they fled, and the centurion Lucilius was murdered. (With typical soldiers' wit, the men had nicknamed this man 'Give me another' because, when he broke a vine-rod on a soldier's back, he would, in a loud voice, call out for another and then a third.) The others all found places to hide, apart from Julius Clemens, who alone was held back: with his quick intelligence he was thought a good choice for relaying the soldiers' demands. The Eighth and Fifteenth legions were actually ready to fight each other, the one demanding the execution of a man named Sirpicus, and the men of the Fifteenth sheltering him; but the soldiers of the Ninth Legion intervened with appeals, and threats when they were ignored. 24. Tiberius was a secretive man, and was especially prone to concealing bad news, but the report of these developments prompted him to dispatch his son Drusus* to the scene with some leading men of the city and two praetorian cohorts. Drusus had no specific instructions, but was to take decisions as the situation required. His cohorts, too, had been brought up beyond their usual strength with some crack troops. They wer