Vannius (flourished in 1st century AD) was the king of the Germanic tribe Quadi.
According
to The Annals of Tacitus, Vannius came to power
following the defeat of the Marcomannic king Catualda by the Hermunduri king of Vibilius, establishing the kingdom of Vannius (regnum Vannianum).[1] It was the
first political unit in the area that is now Slovakia. Vannius was a client king of the Roman Empire and ruled from
20 AD to 50 AD. Tacitus writes that he was "renowned and popular with
his countrymen," but after a long reign, he "became a tyrant, and
the enmity of neighbours, joined to intestine strife, was his ruin."
Joined by Vangio and Sido, sons of a sister of Vannius, Vibilius of the Hermunduri
again led the deposition. Emperor Claudius, decided to stay out of the conflict, fearing that the Lugii and other Germanic
tribes would be attracted by the "opulent realm which Vannius had
enriched during thirty years of plunder and tribute."[2]
Vannius
was easily defeated by the Lugii and the Hermunduri, although he won some
credit through being wounded in battle. Vannius managed to flee to his fleet
on the Danube, and was
awarded lands in Pannonia by Claudius. His realm was subsequently divided between
his nephews Vangio and Sido. Tacitus writes that Vangio and Sido were
"admirably loyal" to the Romans, but among their subjects, by whom
they were "much loved" while seeking to acquire power, they became
"yet more hated when they acquired it."[3]
Notes
vibilius,
établissant le royaume de Vannius (regnum Vannianum). [1] C'était la première
unité politique dans la région qui est maintenant la Slovaquie. Vannius était
un client roi de l'Empire romain et a régné de 20 à 50 après JC. Tacitus
écrit qu'il était «renommé et populaire auprès de ses compatriotes», mais
après un long règne, il «devint un tyran, et l'inimitié des voisins, jointe
aux conflits intestinaux, fut sa ruine». Rejoint par Vangio et Sido, fils
d'une sœur de Vannius, Vibilius de l'Hermunduri dirigea à nouveau la
déposition. L'empereur Claudius, a décidé de rester en dehors du conflit,
craignant que les Lugii et d'autres tribus germaniques ne soient attirés par
le "royaume opulent que Vannius avait enrichi pendant trente ans de
pillage et d'hommage." [2] Vannius a été facilement vaincu par les Lugii
et les Hermunduri, bien qu'il ait gagné un certain crédit en étant blessé au
combat. Vannius réussit à fuir vers sa flotte sur le Danube et reçut des
terres en Pannonie par Claudius. Son royaume a ensuite été divisé entre ses
neveux Vangio et Sido. Tacitus écrit que Vangio et Sido étaient
"admirablement fidèles" aux Romains, mais parmi leurs sujets, par
qui ils étaient "beaucoup aimés" tout en cherchant à acquérir le
pouvoir, ils devinrent "encore plus détestés quand ils
l'acquirent." [3]
Translation based on Alfred John Church and
William Jackson Brodribb (1876)
In the consulship of
Sisenna Statilius Taurus and Lucius Libo there was a commotion in the
kingdoms and Roman provinces of the East. It had its origin among the
Parthians, who disdained as a foreigner a king whom they had sought and
received from Rome, though he was of the family of the Arsacids. This was
Vonones, who had been given as an hostage to Augustus by Phraates. For
although he had driven before him armies and generals from Rome, Phraates had
shown to Augustus every token of reverence and had sent him some of his
children, to cement the friendship, not so much from dread of us as from
distrust of the loyalty of his countrymen.
After
the death of Phraates and the succeeding kings in the bloodshed of civil
wars, there came to Rome envoys from the chief men of Parthia, in quest of
Vonones, his eldest son. Caesar thought this a great honour to himself, and
loaded Vonones with wealth. The barbarians, too, welcomed him with rejoicing,
as is usual with new rulers. Soon they felt shame at Parthians having become
degenerate, at their having sought a king from another world, one too
infected with the training of the enemy, at the throne of the Arsacids now
being possessed and given away among the provinces of Rome.
"Where," they asked, "was the glory of the men who slew
Crassus, who drove out Antonius, if Caesar's drudge, after an endurance of so
many years' slavery, were to rule over Parthians." Vonones himself too
further provoked their disdain, by his contrast with their ancestral manners,
by his rare indulgence in the chase, by his feeble interest in horses, by the
litter in which he was carried whenever he made a progress through their
cities, and by his contemptuous dislike of their national festivities. They
also ridiculed his Greek attendants and his keeping under seal the commonest
household articles. But he was easy of approach; his courtesy was open to
all, and he had thus virtues with which the Parthians were unfamiliar, and
vices new to them. And as his ways were quite alien from theirs they hated
alike what was bad and what was good in him.
Accordingly
they summoned Artabanus, an Arsacid by blood, who had grown to manhood among
the Dahae, and who, though routed in the first encounter, rallied his forces
and possessed himself of the kingdom. The conquered Vonones found a refuge in
Armenia, then a free country, and exposed to the power of Parthia and Rome,
without being trusted by either, in consequence of the crime of Antonius,
who, under the guise of friendship, had inveigled Artavasdes, king of the
Armenians, then loaded him with chains, and finally murdered him. His son,
Artaxias, our bitter foe because of his father's memory, found defence for
himself and his kingdom in the might of the Arsacids. When he was slain by
the treachery of kinsmen, Caesar gave Tigranes to the Armenians, and he was
put in possession of the kingdom under the escort of Tiberius Nero. But
neither Tigranes nor his children reigned long, though, in foreign fashion,
they were united in marriage and in royal power.
Next,
at the bidding of Augustus, Artavasdes was set on the throne, nor was he
deposed without disaster to ourselves. Caius Caesar was then appointed to
restore order in Armenia. He put over the Armenians Ariobarzanes, a Mede by
birth, whom they willingly accepted, because of his singularly handsome
person and noble spirit. On the death of Ariobarzanes through a fatal
accident, they would not endure his son. Having tried the government of a
woman named Erato and having soon afterwards driven her from them, bewildered
and disorganised, rather indeed without a ruler than enjoying freedom, they
received for their king the fugitive Vonones. When, however, Artabanus began
to threaten, and but feeble support could be given by the Armenians, or war
with Parthia would have to be undertaken, if Vonones was to be upheld by our
arms, the governor of Syria, Creticus Silanus, sent for him and kept him
under surveillance, letting him retain his royal pomp and title. How Vonones
meditated an escape from this mockery, I will relate in the proper place.
Meanwhile
the commotion in the East was rather pleasing to Tiberius, as it was a
pretext for withdrawing Germanicus from the legions which knew him well, and
placing him over new provinces where he would be exposed both to treachery
and to disasters. Germanicus, however, in proportion to the strength of the
soldiers' attachment and to his uncle's dislike, was eager to hasten his
victory, and he pondered on plans of battle, and on the reverses or successes
which during more than three years of war had fallen to his lot. The Germans,
he knew, were beaten in the field and on fair ground; they were helped by
woods, swamps, short summers, and early winters. His own troops were affected
not so much by wounds as by long marches and damage to their arms. Gaul had
been exhausted by supplying horses; a long baggage-train presented facilities
for ambuscades, and was embarrassing to its defenders. But by embarking on
the sea, invasion would be easy for them, and a surprise to the enemy, while
a campaign too would be more quickly begun, the legions and supplies would be
brought up simultaneously, and the cavalry with their horses would arrive, in
good condition, by the rivermouths and channels, at the heart of Germany.
To
this accordingly he gave his mind, and sent Publius Vitellius and Caius
Antius to collect the taxes of Gaul. Silius, Anteius, and Caecina had the
charge of building a fleet. It seemed that a thousand vessels were required,
and they were speedily constructed, some of small draught with a narrow stem
and stern and a broad centre, that they might bear the waves more easily;
some flat-bottomed, that they might ground without being injured; several,
furnished with a rudder at each end, so that by a sudden shifting of the oars
they might be run into shore either way. Many were covered in with decks, on
which engines for missiles might be conveyed, and were also fit for the
carrying of horses or supplies, and being equipped with sails as well as
rapidly moved by oars, they assumed, through the enthusiasm of our soldiers,
an imposing and formidable aspect. The island of the Batavi was the appointed
rendezvous, because of its easy landing-places, and its convenience for
receiving the army and carrying the war across the river. For the Rhine after
flowing continuously in a single channel or encircling merely insignificant
islands, divides itself, so to say, where the Batavian territory begins, into
two rivers, retaining its name and the rapidity of its course in the stream
which washes Germany, till it mingles with the ocean. On the Gallic bank, its
flow is broader and gentler; it is called by an altered name, the Vahal, by
the inhabitants of its shore. Soon that name too is changed for the Mosa
river, through whose vast mouth it empties itself into the same ocean.
Caesar,
however, while the vessels were coming up, ordered Silius, his
lieutenant-general, to make an inroad on the Chatti with a flying column. He
himself, on hearing that a fort on the river Luppia was being besieged, led
six legions to the spot. Silius owing to sudden rains did nothing but carry
off a small booty, and the wife and daughter of Arpus, the chief of the
Chatti. And Caesar had no opportunity of fighting given him by the besiegers,
who dispersed on the rumour of his advance. They had, however, destroyed the
barrow lately raised in memory of Varus's legions, and the old altar of
Drusus. The prince restored the altar, and himself with his legions
celebrated funeral games in his father's honour. To raise a new barrow was
not thought necessary. All the country between the fort Aliso and the Rhine
was thoroughly secured by new barriers and earthworks.
By
this time the fleet had arrived, and Caesar, having sent on his supplies and
assigned vessels for the legions and the allied troops, entered
"Drusus's fosse," as it was called. He prayed Drusus his father to
lend him, now that he was venturing on the same enterprise, the willing and
favourable aid of the example and memory of his counsels and achievements,
and he arrived after a prosperous voyage through the lakes and the ocean as
far as the river Amisia. His fleet remained there on the left bank of the
stream, and it was a blunder that he did not have it brought up the river. He
disembarked the troops, which were to be marched to the country on the right,
and thus several days were wasted in the construction of bridges. The cavalry
and the legions fearlessly crossed the first estuaries in which the tide had
not yet risen. The rear of the auxiliaries, and the Batavi among the number,
plunging recklessly into the water and displaying their skill in swimming,
fell into disorder, and some were drowned. While Caesar was measuring out his
camp, he was told of a revolt of the Angrivarii in his rear. He at once
despatched Stertinius with some cavalry and a light armed force, who punished
their perfidy with fire and sword.
The
waters of the Visurgis flowed between the Romans and the Cherusci. On its
banks stood Arminius with the other chiefs. He asked whether Caesar had
arrived, and on the reply that he was present, he begged leave to have an
interview with his brother. That brother, surnamed Flavus, was with our army,
a man famous for his loyalty, and for having lost an eye by a wound, a few
years ago, when Tiberius was in command. The permission was then given, and
he stepped forth and was saluted by Arminius, who had removed his guards to a
distance and required that the bowmen ranged on our bank should retire. When
they had gone away, Arminius asked his brother whence came the scar which
disfigured his face, and on being told the particular place and battle, he
inquired what reward he had received. Flavus spoke of increased pay, of a
neck chain, a crown, and other military gifts, while Arminius jeered at such
a paltry recompense for slavery.
Then
began a controversy. The one spoke of the greatness of Rome, the resources of
Caesar, the dreadful punishment in store for the vanquished, the ready mercy
for him who surrenders, and the fact that neither Arminius's wife nor his son
were treated as enemies; the other, of the claims of fatherland, of ancestral
freedom, of the gods of the homes of Germany, of the mother who shared his
prayers, that Flavus might not choose to be the deserter and betrayer rather
than the ruler of his kinsfolk and relatives, and indeed of his own people.
By degrees they fell to bitter words, and even the river between them would
not have hindered them from joining combat, had not Stertinius hurried up and
put his hand on Flavus, who in the full tide of his fury was demanding his
weapons and his charger. Arminius was seen facing him, full of menaces and
challenging him to conflict. Much of what he said was in Roman speech, for he
had served in our camp as leader of his fellow-countrymen.
Next
day the German army took up its position on the other side of the Visurgis.
Caesar, thinking that without bridges and troops to guard them, it would not
be good generalship to expose the legions to danger, sent the cavalry across
the river by the fords. It was commanded by Stertinius and Aemilius, one of
the first rank centurions, who attacked at widely different points so as to
distract the enemy. Chariovalda, the Batavian chief, dashed to the charge
where the stream is most rapid. The Cherusci, by a pretended flight, drew him
into a plain surrounded by forest-passes. Then bursting on him in a sudden
attack from all points they thrust aside all who resisted, pressed fiercely
on their retreat, driving them before them, when they rallied in compact
array, some by close fighting, others by missiles from a distance.
Chariovalda, after long sustaining the enemy's fury, cheered on his men to
break by a dense formation the onset of their bands, while he himself,
plunging into the thickest of the battle, fell amid a shower of darts with
his horse pierced under him, and round him many noble chiefs. The rest were
rescued from the peril by their own strength, or by the cavalry which came up
with Stertinius and Aemilius.
Caesar
on crossing the Visurgis learnt by the information of a deserter that
Arminius had chosen a battle-field, that other tribes too had assembled in a
forest sacred to Hercules, and would venture on a night attack on his camp.
He put faith in this intelligence, and, besides, several watchfires were
seen. Scouts also, who had crept close up to the enemy, reported that they
had heard the neighing of horses and the hum of a huge and tumultuous host.
And so as the decisive crisis drew near, that he ought thoroughly to sound
the temper of his soldiers, he considered with himself how this was to be
accomplished with a genuine result. Tribunes and centurions, he knew, oftener
reported what was welcome than what was true; freedmen had slavish spirits,
friends a love of flattery. If an assembly were called, there too the lead of
a few was followed by the shout of the many. He must probe their inmost
thoughts, when they were uttering their hopes and fears at the military mess,
among themselves, and unwatched.
At
nightfall, leaving his tent of augury by a secret exit, unknown to the
sentries, with one companion, his shoulders covered with a wild beast's skin,
he visited the camp streets, stood by the tents, and enjoyed the men's talk
about himself, as one extolled his noble rank, another, his handsome person,
nearly all of them, his endurance, his gracious manner and the evenness of
his temper, whether he was jesting or was serious, while they acknowledged
that they ought to repay him with their gratitude in battle, and at the same
time sacrifice to a glorious vengeance the perfidious violators of peace.
Meanwhile one of the enemy, acquainted with the Roman tongue, spurred his
horse up to the entrenchments, and in a loud voice promised in the name of
Arminius to all deserters wives and lands with daily pay of a hundred
sesterces as long as war lasted. The insult fired the wrath of the legions.
"Let daylight come," they said, "let battle be given. The
soldiers will possess themselves of the lands of the Germans and will carry
off their wives. We hail the omen; we mean the women and riches of the enemy
to be our spoil." About midday there was a skirmishing attack on our
camp, without any discharge of missiles, when they saw the cohorts in close
array before the lines and no sign of carelessness.
The
same night brought with it a cheering dream to Germanicus. He saw himself
engaged in sacrifice, and his robe being sprinkled with the sacred blood,
another more beautiful was given him by the hands of his grandmother Augusta.
Encouraged by the omen and finding the auspices favourable, he called an
assembly, and explained the precautions which wisdom suggested as suitable
for the impending battle. "It is not," he said, "plains only
which are good for the fighting of Roman soldiers, but woods and forest
passes, if science be used. For the huge shields and unwieldly lances of the
barbarians cannot, amid trunks of trees and brushwood that springs from the
ground, be so well managed as our javelins and swords and closefitting
armour. Shower your blows thickly; strike at the face with your swords'
points. The German has neither cuirass nor helmet; even his shield is not
strengthened with leather or steel, but is of osiers woven together or of
thin and painted board. If their first line is armed with spears, the rest
have only weapons hardened by fire or very short. Again, though their frames
are terrible to the eye and formidable in a brief onset, they have no
capacity of enduring wounds; without, any shame at the disgrace, without any
regard to their leaders, they quit the field and flee; they quail under
disaster, just as in success they forget alike divine and human laws. If in
your weariness of land and sea you desire an end of service, this battle
prepares the way to it. The Elbe is now nearer than the Rhine, and there is
no war beyond, provided only you enable me, keeping close as I do to my
father's and my uncle's footsteps, to stand a conqueror on the same
spot."
The
general's speech was followed by enthusiasm in the soldiers, and the signal
for battle was given. Nor were Arminius and the other German chiefs slow to
call their respective clansmen to witness that "these Romans were the
most cowardly fugitives out of Varus's army, men who rather than endure war
had taken to mutiny. Half of them have their backs covered with wounds; half
are once again exposing limbs battered by waves and storms to a foe full of
fury, and to hostile deities, with no hope of advantage. They have, in fact,
had recourse to a fleet and to a trackless ocean, that their coming might be
unopposed, their flight unpursued. But when once they have joined conflict
with us, the help of winds or oars will be unavailing to the vanquished. Remember
only their greed, their cruelty, their pride. Is anything left for us but to
retain our freedom or to die before we are enslaved?
When
they were thus roused and were demanding battle, their chiefs led them down
into a plain named Idistaviso. It winds between the Visurgis and a hill
range, its breadth varying as the river banks recede or the spurs of the
hills project on it. In their rear rose a forest, with the branches rising to
a great height, while there were clear spaces between the trunks. The
barbarian army occupied the plain and the outskirts of the wood. The Cherusci
were posted by themselves on the high ground, so as to rush down on the
Romans during the battle. Our army advanced in the following order. The
auxiliary Gauls and Germans were in the van, then the foot-archers, after
them, four legions and Caesar himself with two praetorian cohorts and some
picked cavalry. Next came as many other legions, and light-armed troops with
horse-bowmen, and the remaining cohorts of the allies. The men were quite
ready and prepared to form in line of battle according to their marching
order.
Caesar,
as soon as he saw the Cheruscan bands which in their impetuous spirit had
rushed to the attack, ordered the finest of his cavalry to charge them in
flank, Stertinius with the other squadrons to make a detour and fall on their
rear, promising himself to come up in good time. Meanwhile there was a most
encouraging augury. Eight eagles, seen to fly towards the woods and to enter
them, caught the general's eye. "Go," he exclaimed, "follow
the Roman birds, the true deities of our legions." At the same moment
the infantry charged, and the cavalry which had been sent on in advance
dashed on the rear and the flanks. And, strange to relate, two columns of the
enemy fled in opposite directions, that, which had occupied the wood, rushing
into the open, those who had been drawn up on the plains, into the wood. The
Cherusci, who were between them, were dislodged from the hills, while
Arminius, conspicuous among them by gesture, voice, and a wound he had
received, kept up the fight. He had thrown himself on our archers and was on
the point of breaking through them, when the cohorts of the Raeti, Vendelici,
and Gauls faced his attack. By a strong bodily effort, however, and a furious
rush of his horse, he made his way through them, having smeared his face with
his blood, that he might not be known. Some have said that he was recognised
by Chauci serving among the Roman auxiliaries, who let him go. Inguiomerus
owed his escape to similar courage or treachery. The rest were cut down in
every direction. Many in attempting to swim across the Visurgis were
overwhelmed under a storm of missiles or by the force of the current, lastly,
by the rush of fugitives and the falling in of the banks. Some in their
ignominious flight climbed the tops of trees, and as they were hiding
themselves in the boughs, archers were brought up and they were shot for
sport. Others were dashed to the ground by the felling of the trees.
It
was a great victory and without bloodshed to us. From nine in the morning to
nightfall the enemy were slaughtered, and ten miles were covered with arms
and dead bodies, while there were found amid the plunder the chains which the
Germans had brought with them for the Romans, as though the issue were
certain. The soldiers on the battle field hailed Tiberius as Imperator, and
raised a mound on which arms were piled in the style of a trophy, with the
names of the conquered tribes inscribed beneath them.
That
sight caused keener grief and rage among the Germans than their wounds, their
mourning, and their losses. Those who but now were preparing to quit their
settlements and to retreat to the further side of the Elbe, longed for battle
and flew to arms. Common people and chiefs, young and old, rushed on the
Roman army, and spread disorder. At last they chose a spot closed in by a
river and by forests, within which was a narrow swampy plain. The woods too
were surrounded by a bottomless morass, only on one side of it the Angrivarii
had raised a broad earthwork, as a boundary between themselves and the
Cherusci. Here their infantry was ranged. Their cavalry they concealed in
neighbouring woods, so as to be on the legions' rear, as soon as they entered
the forest.
All
this was known to Caesar. He was acquainted with their plans, their
positions, with what met the eye, and what was hidden, and he prepared to
turn the enemy's stratagems to their own destruction. To Seius Tubero, his
chief officer, he assigned the cavalry and the plain. His infantry he drew up
so that part might advance on level ground into the forest, and part clamber
up the earthwork which confronted them. He charged himself with what was the
specially difficult operation, leaving the rest to his officers. Those who
had the level ground easily forced a passage. Those who had to assault the
earthwork encountered heavy blows from above, as if they were scaling a wall.
The general saw how unequal this close fighting was, and having withdrawn his
legions to a little distance, ordered the slingers and artillerymen to
discharge a volley of missiles and scatter the enemy. Spears were hurled from
the engines, and the more conspicuous were the defenders of the position, the
more the wounds with which they were driven from it. Caesar with some
praetorian cohorts was the first, after the storming of the ramparts, to dash
into the woods. There they fought at close quarters. A morass was in the
enemy's rear, and the Romans were hemmed in by the river or by the hills.
Both were in a desperate plight from their position; valour was their only
hope, victory their only safety.
The
Germans were equally brave, but they were beaten by the nature of the
fighting and of the weapons, for their vast host in so confined a space could
neither thrust out nor recover their immense lances, or avail themselves of
their nimble movements and lithe frames, forced as they were to a close
engagement. Our soldiers, on the other hand, with their shields pressed to
their breasts, and their hands grasping their sword-hilts, struck at the huge
limbs and exposed faces of the barbarians, cutting a passage through the
slaughtered enemy, for Arminius was now less active, either from incessant
perils, or because he was partially disabled by his recent wound. As for
Inguiomerus, who flew hither and thither over the battlefield, it was fortune
rather than courage which forsook him. Germanicus, too, that he might be the
better known, took his helmet off his head and begged his men to follow up
the slaughter, as they wanted not prisoners, and the utter destruction of the
nation would be the only conclusion of the war. And now, late in the day, he
withdrew one of his legions from the field, to intrench a camp, while the
rest till nightfall glutted themselves with the enemy's blood. Our cavalry
fought with indecisive success.
Having
publicly praised his victorious troops, Caesar raised a pile of arms with the
proud inscription, "The army of Tiberius Caesar, after thoroughly
conquering the tribes between the Rhine and the Elbe, has dedicated this
monument to Mars, Jupiter, and Augustus." He added nothing about
himself, fearing jealousy, or thinking that the conciousness of the
achievement was enough. Next he charged Stertinius with making war on the
Angrivarii, but they hastened to surrender. And, as suppliants, by refusing
nothing, they obtained a full pardon.
When,
however, summer was at its height some of the legions were sent back overland
into winter-quarters, but most of them Caesar put on board the fleet and
brought down the river Amisia to the ocean. At first the calm waters merely
sounded with the oars of a thousand vessels or were ruffled by the sailing
ships. Soon, a hailstorm bursting from a black mass of clouds, while the
waves rolled hither and thither under tempestuous gales from every quarter,
rendered clear sight impossible, and the steering difficult, while our
soldiers, terrorstricken and without any experience of disasters on the sea,
by embarrassing the sailors or giving them clumsy aid, neutralized the
services of the skilled crews. After a while, wind and wave shifted wholly to
the south, and from the hilly lands and deep rivers of Germany came with a
huge line of rolling clouds, a strong blast, all the more frightful from the
frozen north which was so near to them, and instantly caught and drove the
ships hither and thither into the open ocean, or on islands with steep cliffs
or which hidden shoals made perilous. these they just escaped, with
difficulty, and when the tide changed and bore them the same way as the wind,
they could not hold to their anchors or bale out the water which rushed in
upon them. Horses, beasts of burden, baggage, were thrown overboard, in order
to lighten the hulls which leaked copiously through their sides, while the
waves too dashed over them.
As
the ocean is stormier than all other seas, and as Germany is conspicuous for
the terrors of its climate, so in novelty and extent did this disaster
transcend every other, for all around were hostile coasts, or an expanse so
vast and deep that it is thought to be the remotest shoreless sea. Some of
the vessels were swallowed up; many were wrecked on distant islands, and the
soldiers, finding there no form of human life, perished of hunger, except
some who supported existence on carcases of horses washed on the same shores.
Germanicus's trireme alone reached the country of the Chauci. Day and night,
on those rocks and promontories he would incessantly exclaim that he was
himself responsible for this awful ruin, and friends scarce restrained him
from seeking death in the same sea. At last, as the tide ebbed and the wind
blew favourably, the shattered vessels with but few rowers, or clothing
spread as sails, some towed by the more powerful, returned, and Germanicus,
having speedily repaired them, sent them to search the islands. Many by that
means were recovered. The Angrivarii, who had lately been admitted to our
alliance, restored to us several had ransomed from the inland tribes. Some
had been carried to Britain and were sent back by the petty chiefs. Every
one, as he returned from some far-distant region, told of wonders, of violent
hurricanes, and unknown birds, of monsters of the sea, of forms half-human,
half beast-like, things they had really seen or in their terror believed.
Meanwhile
the rumoured loss of the fleet stirred the Germans to hope for war, as it did
Caesar to hold them down. He ordered Caius Silius with thirty thousand
infantry and three thousand cavalry to march against the Chatti. He himself,
with a larger army, invaded the Marsi, whose leader, Mallovendus, whom we had
lately admitted to surrender, pointed out a neighbouring wood, where, he
said, an eagle of one of Varus's legions was buried and guarded only by a
small force. Immediately troops were despatched to draw the enemy from his
position by appearing in his front, others, to hem in his rear and open the
ground. Fortune favoured both. So Germanicus, with increased energy, advanced
into the country, laying it waste, and utterly ruining a foe who dared not
encounter him, or who was instantly defeated wherever he resisted, and, as we
learnt from prisoners, was never more panic-stricken. The Romans, they
declared, were invincible, rising superior to all calamities; for having
thrown away a fleet, having lost their arms, after strewing the shores with
the carcases of horses and of men, they had rushed to the attack with the
same courage, with equal spirit, and, seemingly, with augmented numbers.
The
soldiers were then led back into winter-quarters, rejoicing in their hearts
at having been compensated for their disasters at sea by a successful
expedition. They were helped too by Caesar's bounty, which made good whatever
loss any one declared he had suffered. It was also regarded as a certainty
that the enemy were wavering and consulting on negotiations for peace, and
that, with an additional campaign next summer the war might be ended.
Tiberius, however, in repeated letters advised Germanicus to return for the
triumph decreed him. "He had now had enough of success, enough of
disaster. He had fought victorious battles on a great scale; he should also
remember those losses which the winds and waves had inflicted, and which,
though due to no fault of the general, were still grievous and shocking. He,
Tiberius, had himself been sent nine times by Augustus into Germany, and had
done more by policy than by arms. By this means the submission of the
Sugambri had been secured, and the Suevi with their king Maroboduus had been
forced into peace. The Cherusci too and the other insurgent tribes, since the
vengeance of Rome had been satisfied, might be left to their internal
feuds." When Germanicus requested a year for the completion of his enterprise,
Tiberius put a severer pressure on his modesty by offering him a second
consulship, the functions of which he was to discharge in person. He also
added that if war must still be waged, he might as well leave some materials
for renown to his brother Drusus, who, as there was then no other enemy,
could win only in Germany the imperial title and the triumphal laurel.
Germanicus hesitated no longer, though he saw that this was a pretence, and
that he was hurried away through jealousy from the glory he had already
acquired.
About
the same time Libo Drusus, of the family of Scribonii, was accused of
revolutionary schemes. I will explain, somewhat minutely, the beginning,
progress, and end of this affair, since then first were originated those
practices which for so many years have eaten into the heart of the State.
Firmius Catus, a senator, an intimate friend of Libo's, prompted the young
man, who was thoughtless and an easy prey to delusions, to resort to
astrologers' promises, magical rites, and interpreters of dreams, dwelling
ostentatiously on his great-grandfather Pompeius, his aunt Scribonia, who had
formerly been wife of Augustus, his imperial cousins, his house crowded with
ancestral busts, and urging him to extravagance and debt, himself the
companion of his profligacy and desperate embarrassments, thereby to entangle
him in all the more proofs of guilt.
As
soon as he found enough witnesses, with some slaves who knew the facts, he
begged an audience of the emperor, after first indicating the crime and the
criminal through Flaccus Vescularius, a Roman knight, who was more intimate
with Tiberius than himself. Caesar, without disregarding the information,
declined an interview, for the communication, he said, might be conveyed to
him through the same messenger, Flaccus. Meanwhile he conferred the
praetorship on Libo and often invited him to his table, showing no
unfriendliness in his looks or anger in his words (so thoroughly had he
concealed his resentment); and he wished to know all his saying and doings,
though it was in his power to stop them, till one Junius, who had been
tampered with by Libo for the purpose of evoking by incantations spirits of
the dead, gave information to Fulcinius Trio. Trio's ability was conspicuous
among informers, as well as his eagerness for an evil notoriety. He at once
pounced on the accused, went to the consuls, and demanded an inquiry before
the Senate. The Senators were summoned, with a special notice that they must
consult on a momentous and terrible matter.
Libo
meanwhile, in mourning apparel and accompanied by ladies of the highest rank,
went to house after house, entreating his relatives, and imploring some
eloquent voice to ward off his perils; which all refused, on different
pretexts, but from the same apprehension. On the day the Senate met, jaded
with fear and mental anguish, or, as some have related, feigning illness, he
was carried in a litter to the doors of the Senate House, and leaning on his
brother he raised his hands and voice in supplication to Tiberius, who
received him with unmoved countenance. The emperor then read out the charges
and the accusers' names, with such calmness as not to seem to soften or
aggravate the accusations.
Besides
Trio and Catus, Fonteius Agrippa and Caius Vibius were among his accusers,
and claimed with eager rivalry the privilege of conducting the case for the
prosecution, till Vibius, as they would not yield one to the other, and Libo
had entered without counsel, offered to state the charges against him singly,
and produced an extravagantly absurd accusation, according to which Libo had
consulted persons whether he would have such wealth as to be able to cover
the Appian road as far as Brundisium with money. There were other questions
of the same sort, quite senseless and idle; if leniently regarded, pitiable.
But there was one paper in Libo's handwriting, so the prosecutor alleged,
with the names of Caesars and of Senators, to which marks were affixed of
dreadful or mysterious significance. When the accused denied this, it was
decided that his slaves who recognised the writing should be examined by
torture. As an ancient statute of the Senate forbade such inquiry in a case
affecting a master's life, Tiberius, with his cleverness in devising new law,
ordered Libo's slaves to be sold singly to the State-agent, so that,
forsooth, without an infringement of the Senate's decree, Libo might be tried
on their evidence. As a consequence, the defendant asked an adjournment till
next day, and having gone home he charged his kinsman, Publius Quirinus, with
his last prayer to the emperor.
The
answer was that he should address himself to the Senate. Meanwhile his house
was surrounded with soldiers; they crowded noisily even about the entrance,
so that they could be heard and seen; when Libo, whose anguish drove him from
the very banquet he had prepared as his last gratification, called for a
minister of death, grasped the hands of his slaves, and thrust a sword into
them. In their confusion, as they shrank back, they overturned the lamp on
the table at his side, and in the darkness, now to him the gloom of death, he
aimed two blows at a vital part. At the groans of the falling man his
freedmen hurried up, and the soldiers, seeing the bloody deed, stood aloof.
Yet the prosecution was continued in the Senate with the same persistency,
and Tiberius declared on oath that he would have interceded for his life,
guilty though he was, but for his hasty suicide.
His
property was divided among his accusers, and praetorships out of the usual
order were conferred on those who were of senators' rank. Cotta Messalinus
then proposed that Libo's bust should not be carried in the funeral
procession of any of his descendants; and Cneius Lentulus, that no Scribonius
should assume the surname of Drusus. Days of public thanksgiving were
appointed on the suggestion of Pomponius Flaccus. Offerings were given to
Jupiter, Mars, and Concord, and the 13th day of September, on which Libo had
killed himself, was to be observed as a festival, on the motion of Gallus
Asinius, Papius Mutilus, and Lucius Apronius. I have mentioned the proposals
and sycophancy of these men, in order to bring to light this old-standing
evil in the State. Decrees of the Senate were also passed to expel from Italy
astrologers and magicians. One of their number, Lucius Pituanius, was hurled
from the Rock. Another, Publius Marcius, was executed, according to ancient
custom, by the consuls outside the Esquiline Gate, after the trumpets had
been bidden to sound.
On
the next day of the Senate's meeting much was said against the luxury of the
country by Quintus Haterius, an ex-consul, and by Octavius Fronto, an
ex-praetor. It was decided that vessels of solid gold should not be made for
the serving of food, and that men should not disgrace themselves with silken
clothing from the East. Fronto went further, and insisted on restrictions
being put on plate, furniture, and household establishments. It was indeed
still usual with the Senators, when it was their turn to vote, to suggest
anything they thought for the State's advantage. Gallus Asinius argued on the
other side. "With the growth of the empire private wealth too," he
said, "had increased, and there was nothing new in this, but it accorded
with the fashions of the earliest antiquity. Riches were one thing with the
Fabricii, quite another with the Scipios. The State was the standard of
everything; when it was poor, the homes of the citizens were humble; when it
reached such magnificence, private grandeur increased. In household
establishments, and plate, and in whatever was provided for use, there was
neither excess nor parsimony except in relation to the fortune of the
possessor. A distinction had been made in the assessments of Senators and
knights, not because they differed naturally, but that the superiority of the
one class in places in the theatre, in rank and in honour, might be also
maintained in everything else which insured mental repose and bodily
recreation, unless indeed men in the highest position were to undergo more
anxieties and more dangers, and to be at the same time deprived of all solace
under those anxieties and dangers." Gallus gained a ready assent, under
these specious phrases, by a confession of failings with which his audience
symphathised. And Tiberius too had added that this was not a time for
censorship, and that if there were any declension in manners, a promoter of
reform would not be wanting.
During
this debate Lucius Piso, after exclaiming against the corruption of the
courts, the bribery of judges, the cruel threats of accusations from hired
orators, declared that he would depart and quit the capital, and that he
meant to live in some obscure and distant rural retreat. At the same moment
he rose to leave the Senate House. Tiberius was much excited, and though he
pacified Piso with gentle words, he also strongly urged his relatives to stop
his departure by their influence or their entreaties. Soon afterwards this
same Piso gave an equal proof of a fearless sense of wrong by suing
Urgulania, whom Augusta's friendship had raised above the law. Neither did
Urgulania obey the summons, for in defiance of Piso she went in her litter to
the emperor's house; nor did Piso give way, though Augusta complained that
she was insulted and her majesty slighted. Tiberius, to win popularity by so
humouring his mother as to say that he would go to the praetor's court and
support Urgulania, went forth from the palace, having ordered soldiers to
follow him at a distance. He was seen, as the people thronged about him, to
wear a calm face, while he prolonged his time on the way with various
conversations, till at last when Piso's relatives tried in vain to restrain
him, Augusta directed the money which was claimed to be handed to him. This
ended the affair, and Piso, in consequence, was not dishonoured, and the
emperor rose in reputation. Urgulania's influence, however, was so formidable
to the State, that in a certain cause which was tried by the Senate she would
not condescend to appear as a witness. The praetor was sent to question her
at her own house, although the Vestal virgins, according to ancient custom,
were heard in the courts, before judges, whenever they gave evidence.
I
should say nothing of the adjournment of public business in this year, if it
were not worth while to notice the conflicting opinions of Cneius Piso and
Asinius Gallus on the subject. Piso, although the emperor had said that he
would be absent, held that all the more ought the business to be transacted,
that the State might have honour of its Senate and knights being able to
perform their duties in the sovereign's absence. Gallus, as Piso had
forestalled him in the display of freedom, maintained that nothing was
sufficiently impressive or suitable to the majesty of the Roman people,
unless done before Caesar and under his very eyes, and that therefore the
gathering from all Italy and the influx from the provinces ought to be
reserved for his presence. Tiberius listened to this in silence, and the
matter was debated on both sides in a sharp controversy. The business,
however, was adjourned.
A
dispute then arose between Gallus and the emperor. Gallus proposed that the
elections of magistrates should be held every five years, and that the
commanders of the legions who before receiving a praetorship discharged this
military service should at once become praetorselect, the emperor nominating
twelve candidates every year. It was quite evident that this motion had a
deeper meaning and was an attempt to explore the secrets of imperial policy.
Tiberius, however, argued as if his power would be thus increased. "It
would," he said, "be trying to his moderation to have to elect so
many and to put off so many. He scarcely avoided giving offence from year to
year, even though a candidate's rejection was solaced by the near prospect of
office. What hatred would be incurred from those whose election was deferred
for five years! How could he foresee through so long an interval what would
be a man's temper, or domestic relations, or estate? Men became arrogant even
with this annual appointment. What would happen if their thoughts were fixed
on promotion for five years? It was in fact a multiplying of the magistrates
five-fold, and a subversion of the laws which had prescribed proper periods
for the exercise of the candidate's activity and the seeking or securing
office. With this seemingly conciliatory speech he retained the substance of
power.
He
also increased the incomes of some of the Senators. Hence it was the more
surprising that he listened somewhat disdainfully to the request of Marcus
Hortalus, a youth of noble rank in conspicuous poverty. He was the grandson
of the orator Hortensius, and had been induced by Augustus, on the strength
of a gift of a million sesterces, to marry and rear children, that one of our
most illustrious families might not become extinct. Accordingly, with his
four sons standing at the doors of the Senate House, the Senate then sitting
in the palace, when it was his turn to speak he began to address them as
follows, his eyes fixed now on the statue of Hortensius which stood among
those of the orators, now on that of Augustus:- "Senators, these whose
numbers and boyish years you behold I have reared, not by my own choice, but
because the emperor advised me. At the same time, my ancestors deserved to
have descendants. For myself, not having been able in these altered times to
receive or acquire wealth or popular favour, or that eloquence which has been
the hereditary possession of our house, I was satisfied if my narrow means
were neither a disgrace to myself nor burden to others. At the emperor's
bidding I married. Behold the offspring and progeny of a succession of
consuls and dictators. Not to excite odium do I recall such facts, but to win
compassion. While you prosper, Caesar, they will attain such promotion as you
shall bestow. Meanwhile save from penury the great-grandsons of Quintus
Hortensius, the foster-children of Augustus."
The
Senate's favourable bias was an incitement to Tiberius to offer prompt
opposition, which he did in nearly these words: - "If all poor men begin
to come here and to beg money for their children, individuals will never be
satisfied, and the State will be bankrupt. Certainly our ancestors did not
grant the privilege of occasionally proposing amendments or of suggesting, in
our turn for speaking, something for the general advantage in order that we
might in this house increase our private business and property, thereby
bringing odium on the Senate and on emperors whether they concede or refuse
their bounty. In fact, it is not a request, but an importunity, as utterly
unreasonable as it is unforeseen, for a senator, when the house has met on
other matters, to rise from his place and, pleading the number and age of his
children, put a pressure on the delicacy of the Senate, then transfer the
same constraint to myself, and, as it were, break open the exchequer, which,
if we exhaust it by improper favouritism, will have to be replenished by
crimes. Money was given you, Hortalus, by Augustus, but without solicitation,
and not on the condition of its being always given. Otherwise industry will
languish and idleness be encouraged, if a man has nothing to fear, nothing to
hope from himself, and every one, in utter recklessness, will expect relief
from others, thus becoming useless to himself and a burden to me." These
and like remarks, though listened to with assent by those who make it a
practice to eulogise everything coming from sovereigns, both good and bad,
were received by the majority in silence or with suppressed murmurs. Tiberius
perceived it, and having paused a while, said that he had given Hortalus his
answer, but that if the senators thought it right, he would bestow two
hundred thousand sesterces on each of his children of the male sex. The
others thanked him; Hortalus said nothing, either from alarm or because even
in his reduced fortunes he clung to his hereditary nobility. Nor did Tiberius
afterwards show any pity, though the house of Hortensius sank into shameful
poverty.
That
same year the daring of a single slave, had it not been promptly checked,
would have ruined the State by discord and civil war. A servant of Postumus
Agrippa, Clemens by name, having ascertained that Augustus was dead, formed a
design beyond a slave's conception, of going to the island of Planasia and
seizing Agrippa by craft or force and bringing him to the armies of Germany.
The slowness of a merchant vessel thwarted his bold venture. Meanwhile the
murder of Agrippa had been perpetrated, and then turning his thoughts to a
greater and more hazardous enterprise, he stole the ashes of the deceased,
sailed to Cosa, a promontory of Etruria, and there hid himself in obscure
places till his hair and beard were long. In age and figure he was not unlike
his master. Then through suitable emissaries who shared his secret, it was
rumoured that Agrippa was alive, first in whispered gossip, soon, as is usual
with forbidden topics, in vague talk which found its way to the credulous
ears of the most ignorant people or of restless and revolutionary schemers.
He himself went to the towns, as the day grew dark, without letting himself
be seen publicly or remaining long in the same places, but, as he knew that
truth gains strength by notoriety and time, falsehood by precipitancy and
vagueness, he would either withdraw himself from publicity or else forestall
it.
It
was rumoured meanwhile throughout Italy, and was believed at Rome, that
Agrippa had been saved by the blessing of Heaven. Already at Ostia, where he
had arrived, he was the centre of interest to a vast concourse as well as to
secret gatherings in the capital, while Tiberius was distracted by the doubt
whether he should crush this slave of his by military force or allow time to
dissipate a silly credulity. Sometimes he thought that he must overlook
nothing, sometimes that he need not be afraid of everything, his mind
fluctuating between shame and terror. At last he entrusted the affair to
Sallustius Crispus, who chose two of his dependants (some say they were
soldiers) and urged them to go to him as pretended accomplices, offering
money and promising faithful companionship in danger. They did as they were
bidden; then, waiting for an unguarded hour of night, they took with them a
sufficient force, and having bound and gagged him, dragged him to the palace.
When Tiberius asked him how he had become Agrippa, he is said to have
replied, "As you became Caesar." He could not be forced to divulge
his accomplices. Tiberius did not venture on a public execution, but ordered
him to be slain in a private part of the palace and his body to be secretly
removed. And although many of the emperor's household and knights and
senators were said to have supported him with their wealth and helped him
with their counsels, no inquiry was made.
At
the close of the year was consecrated an arch near the temple of Saturn to
commemorate the recovery of the standards lost with Varus, under the
leadership of Germanicus and the auspices of Tiberius; a temple of Fors
Fortuna, by the Tiber, in the gardens which Caesar, the dictator, bequeathed
to the Roman people; a chapel to the Julian family, and statues at Bovillae
to the Divine Augustus. In the consulship of Caius Caecilius and Lucius
Pomponius, Germanicus Caesar, on the 26th day of May, celebrated his triumph
over the Cherusci, Chatti, and Angrivarii, and the other tribes which extend
as far as the Elbe. There were borne in procession spoils, prisoners,
representations of the mountains, the rivers and battles; and the war, seeing
that he had been forbidden to finish it, was taken as finished. The
admiration of the beholders was heightened by the striking comeliness of the
general and the chariot which bore his five children. Still, there was a
latent dread when they remembered how unfortunate in the case of Drusus, his
father, had been the favour of the crowd; how his uncle Marcellus, regarded
by the city populace with passionate enthusiasm, had been snatched from them
while yet a youth, and how short-lived and ill-starred were the attachments of
the Roman people.
Tiberius
meanwhile in the name of Germanicus gave every one of the city populace three
hundred sesterces, and nominated himself his colleague in the consulship.
Still, failing to obtain credit for sincere affection, he resolved to get the
young prince out of the way, under pretence of conferring distinction, and
for this he invented reasons, or eagerly fastened on such as chance
presented. King Archelaus had been in possession of Cappadocia for fifty
years, and Tiberius hated him because he had not shown him any mark of
respect while he was at Rhodes. This neglect of Archelaus was not due to
pride, but was suggested by the intimate friends of Augustus, because, when
Caius Caesar was in his prime and had charge of the affairs of the East,
Tiberius's friendship was thought to be dangerous. When, after the extinction
of the family of the Caesars, Tiberius acquired the empire, he enticed
Archelaus by a letter from his mother, who without concealing her son's
displeasure promised mercy if he would come to beg for it. Archelaus, either
quite unsuspicious of treachery, or dreading compulsion, should it be thought
that he saw through it, hastened to Rome. There he was received by a pitiless
emperor, and soon afterwards was arraigned before the Senate. In his anguish
and in the weariness of old age, and from being unused, as a king, to
equality, much less to degradation, not, certainly, from fear of the charges
fabricated against him, he ended his life, by his own act or by a natural
death. His kingdom was reduced into a province, and Caesar declared that,
with its revenues, the one per cent. tax could be lightened, which, for the
future, he fixed at one-half per cent. During the same time, on the deaths of
Antiochus and Philopator, kings respectively of the Commageni and Cilicians,
these nations became excited, a majority desiring the Roman rule, some, that
of their kings. The provinces too of Syria and Judaea, exhausted by their
burdens, implored a reduction of tribute.
Tiberius
accordingly discussed these matters and the affairs of Armenia, which I have
already related, before the Senate. "The commotions in the East,"
he said, "could be quieted only by the wisdom, of Germanicus; own life
was on the decline, and Drusus had not yet reached his maturity."
Thereupon, by a decree of the Senate, the provinces beyond sea were entrusted
to Germanicus, with greater powers wherever he went than were given to those
who obtained their provinces by lot or by the emperor's appointment. Tiberius
had however removed from Syria Creticus Silanus, who was connected by a close
tie with Germanicus, his daughter being betrothed to Nero, the eldest of
Germanicus's children. He appointed to it Cneius Piso, a man of violent
temper, without an idea of obedience, with indeed a natural arrogance
inherited from his father Piso, who in the civil war supported with the most
energetic aid against Caesar the reviving faction in Africa, then embraced
the cause of Brutus and Cassius, and, when suffered to return, refrained from
seeking promotion till, he was actually solicited to accept a consulship
offered by Augustus. But beside the father's haughty temper there was also
the noble rank and wealth of his wife Plancina, to inflame his ambition. He
would hardly be the inferior of Tiberius, and as for Tiberius's children, he
looked down on them as far beneath him. He thought it a certainty that he had
been chosen to govern Syria in order to thwart the aspirations of Germanicus.
Some believed that he had even received secret instructions from Tiberius,
and it was beyond a question that Augusta, with feminine jealousy, had
suggested to Plancina calumnious insinuations against Agrippina. For there
was division and discord in the court, with unexpressed partialities towards
either Drusus or Germanicus. Tiberius favoured Drusus, as his son and born of
his own blood. As for Germanicus, his uncle's estrangement had increased the
affection which all others felt for him, and there was the fact too that he
had an advantage in the illustrious rank of his mother's family, among whom
he could point to his grandfather Marcus Antonius and to his great-uncle
Augustus. Drusus, on the other hand, had for his great-grandfather a Roman
knight, Pomponius Atticus, who seemed to disgrace the ancestral images of the
Claudii. Again, the consort of Germanicus, Agrippina, in number of children
and in character, was superior to Livia, the wife of Drusus. Yet the brothers
were singularly united, and were wholly unaffected by the rivalries of their
kinsfolk.
Soon
afterwards Drusus was sent into Illyricum to be familiarised with military
service, and to win the goodwill of the army. Tiberius also thought that it
was better for the young prince, who was being demoralised by the luxury of
the capital, to serve in a camp, while he felt himself the safer with both
his sons in command of legions. However, he made a pretext of the Suevi, who
were imploring help against the Cherusci. For when the Romans had departed
and they were free from the fear of an invader, these tribes, according to
the custom of the race, and then specially as rivals in fame, had turned
their arms against each other. The strength of the two nations, the valour of
their chiefs were equal. But the title of king rendered Maroboduus hated among
his countrymen, while Arminius was regarded with favour as the champion of
freedom.
Thus
it was not only the Cherusci and their allies, the old soldiers of Arminius,
who took up arms, but even the Semnones and Langobardi from the kingdom of
Maroboduus revolted to that chief. With this addition he must have had an
overwhelming superiority, had not Inguiomerus deserted with a troop of his
dependants to Maroboduus, simply for the reason that the aged uncle scorned
to obey a brother's youthful son. The armies were drawn up, with equal
confidence on both sides, and there were not those desultory attacks or
irregular bands, formerly so common with the Germans. Prolonged warfare
against us had accustomed them to keep close to their standards, to have the
support of reserves, and to take the word of command from their generals. On
this occasion Arminius, who reviewed the whole field on horseback, as he rode
up to each band, boasted of regained freedom, of slaughtered legions, of
spoils and weapons wrested from the Romans, and still in the hands of many of
his men. As for Maroboduus, he called him a fugitive, who had no experience
of battles, who had sheltered himself in the recesses of the Hercynian forest
and then with presents and embassies sued for a treaty; a traitor to his
country, a satellite of Caesar, who deserved to be driven out, with rage as
furious as that with which they had slain Quintilius Varus. They should
simply remember their many battles, the result of which, with the final
expulsion of the Romans, sufficiently showed who could claim the crowning
success in war.
Nor
did Maroboduus abstain from vaunts about himself or from revilings of the
foe. Clasping the hand of Inguiomerus, he protested "that in the person
before them centred all the renown of the Cherusci, that to his counsels was
due whatever had ended successfully. Arminius in his infatuation and
ignorance was taking to himself the glory which belonged to another, for he
had treacherously surprised three unofficered legions and a general who had
not an idea of perfidy, to the great hurt of Germany and to his own disgrace,
since his wife and his son were still enduring slavery. As for himself, he
had been attacked by twelve legions led by Tiberius, and had preserved
untarnished the glory of the Germans, and then on equal terms the armies had
parted. He was by no means sorry that they had the matter in their own hands,
whether they preferred to war with all their might against Rome, or to accept
a bloodless peace." To these words, which roused the two armies, was
added the stimulus of special motives of their own. The Cherusci and
Langobardi were fighting for ancient renown or newly-won freedom; the other
side for the increase of their dominion. Never at any time was the shock of
battle more tremendous or the issue more doubtful, as the right wings of both
armies were routed. Further fighting was expected, when Maroboduus withdrew
his camp to the hills. This was a sign of discomfiture. He was gradually
stripped of his strength by desertions, and, having fled to the Marcomanni,
he sent envoys to Tiberius with entreaties for help. The answer was that he
had no right to invoke the aid of Roman arms against the Cherusci, when he
had rendered no assistance to the Romans in their conflict with the same
enemy. Drusus, however, was sent as I have related, to establish peace.
That
same year twelve famous cities of Asia fell by an earthquake in the night, so
that the destruction was all the more unforeseen and fearful. Nor were there
the means of escape usual in, such a disaster, by rushing out into the open
country, for there people were swallowed up by the yawning earth. Vast
mountains, it is said, collapsed; what had been level ground seemed to be
raised aloft, and fires blazed out amid the ruin. The calamity fell most
fatally on the inhabitants of Sardis, and it attracted to them the largest
share of sympathy. The emperor promised ten million sesterces, and remitted
for five years all they paid to the exchequer or to the emperor's purse.
Magnesia, under Mount Sipylus, was considered to come next in loss and in
need of help. The people of Temnus, Philadelpheia, Aegae, Apollonis, the
Mostenians, and Hyrcanian Macedonians, as they were called, with the towns of
Hierocaesarea, Myrina, Cyme, and Tmolus, were; it was decided, to be exempted
from tribute for the same time, and some one was to be sent from the Senate
to examine their actual condition and to relieve them. Marcus Aletus, one of
the expraetors, was chosen, from a fear that, as an exconsul was governor of
Asia, there might be rivalry between men of equal rank, and consequent
embarrassment.
To
his splendid public liberality the emperor added bounties no less popular.
The property of Aemilia Musa, a rich woman who died intestate, on which the
imperial treasury had a claim, he handed over to Aemilius Lepidus, to whose
family she appeared to belong; and the estate of Patuleius, a wealthy Roman
knight, though he was himself left in part his heir, he gave to Marcus
Servilius, whose name he discovered in an earlier and unquestioned will. In
both these cases he said that noble rank ought to have the support of wealth.
Nor did he accept a legacy from any one unless he had earned it by
friendship. Those who were strangers to him, and who, because they were at
enmity with others, made the emperor their heir, he kept at a distance.
While, however, he relieved the honourable poverty of the virtuous, he
expelled from the Senate or suffered voluntarily to retire spendthrifts whose
vices had brought them to penury, like Vibidius Varro, Marius Nepos, Appius
Appianus, Cornelius Sulla, and Quintus Vitellius.
About
the same time he dedicated some temples of the gods, which had perished from
age or from fire, and which Augustus had begun to restore. These were temples
to Liber, Libera, and Ceres, near the Great Circus, which last Aulus
Postumius, when Dictator, had vowed; a temple to Flora in the same place,
which had been built by Lucius and Marcus Publicius, aediles, and a temple to
Janus, which had been erected in the vegetable market by Caius Duilius, who
was the first to make the Roman power successful at sea and to win a naval
triumph over the Carthaginians. A temple to Hope was consecrated by
Germanicus; this had been vowed by Atilius in that same war.
Meantime
the law of treason was gaining strength. Appuleia Varilia, grand-niece of
Augustus, was accused of treason by an informer for having ridiculed the
Divine Augustus, Tiberius, and Tiberius's mother, in some insulting remarks,
and for having been convicted of adultery, allied though she was to Caesar's
house. Adultery, it was thought, was sufficiently guarded against by the
Julian law. As to the charge of treason, the emperor insisted that it should
be taken separately, and that she should be condemned if she had spoken
irreverently of Augustus. Her insinuations against himself he did not wish to
be the subject of judicial inquiry. When asked by the consul what he thought
of the unfavourable speeches she was accused of having uttered against his mother,
he said nothing. Afterwards, on the next day of the Senate's meeting, he even
begged in his mother's name that no words of any kind spoken against her
might in any case be treated as criminal. He then acquitted Appuleia of
treason. For her adultery, he deprecated the severer penalty, and advised
that she should be removed by her kinsfolk, after the example of our
forefathers, to more than two hundred miles from Rome. Her paramour, Manlius,
was forbidden to live in Italy or Africa.
A
contest then arose about the election of a praetor in the room of Vipstanus
Gallus, whom death had removed. Germanicus and Drusus (for they were still at
Rome) supported Haterius Agrippa, a relative of Germanicus. Many, on the
other hand, endeavoured to make the number of children weigh most in favour
of the candidates. Tiberius rejoiced to see a strife in the Senate between
his sons and the law. Beyond question the law was beaten, but not at once,
and only by a few votes, in the same way as laws were defeated even when they
were in force.
In
this same year a war broke out in Africa, where the enemy was led by
Tacfarinas. A Numidian by birth, he had served as an auxiliary in the Roman
camp, then becoming a deserter, he at first gathered round him a roving band
familiar with robbery, for plunder and for rapine. After a while, he
marshalled them like regular soldiers, under standards and in troops, till at
last he was regarded as the leader, not of an undisciplined rabble, but of
the Musulamian people. This powerful tribe, bordering on the deserts of
Africa, and even then with none of the civilisation of cities, took up arms
and drew their Moorish neighbours into the war. These too had a leader,
Mazippa. The army was so divided that Tacfarinas kept the picked men who were
armed in Roman fashion within a camp, and familiarised them with a
commander's authority, while Mazippa, with light troops, spread around him
fire, slaughter, and consternation. They had forced the Ciniphii, a far from
contemptible tribe, into their cause, when Furius Camillus, proconsul of
Africa, united in one force a legion and all the regularly enlisted allies,
and, with an army insignificant indeed compared with the multitude of the
Numidians and Moors, marched against the enemy. There was nothing however
which he strove so much to avoid as their eluding an engagement out of fear.
It was by the hope of victory that they were lured on only to be defeated.
The legion was in the army's centre; the light cohorts and two cavalry
squadrons on its wings. Nor did Tacfarinas refuse battle. The Numidians were
routed, and after a number of years the name of Furius won military renown.
Since the days of the famous deliverer of our city and his son Camillus, fame
as a general had fallen to the lot of other branches of the family, and the
man of whom I am now speaking was regarded as an inexperienced soldier. All
the more willingly did Tiberius commemorate his achievements in the Senate,
and the Senators voted him the ornaments of triumph, an honour which
Camillus, because of his unambitious life, enjoyed without harm.
In
the following year Tiberius held his third, Germanicus his second,
consulship. Germanicus, however, entered on the office at Nicopolis, a city
of Achaia, whither he had arrived by the coast of Illyricum, after having
seen his brother Drusus, who was then in Dalmatia, and endured a stormy
voyage through the Adriatic and afterwards the Ionian Sea. He accordingly
devoted a few days to the repair of his fleet, and, at the same time, in
remembrance of his ancestors, he visited the bay which the victory of Actium
had made famous, the spoils consecrated by Augustus, and the camp of
Antonius. For, as I have said, Augustus was his great-uncle, Antonius his
grandfather, and vivid images of disaster and success rose before him on the
spot. Thence he went to Athens, and there, as a concession to our treaty with
an allied and ancient city, he was attended only by a single lictor. The
Greeks welcomed him with the most elaborate honours, and brought forward all
the old deeds and sayings of their countrymen, to give additional dignity to
their flattery.
Thence
he directed his course to Euboea and crossed to Lesbos, where Agrippina for
the last time was confined and gave birth to Julia. He then penetrated to the
remoter parts of the province of Asia, visited the Thracian cities, Perinthus
and Byzantium; next, the narrow strait of the Propontis and the entrance of
the Pontus, from an anxious wish to become acquainted with those ancient and
celebrated localities. He gave relief, as he went, to provinces which had
been exhausted by internal feuds or by the oppressions of governors. In his
return he attempted to see the sacred mysteries of the Samothracians, but
north winds which he encountered drove him aside from his course. And so
after visiting Ilium and surveying a scene venerable from the vicissitudes of
fortune and as the birth-place of our people, he coasted back along Asia, and
touched at Colophon, to consult the oracle of the Clarian Apollo. There, it
is not a woman, as at Delphi, but a priest chosen from certain families,
generally from Miletus, who ascertains simply the number and the names of the
applicants. Then descending into a cave and drinking a draught from a secret
spring, the man, who is commonly ignorant of letters and of poetry, utters a
response in verse answering to the thoughts conceived in the mind of any
inquirer. It was said that he prophesied to Germanicus, in dark hints, as
oracles usually do, an early doom.
Cneius
Piso meanwhile, that he might the sooner enter on his design, terrified the
citizens of Athens by his tumultuous approach, and then reviled them in a
bitter speech, with indirect reflections on Germanicus, who, he said, had
derogated from the honour of the Roman name in having treated with excessive
courtesy, not the people of Athens, who indeed had been exterminated by
repeated disasters, but a miserable medley of tribes. As for the men before
him, they had been Mithridates's allies against Sulla, allies of Antonius
against the Divine Augustus. He taunted them too with the past, with their
ill-success against the Macedonians, their violence to their own countrymen,
for he had his own special grudge against this city, because they would not
spare at his intercession one Theophilus whom the Areopagus had condemned for
forgery. Then, by sailing rapidly and by the shortest route through the
Cyclades, he overtook Germanicus at the island of Rhodes. The prince was not
ignorant of the slanders with which he had been assailed, but his good nature
was such that when a storm arose and drove Piso on rocks, and his enemy's
destruction could have been referred to chance, he sent some triremes, by the
help of which he might be rescued from danger. But this did not soften Piso's
heart. Scarcely allowing a day's interval, he left Germanicus and hastened on
in advance. When he reached Syria and the legions, he began, by bribery and
favouritism, to encourage the lowest of the common soldiers, removing the old
centurions and the strict tribunes and assigning their places to creatures of
his own or to the vilest of the men, while he allowed idleness in the camp,
licentiousness in the towns, and the soldiers to roam through the country and
take their pleasure. He went such lengths in demoralizing them, that he was
spoken of in their vulgar talk as the father of the legions. Plancina too,
instead of keeping herself within the proper limits of a woman, would be
present at the evolutions of the cavalry and the manoeuvres of the cohorts,
and would fling insulting remarks at Agrippina and Germanicus. Some even of
the good soldiers were inclined to a corrupt compliance, as a whispered
rumour gained ground that the emperor was not averse to these proceedings. Of
all this Germanicus was aware, but his most pressing anxiety was to be first
in reaching Armenia.
This
had been of old an unsettled country from the character of its people and
from its geographical position, bordering, as it does, to a great extent on
our provinces and stretching far away to Media. It lies between two most
mighty empires, and is very often at strife with them, hating Rome and
jealous of Parthia. It had at this time no king, Vonones having been
expelled, but the nation's likings inclined towards Zeno, son of Polemon,
king of Pontus, who from his earliest infancy had imitated Armenian manners
and customs, loving the chase, the banquet, and all the popular pastimes of
barbarians, and who had thus bound to himself chiefs and people alike.
Germanicus accordingly, in the city of Artaxata, with the approval of the
nobility, in the presence of a vast multitude, placed the royal diadem on his
head. All paid him homage and saluted him as King Artaxias, which name they
gave him from the city. Cappadocia meanwhile, which had been reduced to the
form of a province, received as its governor Quintus Veranius. Some of the
royal tributes were diminished, to inspire hope of a gentler rule under Rome.
Quintus Servaeus was appointed to Commagene, then first put under a praetor's
jurisdiction.
Successful
as was this settlement of all the interests of our allies, it gave Germanicus
little joy because of the arrogance of Piso. Though he had been ordered to
march part of the legions into Armenia under his own or his son's command, he
had neglected to do either. At length the two met at Cyrrhus, the
winterquarters of the tenth legion, each controlling his looks, Piso
concealing his fears, Germanicus shunning the semblance of menace. He was
indeed, as I have said, a kind-hearted man. But friends who knew well how to
inflame a quarrel, exaggerated what was true and added lies, alleging various
charges against Piso, Plancina, and their sons. At last, in the presence of a
few intimate associates, Germanicus addressed him in language such as
suppressed resentment suggests, to which Piso replied with haughty apologies.
They parted in open enmity. After this Piso was seldom seen at Caesar's
tribunal, and if he ever sat by him, it was with a sullen frown and a marked
display of opposition. He was even heard to say at a banquet given by the
king of the Nabataeans, when some golden crowns of great weight were
presented to Caesar and Agrippina and light ones to Piso and the rest, that
the entertainment was given to the son of a Roman emperor, not of a Parthian
king. At the same time he threw his crown on the ground, with a long speech
against luxury, which, though it angered Germanicus, he still bore with
patience.
Meantime
envoys arrived from Artabanus, king of the Parthians. He had sent them to
recall the memory of friendship and alliance, with an assurance that he
wished for a renewal of the emblems of concord, and that he would in honour
of Germanicus yield the point of advancing to the bank of the Euphrates. He
begged meanwhile that Vonones might not be kept in Syria, where, by
emissaries from an easy distance, he might draw the chiefs of the tribes into
civil strife. Germanicus' answer as to the alliance between Rome and Parthia
was dignified; as to the king's visit and the respect shown to himself, it
was graceful and modest. Vonones was removed to Pompeiopolis, a city on the
coast of Cilicia. This was not merely a concession to the request of
Artabanus, but was meant as an affront to Piso, who had a special liking for
Vonones, because of the many attentions and presents by which he had won
Plancina's favour.
In
the consulship of Marcus Silanus and Lucius Norbanus, Germanicus set out for
Egypt to study its antiquities. His ostensible motive however was solicitude
for the province. He reduced the price of corn by opening the granaries, and
adopted many practices pleasing to the multitude. He would go about without
soldiers, with sandalled feet, and apparelled after the Greek fashion, in
imitation of Publius Scipio, who, it is said, habitually did the same in
Sicily, even when the war with Carthage was still raging. Tiberius having
gently expressed disapproval of his dress and manners, pronounced a very
sharp censure on his visit to Alexandria without the emperor's leave,
contrary to the regulations of Augustus. That prince, among other secrets of
imperial policy, had forbidden senators and Roman knights of the higher rank
to enter Egypt except by permission, and he had specially reserved the
country, from a fear that any one who held a province containing the key of
the land and of the sea, with ever so small a force against the mightiest
army, might distress Italy by famine.
Germanicus,
however, who had not yet learnt how much he was blamed for his expedition,
sailed up the Nile from the city of Canopus as his starting-point. Spartans
founded the place because Canopus, pilot of one of their ships, had been
buried there, when Menelaus on his return to Greece was driven into a distant
sea and to the shores of Libya. Thence he went to the river's nearest mouth,
dedicated to a Hercules who, the natives say, was born in the country and was
the original hero, others, who afterwards showed like valour, having received
his name. Next he visited the vast ruins of ancient Thebes. There yet
remained on the towering piles Egyptian inscriptions, with a complete account
of the city's past grandeur. One of the aged priests, who was desired to
interpret the language of his country, related how once there had dwelt in
Thebes seven hundred thousand men of military age, and how with such an army
king Rhamses conquered Libya, Ethiopia, Media, Persia, Bactria, and Scythia,
and held under his sway the countries inhabited by the Syrians, Armenians,
and their neighbours, the Cappadocians, from the Bithynian to the Lycian sea.
There was also to be read what tributes were imposed on these nations, the
weight of silver and gold, the tale of arms and horses, the gifts of ivory
and of perfumes to the temples, with the amount of grain and supplies
furnished by each people, a revenue as magnificent as is now exacted by the
might of Parthia or the power of Rome.
But
Germanicus also bestowed attention on other wonders. Chief of these were the
stone image of Memnon, which, when struck by the sun's rays, gives out the
sound of a human voice; the pyramids, rising up like mountains amid almost
impassable wastes of shifting sand, raised by the emulation and vast wealth
of kings; the lake hollowed out of the earth to be a receptacle for the
Nile's overflow; and elsewhere the river's narrow channel and profound depth
which no line of the explorer can penetrate. He then came to Elephantine and
Syene, formerly the limits of the Roman empire, which now extends to the Red
Sea.
While
Germanicus was spending the summer in visits to several provinces, Drusus
gained no little glory by sowing discord among the Germans and urging them to
complete the destruction of the now broken power of Maroboduus. Among the
Gotones was a youth of noble birth, Catualda by name, who had formerly been
driven into exile by the might of Maroboduus, and who now, when the king's
fortunes were declining, ventured on revenge. He entered the territory of the
Marcomanni with a strong force, and, having corruptly won over the nobles to
join him, burst into the palace and into an adjacent fortress. There he found
the long-accumulated plunder of the Suevi and camp followers and traders from
our provinces who had been attracted to an enemy's land, each from their
various homes, first by the freedom of commerce, next by the desire of
amassing wealth, finally by forgetfulness of their fatherland.
Maroboduus,
now utterly deserted, had no resource but in the mercy of Caesar. Having
crossed the Danube where it flows by the province of Noricum, he wrote to
Tiberius, not like a fugitive or a suppliant, but as one who remembered his
past greatness. When as a most famous king in former days he received
invitations from many nations, he had still, he said, preferred the
friendship of Rome. Caesar replied that he should have a safe and honourable
home in Italy, if he would remain there, or, if his interests required
something different, he might leave it under the same protection under which
he had come. But in the Senate he maintained that Philip had not been so
formidable to the Athenians, or Pyrrhus or Antiochus to the Roman people, as
was Maroboduus. The speech is extant, and in it he magnifies the man's power,
the ferocity of the tribes under his sway, his proximity to Italy as a foe,
finally his own measures for his overthrow. The result was that Maroboduus
was kept at Ravenna, where his possible return was a menace to the Suevi,
should they ever disdain obedience. But he never left Italy for eighteen
years, living to old age and losing much of his renown through an excessive
clinging to life. Catualda had a like downfall and no better refuge. Driven
out soon afterwards by the overwhelming strength of the Hermundusi led by
Vibilius, he was received and sent to Forum Julii, a colony of Narbonensian
Gaul. The barbarians who followed the two kings, lest they might disturb the
peace of the provinces by mingling with the population, were settled beyond
the Danube between the rivers Marus and Cusus, under a king, Vannius, of the
nation of the Quadi.
Tidings
having also arrived of Artaxias being made king of Armenia by Germanicus, the
Senate decreed that both he and Drusus should enter the city with an ovation.
Arches too were raised round the sides of the temple of Mars the Avenger,
with statues of the two Caesars. Tiberius was the more delighted at having
established peace by wise policy than if he had finished a war by battle. And
so next he planned a crafty scheme against Rhescuporis, king of Thrace. That
entire country had been in the possession of Rhoemetalces, after whose death
Augustus assigned half to the king's brother Rhescuporis, half to his son
Cotys. In this division the cultivated lands, the towns, and what bordered on
Greek territories, fell to Cotys; the wild and barbarous portion, with
enemies on its frontier, to Rhescuporis. The kings too themselves differed,
Cotys having a gentle and kindly temper, the other a fierce and ambitious
spirit, which could not brook a partner. Still at first they lived in a
hollow friendship, but soon Rhescuporis overstepped his bounds and
appropriated to himself what had been given to Cotys, using force when he was
resisted, though somewhat timidly under Augustus, who having created both
kingdoms would, he feared, avenge any contempt of his arrangement. When
however he heard of the change of emperor, he let loose bands of freebooters
and razed the fortresses, as a provocation to war.
Nothing
made Tiberius so uneasy as an apprehension of the disturbance of any
settlement. He commissioned a centurion to tell the kings not to decide their
dispute by arms. Cotys at once dismissed the forces which he had prepared.
Rhescuporis, with assumed modesty, asked for a place of meeting where, he
said, they might settle their differences by an interview. There was little
hesitation in fixing on a time, a place, finally on terms, as every point was
mutually conceded and accepted, by the one out of good nature, by the other
with a treacherous intent. Rhescuporis, to ratify the treaty, as he said,
further proposed a banquet; and when their mirth had been prolonged far into
the night, and Cotys amid the feasting and the wine was unsuspicious of danger,
he loaded him with chains, though he appealed, on perceiving the perfidy, to
the sacred character of a king, to the gods of their common house, and to the
hospitable board. Having possessed himself of all Thrace, he wrote word to
Tiberius that a plot had been formed against him, and that he had forestalled
the plotter. Meanwhile, under pretext of a war against the Bastarnian and
Scythian tribes, he was strengthening himself with fresh forces of infantry
and cavalry. He received a conciliatory answer. If there was no treachery in
his conduct, he could rely on his innocence, but neither the emperor nor the
Senate would decide on the right or wrong of his cause without hearing it. He
was therefore to surrender Cotys, come in person transfer from himself the
odium of the charge.
THE destruction of
Messalina shook the imperial house; for a strife arose among the freedmen,
who should choose a wife for Claudius, impatient as he was of a single life
and submissive to eat the rule of wives. The ladies were fired with no less
jealousy. Each insisted on her rank, beauty, and fortune, and pointed to her
claims to such a marriage. But the keenest competition was between Lollia
Paulina, the daughter of Marcus Lollius, an ex-consul, and Julia Agrippina,
the daughter of Germanicus. Callistus favoured the first, Pallas the second.
Aelia Paetina however, of the family of the Tuberones, had the support of
Narcissus. The emperor, who inclined now one way, now another, as he listened
to this or that adviser, summoned the disputants to a conference and bade
them express their opinions and give their reasons.
Narcissus
dwelt on the marriage of years gone by, on the tie of offspring, for Paetina
was the mother of Antonia, and on the advantage of excluding a new element
from his household, by the return of a wife to whom he was accustomed, and
who would assuredly not look with a stepmother's animosity on Britannicus and
Octavia, who were next in her affections to her own children. Callistus
argued that she was compromised by her long separation, and that were she to
be taken back, she would be supercilious on the strength of it. It would be
far better to introduce Lollia, for, as she had no children of her own, she
would be free from jealousy, and would take the place of a mother towards her
stepchildren. Pallas again selected Agrippina for special commendation
because she would bring with her Germanicus's grandson, who was thoroughly
worthy of imperial rank, the scion of a noble house and a link to unite the
descendants of the Claudian family. He hoped that a woman who was the mother
of many children and still in the freshness of youth, would not carry off the
grandeur of the Caesars to some other house.
This
advice prevailed, backed up as it was by Agrippina's charms. On the pretext
of her relationship, she paid frequent visits to her uncle, and so won his
heart, that she was preferred to the others, and, though not yet his wife,
already possessed a wife's power. For as soon as she was sure of her
marriage, she began to aim at greater things, and planned an alliance between
Domitius, her son by Cneius Aenobarbus, and Octavia, the emperor's daughter.
This could not be accomplished without a crime, for the emperor had betrothed
Octavia to Lucius Silanus, a young man otherwise famous, whom he had brought
forward as a candidate for popular favour by the honour of triumphal
distinctions and by a magnificent gladiatorial show. But no difficulty seemed
to be presented by the temper of a sovereign who had neither partialities nor
dislikes, but such as were suggested and dictated to him.
Vitellius
accordingly, who used the name of censor to screen a slave's trickeries, and
looked forward to new despotisms, already impending, associated himself in
Agrippina's plans, with a view to her favour, and began to bring charges
against Silanus, whose sister, Junia Calvina, a handsome and lively girl, had
shortly before become his daughter-in-law. Here was a starting point for an
accuser. Vitellius put an infamous construction on the somewhat incautious
though not criminal love between the brother and sister. The emperor
listened, for his affection for his daughter inclined him the more to admit
suspicions against his son-in-law. Silanus meanwhile, who knew nothing of the
plot, and happened that year to be praetor, was suddenly expelled from the Senate
by an edict of Vitellius, though the roll of Senators had been recently
reviewed and the lustrum closed. Claudius at the same time broke off the
connection; Silanus was forced to resign his office, and the one remaining
day of his praetorship was conferred on Eprius Marcellus.
In
the year of the consulship of Caius Pompeius and Quintus Veranius, the
marriage arranged between Claudius and Agrippina was confirmed both by
popular rumour and by their own illicit love. Still, they did not yet dare to
celebrate the nuptials in due form, for there was no precedent for the
introduction of a niece into an uncle's house. It was positively incest, and
if disregarded, it would, people feared, issue in calamity to the State.
These scruples ceased not till Vitellius undertook the management of the
matter in his own way. He asked the emperor whether he would yield to the
recommendations of the people and to the authority of the Senate. When
Claudius replied that he was one among the citizens and could not resist
their unanimous voice, Vitellius requested him to wait in the palace, while
he himself went to the Senate. Protesting that the supreme interest of the
commonwealth was at stake, he begged to be allowed to speak first, and then
began to urge that the very burdensome labours of the emperor in a world-wide
administration, required assistance, so that, free from domestic cares, he
might consult the public welfare. How again could there be a more virtuous
relief for the mind of an imperial censor than the taking of a wife to share
his prosperity and his troubles, to whom he might intrust his inmost thoughts
and the care of his young children, unused as he was to luxury and pleasure,
and wont from his earliest youth to obey the laws.
Vitellius,
having first put forward these arguments in a conciliatory speech, and met
with decided acquiescence from the Senate, began afresh to point out, that,
as they all recommended the emperor's marriage, they ought to select a lady
conspicuous for noble rank and purity, herself too the mother of children.
"It cannot," he said, "be long a question that Agrippina
stands first in nobility of birth. She has given proof too that she is not
barren, and she has suitable moral qualities. It is, again, a singular
advantage to us, due to divine providence, for a widow to be united to an
emperor who has limited himself to his own lawful wives. We have heard from
our fathers, we have ourselves seen that married women were seized at the
caprice of the Caesars. This is quite alien to the propriety of our day.
Rather let a precedent be now set for the taking of a wife by an emperor.
But, it will be said, marriage with a brother's daughter is with us a
novelty. True; but it is common in other countries, and there is no law to
forbid it. Marriages of cousins were long unknown, but after a time they
became frequent. Custom adapts itself to expediency, and this novelty will
hereafter take its place among recognized usages."
There
were some who rushed out of the Senate passionately protesting that if the
emperor hesitated, they would use violence. A promiscuous throng assembled,
and kept exclaiming that the same too was the prayer of the Roman people.
Claudius without further delay presented himself in the forum to their
congratulations; then entering the Senate, he asked from them a decree which
should decide that for the future marriages between uncles and brothers'
daughters should be legal. There was, however, found only one person who
desired such a marriage, Alledius Severus, a Roman knight, who, as many said,
was swayed by the influence of Agrippina. Then came a revolution in the
State, and everything was under the control of a woman, who did not, like
Messalina, insult Rome by loose manners. It was a stringent, and, so to say,
masculine despotism; there was sternness and generally arrogance in public,
no sort of immodesty at home, unless it conduced to power. A boundless greed
of wealth was veiled under the pretext that riches were being accumulated as
a prop to the throne.
On
the day of the marriage Silanus committed suicide, having up to that time
prolonged his hope of life, or else choosing that day to heighten the popular
indignation. His sister, Calvina, was banished from Italy. Claudius further
added that sacrifices after the ordinances of King Tullius, and atonements
were to be offered by the pontiffs in the grove of Diana, amid general
ridicule at the idea devising penalties and propitiations for incest at such
a time. Agrippina, that she might not be conspicuous only by her evil deeds,
procured for Annaeus Seneca a remission of his exile, and with it the
praetorship. She thought this would be universally welcome, from the
celebrity of his attainments, and it was her wish too for the boyhood of
Domitius to be trained under so excellent an instructor, and for them to have
the benefit of his counsels in their designs on the throne. For Seneca, it
was believed, was devoted to Agrippina from a remembrance of her kindness,
and an enemy to Claudius from a bitter sense of wrong.
It
was then resolved to delay no longer. Memmius Pollio, the consul-elect, was
induced by great promises to deliver a speech, praying Claudius to betroth
Octavia to Domitius. The match was not unsuitable to the age of either, and
was likely to develop still more important results. Pollio introduced the
motion in much the same language as Vitellius had lately used. So Octavia was
betrothed, and Domitius, besides his previous relationship, became now the
emperor's affianced son-in-law, and an equal of Britannicus, through the
exertions of his mother and the cunning of those who had been the accusers of
Messalina, and feared the vengeance of her son.
About
the same time an embassy from the Parthians, which had been sent, as I have
stated, to solicit the return of Meherdates, was introduced into the Senate,
and delivered a message to the following effect:- "They were not,"
they said, "unaware of the treaty of alliance, nor did their coming
imply any revolt from the family of the Arsacids; indeed, even the son of
Vonones, Phraates's grandson, was with them in their resistance to the
despotism of Gotarzes, which was alike intolerable to the nobility and to the
people. Already brothers, relatives, and distant kin had been swept off by
murder after murder; wives actually pregnant, and tender children were added
to Gotarzes' victims, while, slothful at home and unsuccessful in war, he
made cruelty a screen for his feebleness. Between the Parthians and ourselves
there was an ancient friendship, founded on a state alliance, and we ought to
support allies who were our rivals in strength, and yet yielded to us out of
respect. Kings' sons were given as hostages, in order that when Parthia was
tired of home rule, it might fall back on the emperor and the Senate, and
receive from them a better sovereign, familiar with Roman habits."
In
answer to these and like arguments Claudius began to speak of the grandeur of
Rome and the submissive attitude of the Parthians. He compared himself to the
Divine Augustus, from whom, he reminded them, they had sought a king, but
omitted to mention Tiberius, though he too had sent them sovereigns. He added
some advice for Meherdates, who was present, and told him not to be thinking
of a despot and his slaves, but rather of a ruler among fellow citizens, and
to practise clemency and justice which barbarians would like the more for
being unused to them. Then he turned to the envoys and bestowed high praise
on the young foster-son of Rome, as one whose self-control had hitherto been
exemplary. "Still," he said, "they must bear with the caprices
of kings, and frequent revolutions were bad. Rome, sated with her glory, had
reached such a height that, she wished even foreign nations to enjoy
repose." Upon this Caius Cassius, governor of Syria, was commissioned to
escort the young prince to the bank of the Euphrates.
Cassius
was at that time pre-eminent for legal learning. The profession of the
soldier is forgotten in a quiet period, and peace reduces the enterprising
and indolent to an equality. But Cassius, as far as it was possible without
war, revived ancient discipline, kept exercising the legions, in short, used
as much diligence and precaution as if an enemy were threatening him. This
conduct he counted worthy of his ancestors and of the Cassian family which
had won renown even in those countries. He then summoned those at whose
suggestion a king had been sought from Rome, and having encamped at Zeugma
where the river was most easily fordable and awaited the arrival of the chief
men of Parthia and of Acbarus, king of the Arabs, he reminded Meherdates that
the impulsive enthusiasm of barbarians soon flags from delay or even changes
into treachery, and that therefore he should urge on his enterprise. The
advice was disregarded through the perfidy Acbarus, by whom the foolish young
prince, who thought that the highest position merely meant self-indulgence,
was detained for several days in the town of Edessa. Although a certain
Carenes pressed them to come and promised easy success if they hastened their
arrival, they did not make for Mesopotamia, which was close to them, but, by
a long detour, for Armenia, then ill-suited to their movements, as winter was
beginning.
As
they approached the plains, wearied with the snows and mountains, they were
joined by the forces of Carenes, and having crossed the river Tigris they
traversed the country of the Adiabeni, whose king Izates had avowedly
embraced the alliance of Meherdates, though secretly and in better faith he
inclined to Gotarzes. In their march they captured the city of Ninos, the
most ancient capital of Assyria, and a fortress, historically famous, as the
spot where the last battle between Darius and Alexander the power of Persia
fell. Gotarzes meantime was offering vows to the local divinities on a
mountain called Sambulos, with special worship of Hercules, who at a stated
time bids the priests in a dream equip horses for the chase and place them
near his temple. When the horses have been laden with quivers full of arrows,
they scour the forest and at length return at night with empty quivers,
panting violently. Again the god in a vision of the night reveals to them the
track along which he roamed through the woods, and everywhere slaughtered
beasts are found.
Gotarzes,
his army not being yet in sufficient force, made the river Corma a line of
defence, and though he was challenged to an engagement by taunting messages,
he contrived delays, shifted his positions and sent emissaries to corrupt the
enemy and bribe them to throw off their allegiance. Izates of the Adiabeni
and then Acbarus of the Arabs deserted with their troops, with their
countrymen's characteristic fickleness, confirming previous experience, that
barbarians prefer to seek a king from Rome than to keep him. Meherdates,
stript of his powerful auxiliaries and suspecting treachery in the rest,
resolved, as his last resource, to risk everything and try the issue of a
battle. Nor did Gotarzes, who was emboldened by the enemy's diminished
strength, refuse the challenge. They fought with terrible courage and
doubtful result, till Carenes, who having beaten down all resistance had
advanced too far, was surprised by a fresh detachment in his rear. Then
Meherdates in despair yielded to promises from Parrhaces, one of his father's
adherents, and was by his treachery delivered in chains to the conqueror.
Gotarzes taunted him with being no kinsman of his or of the Arsacids, but a
foreigner and a Roman, and having cut off his ears, bade him live, a memorial
of his own clemency, and a disgrace to us. After this Gotarzes fell ill and
died, and Vonones, who then ruled the Medes, was summoned to the throne. He
was memorable neither for his good nor bad fortune; he completed a short and
inglorious reign, and then the empire of Parthia passed to his son Vologeses.
Mithridates
of Bosporus, meanwhile, who had lost his power and was a mere outcast, on
learning that the Roman general, Didius, and the main strength of his army
had retired, and that Cotys, a young prince without experience, was left in
his new kingdom with a few cohorts under Julius Aquila, a Roman knight,
disdaining both, roused the neighbouring tribes, and drew deserters to his
standard. At last he collected an army, drove out the king of the Dandaridae,
and possessed himself of his dominions. When this was known, and the invasion
of Bosporus was every moment expected, Aquila and Cotys, seeing that
hostilities had been also resumed by Zorsines, king of the Siraci, distrusted
their own strength, and themselves too sought the friendship of the foreigner
by sending envoys to Eunones, who was then chief of the Adorsi. There was no
difficulty about alliance, when they pointed to the power of Rome in contrast
with the rebel Mithridates. It was accordingly stipulated that Eunones should
engage the enemy with his cavalry, and the Romans undertake the siege of
towns.
Then
the army advanced in regular formation, the Adorsi in the van and the rear,
while the centre was strengthened by the cohorts, and native troops of
Bosporus with Roman arms. Thus the enemy was defeated, and they reached Soza,
a town in Dandarica, which Mithridates had abandoned, where it was thought
expedient to leave a garrison, as the temper of the people was uncertain.
Next they marched on the Siraci, and after crossing the river Panda besieged
the city of Uspe, which stood on high ground, and had the defence of wall and
fosses; only the walls, not being of stone, but of hurdles and wicker-work
with earth between, were too weak to resist an assault. Towers were raised to
a greater height as a means of annoying the besieged with brands and darts.
Had not night stopped the conflict, the siege would have been begun and
finished within one day.
Next
day they sent an embassy asking mercy for the freeborn, and offering ten
thousand slaves. As it would have been inhuman to slay the prisoners, and
very difficult to keep them under guard, the conquerors rejected the offer,
preferring that they should perish by the just doom of war. The signal for
massacre was therefore given to the soldiers, who had mounted the walls by
scaling ladders. The destruction of Uspe struck terror into the rest of the
people, who thought safety impossible when they saw how armies and ramparts,
heights and difficult positions, rivers and cities, alike yielded to their
foe. And so Zorsines, having long considered whether he should still have
regard to the fallen fortunes of Mithridates or to the kingdom of his
fathers, and having at last preferred his country's interests, gave hostages
and prostrated himself before the emperor's image, to the great glory of the
Roman army, which all men knew to have come after a bloodless victory within
three days' march of the river Tanais. In their return however fortune was
not equally favourable; some of their vessels, as they were sailing back,
were driven on the shores of the Tauri and cut off by the barbarians, who
slew the commander of a cohort and several centurions.
Meanwhile
Mithridates, finding arms an unavailing resource, considered on whose mercy
he was to throw himself. He feared his brother Cotys, who had once been a
traitor, then become his open enemy. No Roman was on the spot of authority
sufficient to make his promises highly valued. So he turned to Eunones, who
had no personal animosity against him, and had been lately strengthened by
his alliance with us. Adapting his dress and expression of countenance as
much as possible to his present condition, he entered the palace, and
throwing himself at the feet of Eunones he exclaimed, "Mithridates, whom
the Romans have sought so many years by land and sea, stands before you by
his own choice. Deal as you please with the descendant of the great
Achaemenes, the only glory of which enemies have not robbed me."
The
great name of Mithridates, his reverse, his prayer, full of dignity, deeply
affected Eunones. He raised the suppliant, and commended him for having
chosen the nation of the Adorsi and his own good faith in suing for mercy. He
sent at the same time envoys to Caesar with a letter to this effect, that
friendship between emperors of Rome and sovereigns of powerful peoples was
primarily based on a similarity of fortune, and that between himself and
Claudius there was the tie of a common victory. Wars had glorious endings,
whenever matters were settled by an amnesty. The conquered Zorsines had on
this principle been deprived of nothing. For Mithridates, as he deserved
heavier punishment, he asked neither power nor dominions, only that he might
not be led in triumph, and pay the penalty of death.
Claudius,
though merciful to foreign princes, was yet in doubt whether it were better
to receive the captive with a promise of safety or to claim his surrender by
the sword. To this last he was urged by resentment at his wrongs, and by
thirst for vengeance. On the other hand it was argued that it would be
undertaking a war in a country without roads, on a harbourless sea, against
warlike kings and wandering tribes, on a barren soil; that a weary disgust
would come of tardy movements, and perils of precipitancy; that the glory of
victory would be small, while much disgrace would ensue on defeat. Why should
not the emperor seize the offer and spare the exile, whose punishment would
be the greater, the longer he lived in poverty? Moved by these considerations,
Claudius wrote to Eunones that Mithridates had certainly merited an extreme
and exemplary penalty, which he was not wanting in power to inflict, but it
had been the principle of his ancestors to show as much forbearance to a
suppliant as they showed persistence against a foe. As for triumphs, they
were won over nations and kings hitherto unconquered.
After
this, Mithridates was given up and brought to Rome by Junius Cilo, the
procurator of Pontus. There in the emperor's presence he was said to have
spoken too proudly for his position, and words uttered by him to the
following effect became the popular talk: "I have not been sent, but
have come back to you; if you do not believe me, let me go and pursue
me." He stood too with fearless countenance when he was exposed to the
people's gaze near the Rostra, under military guard. To Cilo and Aquila were
voted, respectively, the consular and praetorian decorations.
In
the same consulship, Agrippina, who was terrible in her hatred and detested
Lollia, for having competed with her for the emperor's hand, planned an
accusation, through an informer who was to tax her with having consulted
astrologers and magicians and the image of the Clarian Apollo, about the
imperial marriage. Upon this, Claudius, without hearing the accused, first
reminded the Senate of her illustrious rank, that the sister of Lucius
Volusius was her mother, Cotta Messalinus her granduncle, Memmius Regulus
formerly her husband (for of her marriage to Caius Caesar he purposely said
nothing), and then added that she had mischievous designs on the State, and
must have the means of crime taken from her. Consequently, her property
should be confiscated, and she herself banished from Italy. Thus out of
immense wealth only five million sesterces were left to the exile. Calpurnia
too, a lady of high rank, was ruined, simply because the emperor had praised
her beauty in a casual remark, without any passion for her. And so
Agrippina's resentment stopped short of extreme vengeance. A tribune was
despatched to Lollia, who was to force her to suicide. Next on the
prosecution of the Bithynians, Cadius Rufus, was condemned under the law
against extortion.
Narbon
Gaul, for its special reverence of the Senate, received a privilege. Senators
belonging to the province, without seeking the emperor's approval, were to be
allowed to visit their estates, a right enjoyed by Sicily. Ituraea and
Judaea, on the death of their kings, Sohaemus and Agrippa, were annexed to
the province of Syria. It was also decided that the augury of the public
safety, which for twenty-five years had been neglected, should be revived and
henceforth observed. The emperor likewise widened the sacred precincts of the
capital, in conformity with the ancient usage, according to which, those who
had enlarged the empire were permitted also to extend the boundaries of Rome.
But Roman generals, even after the conquest of great nations, had never
exercised this right, except Lucius Sulla and the Divine Augustus.
There
are various popular accounts of the ambitious and vainglorious efforts of our
kings in this matter. Still, I think, it is interesting to know accurately
the original plan of the precinct, as it was fixed by Romulus. From the ox
market, where we see the brazen statue of a bull, because that animal is
yoked to the plough, a furrow was drawn to mark out the town, so as to
embrace the great altar of Hercules; then, at regular intervals, stones were
placed along the foot of the Palatine hill to the altar of Consus, soon
afterwards, to the old Courts, and then to the chapel of Larunda. The Roman
forum and the Capitol were not, it was supposed, added to the city by
Romulus, but by Titus Tatius. In time, the precinct was enlarged with the
growth of Rome's fortunes. The boundaries now fixed by Claudius may be easily
recognized, as they are specified in the public records.
In
the consulship of Caius Antistius and Marcus Suilius, the adoption of
Domitius was hastened on by the influence of Pallas. Bound to Agrippina,
first as the promoter of her marriage, then as her paramour, he still urged
Claudius to think of the interests of the State, and to provide some support
for the tender years of Britannicus. "So," he said, "it had
been with the Divine Augustus, whose stepsons, though he had grandsons to be
his stay, had been promoted; Tiberius too, though he had offspring of his
own, had adopted Germanicus. Claudius also would do well to strengthen
himself with a young prince who could share his cares with him."
Overcome by these arguments, the emperor preferred Domitius to his own son,
though he was but two years older, and made a speech in the senate, the same
in substance as the representations of his freedman. It was noted by learned
men, that no previous example of adoption into the patrician family of the
Claudii was to be found; and that from Attus Clausus there had been one
unbroken line.
However,
the emperor received formal thanks, and still more elaborate flattery was
paid to Domitius. A law was passed, adopting him into the Claudian family
with the name of Nero. Agrippina too was honoured with the title of Augusta.
When this had been done, there was not a person so void of pity as not to
feel keen sorrow at the position of Britannicus. Gradually forsaken by the
very slaves who waited on him, he turned into ridicule the ill-timed
attentions of his stepmother, perceiving their insincerity. For he is said to
have had by no means a dull understanding; and this is either a fact, or
perhaps his perils won him sympathy, and so he possessed the credit of it,
without actual evidence.
Agrippina,
to show her power even to the allied nations, procured the despatch of a
colony of veterans to the chief town of the Ubii, where she was born. The
place was named after her. Agrippa, her grandfather, had, as it happened,
received this tribe, when they crossed the Rhine, under our protection.
During the same time, there was a panic in Upper Germany through an irruption
of plundering bands of Chatti. Thereupon Lucius Pomponius, who was in
command, directed the Vangiones and Nemetes, with the allied cavalry, to
anticipate the raid, and suddenly to fall upon them from every quarter while
they were dispersed. The general's plan was backed up by the energy of the
troops. These were divided into two columns; and those who marched to the
left cut off the plunderers, just on their return, after a riotous enjoyment
of their spoil, when they were heavy with sleep. It added to the men's joy
that they had rescued from slavery after forty years some survivors of the
defeat of Varus.
The
column which took the right-hand and the shorter route, inflicted greater
loss on the enemy who met them, and ventured on a battle. With much spoil and
glory they returned to Mount Taunus, where Pomponius was waiting with the
legions, to see whether the Chatti, in their eagerness for vengeance, would
give him a chance of fighting. They however fearing to be hemmed in on one
side by the Romans, on the other by the Cherusci, with whom they are
perpetually at feud, sent envoys and hostages to Rome. To Pomponius was
decreed the honour of a triumph; a mere fraction of his renown with the next
generation, with whom his poems constitute his chief glory.
At
this same time, Vannius, whom Drusus Caesar had made king of the Suevi, was
driven from his kingdom. In the commencement of his reign he was renowned and
popular with his countrymen; but subsequently, with long possession, he
became a tyrant, and the enmity of neighbours, joined to intestine strife,
was his ruin. Vibillius, king of the Hermunduri, and Vangio and Sido, sons of
a sister of Vannius, led the movement. Claudius, though often entreated,
declined to interpose by arms in the conflict of the barbarians, and simply
promised Vannius a safe refuge in the event of his expulsion. He wrote
instructions to Publius Atellius Hister, governor of Pannonia, that he was to
have his legions, with some picked auxiliaries from the province itself,
encamped on the riverbank, as a support to the conquered and a terror to the
conqueror, who might otherwise, in the elation of success, disturb also the
peace of our empire. For an immense host of Ligii, with other tribes, was
advancing, attracted by the fame of the opulent realm which Vannius had
enriched during thirty years of plunder and of tribute. Vannius's own native
force was infantry, and his cavalry was from the Iazyges of Sarmatia; an army
which was no match for his numerous enemy. Consequently, he determined to
maintain himself in fortified positions, and protract the war.
But
the Iazyges, who could not endure a siege, dispersed themselves throughout
the surrounding country and rendered an engagement inevitable, as the Ligii
and Hermunduri had there rushed to the attack. So Vannius came down out of
his fortresses, and though he was defeated in battle, notwithstanding his
reverse, he won some credit by having fought with his own hand, and received
wounds on his breast. He then fled to the fleet which was awaiting him on the
Danube, and was soon followed by his adherents, who received grants of land
and were settled in Pannonia. Vangio and Sido divided his kingdom between
them; they were admirably loyal to us, and among their subjects, whether the
cause was in themselves or in the nature of despotism, much loved, while seeking
to acquire power, and yet more hated when they had acquired it.
Meanwhile,
in Britain, Publius Ostorius, the propraetor, found himself confronted by
disturbance. The enemy had burst into the territories of our allies with all
the more fury, as they imagined that a new general would not march against
them with winter beginning and with an army of which he knew nothing.
Ostorius, well aware that first events are those which produce alarm or
confidence, by a rapid movement of his light cohorts, cut down all who
opposed him, pursued those who fled, and lest they should rally, and so an
unquiet and treacherous peace might allow no rest to the general and his
troops, he prepared to disarm all whom he suspected, and to occupy with
encampments the whole country to the Avon and Severn. The Iceni, a powerful
tribe, which war had not weakened, as they had voluntarily joined our
alliance, were the first to resist. At their instigation the surrounding
nations chose as a battlefield a spot walled in by a rude barrier, with a
narrow approach, impenetrable to cavalry. Through these defences the Roman
general, though he had with him only the allied troops, without the strength
of the legions, attempted to break, and having assigned their positions to
his cohorts, he equipped even his cavalry for the work of infantry. Then at a
given signal they forced the barrier, routing the enemy who were entangled in
their own defences. The rebels, conscious of their guilt, and finding escape
barred, performed many noble feats. In this battle, Marius Ostorius, the
general's son, won the reward for saving a citizen's life.
The
defeat of the Iceni quieted those who were hesitating between war and peace.
Then the army was marched against the Cangi; their territory was ravaged,
spoil taken everywhere without the enemy venturing on an engagement, or if
they attempted to harass our march by stealthy attacks, their cunning was
always punished. And now Ostorius had advanced within a little distance of
the sea, facing the island Hibernia, when feuds broke out among the Brigantes
and compelled the general's return, for it was his fixed purpose not to
undertake any fresh enterprise till he had consolidated his previous
successes. The Brigantes indeed, when a few who were beginning hostilities
had been slain and the rest pardoned, settled down quietly; but on the
Silures neither terror nor mercy had the least effect; they persisted in war
and could be quelled only by legions encamped in their country. That this
might be the more promptly effected, a colony of a strong body of veterans
was established at Camulodunum on the conquered lands, as a defence against
the rebels, and as a means of imbuing the allies with respect for our laws.
The
army then marched against the Silures, a naturally fierce people and now full
of confidence in the might of Caractacus, who by many an indecisive and many
a successful battle had raised himself far above all the other generals of
the Britons. Inferior in military strength, but deriving an advantage from
the deceptiveness of the country, he at once shifted the war by a stratagem
into the territory of the Ordovices, where, joined by all who dreaded peace
with us, he resolved on a final struggle. He selected a position for the
engagement in which advance and retreat alike would be difficult for our men
and comparatively easy for his own, and then on some lofty hills, wherever
their sides could be approached by a gentle slope, he piled up stones to serve
as a rampart. A river too of varying depth was in his front, and his armed
bands were drawn up before his defences.
Then
too the chieftains of the several tribes went from rank to rank, encouraging
and confirming the spirit of their men by making light of their fears,
kindling their hopes, and by every other warlike incitement. As for
Caractacus, he flew hither and thither, protesting that that day and that
battle would be the beginning of the recovery of their freedom, or of
everlasting bondage. He appealed, by name, to their forefathers who had
driven back the dictator Caesar, by whose valour they were free from the
Roman axe and tribute, and still preserved inviolate the persons of their
wives and of their children. While he was thus speaking, the host shouted
applause; every warrior bound himself by his national oath not to shrink from
weapons or wounds.
Such
enthusiasm confounded the Roman general. The river too in his face, the
rampart they had added to it, the frowning hilltops, the stern resistance and
masses of fighting men everywhere apparent, daunted him. But his soldiers
insisted on battle, exclaiming that valour could overcome all things; and the
prefects and tribunes, with similar language, stimulated the ardour of the
troops. Ostorius having ascertained by a survey the inaccessible and the
assailable points of the position, led on his furious men, and crossed the
river without difficulty. When he reached the barrier, as long as it was a
fight with missiles, the wounds and the slaughter fell chiefly on our
soldiers; but when he had formed the military testudo, and the rude,
ill-compacted fence of stones was torn down, and it was an equal hand-to-hand
engagement, the barbarians retired to the heights. Yet even there, both light
and heavy-armed soldiers rushed to the attack; the first harassed the foe
with missiles, while the latter closed with them, and the opposing ranks of
the Britons were broken, destitute as they were of the defence of
breast-plates or helmets. When they faced the auxiliaries, they were felled
by the swords and javelins of our legionaries; if they wheeled round, they
were again met by the sabres and spears of the auxiliaries. It was a glorious
victory; the wife and daughter of Caractacus were captured, and his brothers
too were admitted to surrender.
There
is seldom safety for the unfortunate, and Caractacus, seeking the protection
of Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes, was put in chains and delivered up to
the conquerors, nine years after the beginning of the war in Britain. His
fame had spread thence, and travelled to the neighbouring islands and
provinces, and was actually celebrated in Italy. All were eager to see the
great man, who for so many years had defied our power. Even at Rome the name
of Caractacus was no obscure one; and the emperor, while he exalted his own
glory, enhanced the renown of the vanquished. The people were summoned as to
a grand spectacle; the praetorian cohorts were drawn up under arms in the
plain in front of their camp; then came a procession of the royal vassals,
and the ornaments and neck-chains and the spoils which the king had won in
wars with other tribes, were displayed. Next were to be seen his brothers,
his wife and daughter; last of all, Caractacus himself. All the rest stooped
in their fear to abject supplication; not so the king, who neither by humble
look nor speech sought compassion.
When
he was set before the emperor's tribunal, he spoke as follows: "Had my
moderation in prosperity been equal to my noble birth and fortune, I should
have entered this city as your friend rather than as your captive; and you
would not have disdained to receive, under a treaty of peace, a king
descended from illustrious ancestors and ruling many nations. My present lot
is as glorious to you as it is degrading to myself. I had men and horses,
arms and wealth. What wonder if I parted with them reluctantly? If you Romans
choose to lord it over the world, does it follow that the world is to accept
slavery? Were I to have been at once delivered up as a prisoner, neither my
fall nor your triumph would have become famous. My punishment would be
followed by oblivion, whereas, if you save my life, I shall be an everlasting
memorial of your clemency." Upon this the emperor granted pardon to
Caractacus, to his wife, and to his brothers. Released from their bonds, they
did homage also to Agrippina who sat near, conspicuous on another throne, in
the same language of praise and gratitude. It was indeed a novelty, quite
alien to ancient manners, for a woman to sit in front of Roman standards. In
fact, Agrippina boasted that she was herself a partner in the empire which
her ancestors had won.
The
Senate was then assembled, and speeches were delivered full of pompous eulogy
on the capture of Caractacus. It was as glorious, they said, as the display
of Syphax by Scipio, or of Perses by Lucius Paulus, or indeed of any captive
prince by any of our generals to the people of Rome. Triumphal distinctions
were voted to Ostorius, who thus far had been successful, but soon afterwards
met with reverses; either because, when Caractacus was out of the way, our
discipline was relaxed under an impression that the war was ended, or because
the enemy, out of compassion for so great a king, was more ardent in his
thirst for vengeance. Instantly they rushed from all parts on the
camp-prefect, and legionary cohorts left to establish fortified positions
among the Silures, and had not speedy succour arrived from towns and
fortresses in the neighbourhood, our forces would then have been totally
destroyed. Even as it was, the camp-prefect, with eight centurions, and the
bravest of the soldiers, were slain; and shortly afterwards, a foraging party
of our men, with some cavalry squadrons sent to their support, was utterly
routed.
Ostorius
then deployed his light cohorts, but even thus he did not stop the flight,
till our legions sustained the brunt of the battle. Their strength equalized
the conflict, which after a while was in our favour. The enemy fled with
trifling loss, as the day was on the decline. Now began a series of
skirmishes, for the most part like raids, in woods and morasses, with
encounters due to chance or to courage, to mere heedlessness or to
calculation, to fury or to lust of plunder, under directions from the
officers, or sometimes even without their knowledge. Conspicuous above all in
stubborn resistance were the Silures, whose rage was fired by words rumoured
to have been spoken by the Roman general, to the effect, that as the Sugambri
had been formerly destroyed or transplanted into Gaul, so the name of the
Silures ought to be blotted out. Accordingly they cut off two of our
auxiliary cohorts, the rapacity of whose officers let them make incautious
forays; and by liberal gifts of spoil and prisoners to the other tribes, they
were luring them too into revolt, when Ostorius, worn out by the burden of
his anxieties, died, to the joy of the enemy, who thought that a campaign at
least, though not a single battle, had proved fatal to general whom none
could despise.
The
emperor on hearing of the death of his representative appointed Aulus Didius
in his place, that the province might not be left without a governor. Didius,
though he quickly arrived, found matters far from prosperous, for the legion
under the command of Manlius Valens had meanwhile been defeated, and the
disaster had been exaggerated by the enemy to alarm the new general, while he
again magnified it, that he might win the more glory by quelling the movement
or have a fairer excuse if it lasted. This loss too had been inflicted on us
by the Silures, and they were scouring the country far and wide, till Didius
hurried up and dispersed them. After the capture of Caractacus, Venutius of
the Brigantes, as I have already mentioned, was pre-eminent in military
skill; he had long been loyal to Rome and had been defended by our arms while
he was united in marriage to the queen Cartismandua. Subsequently a quarrel
broke out between them, followed instantly by war, and he then assumed a
hostile attitude also towards us. At first, however, they simply fought
against each other, and Cartismandua by cunning stratagems captured the
brothers and kinsfolk of Venutius. This enraged the enemy, who were stung
with shame at the prospect of falling under the dominion of a woman. The
flower of their youth, picked out for war, invaded her kingdom. This we had
foreseen; some cohorts were sent to her aid and a sharp contest followed,
which was at first doubtful but had a satisfactory termination. The legion
under the command of Caesius Nasica fought with a similar result. For Didius,
burdened with years and covered with honours, was content with acting through
his officers and merely holding back the enemy. These transactions, though
occurring under two propraetors, and occupying several years, I have closely
connected, lest, if related separately, they might be less easily remembered.
I now return to the chronological order.
In
the fifth consulship of Tiberius Claudius with Sextius Cornelius Orfitus for
his colleague, Nero was prematurely invested with the dress of manhood, that
he might be thought qualified for political life. The emperor willingly
complied with the flatteries of the Senate who wished Nero to enter on the
consulship in his twentieth year, and meanwhile, as consul-elect, to have
pro-consular authority beyond the limits of the capital with the title of
"prince of the youth of Rome." A donative was also given to the
soldiery in Nero's name, and presents to the city populace. At the games too
of the circus which were then being celebrated to win for him popular favour,
Britannicus wore the dress of boyhood, Nero the triumphal robe, as they rode
in the procession. The people would thus behold the one with the decorations
of a general, the other in a boy's habit, and would accordingly anticipate
their respective destinies. At the same time those of the centurions and
tribunes who pitied the lot of Britannicus were removed, some on false
pretexts, others by way of a seeming compliment. Even of the freedmen, all
who were of incorruptible fidelity were discarded on the following
provocation. Once when they met, Nero greeted Britannicus by that name and
was greeted in return as Domitius. Agrippina reported this to her husband,
with bitter complaint, as the beginning of a quarrel, as implying, in fact,
contempt of Nero's adoption and a cancelling at home of the Senate's decree
and the people's vote. She said, too, that, if the perversity of such
malignant suggestions were not checked, it would issue in the ruin of the
State. Claudius, enraged by what he took as a grave charge, punished with
banishment or death all his son's best instructors, and set persons appointed
by his stepmother to have the care of him.
Still
Agrippina did not yet dare to attempt her greatest scheme, unless Lusius Geta
and Rufius Crispinus were removed from the command of the praetorian cohorts;
for she thought that they cherished Messalina's memory and were devoted to
her children. Accordingly, as the emperor's wife persistently affirmed that
faction was rife among these cohorts through the rivalry of the two officers,
and that there would be stricter discipline under one commander, the
appointment was transferred to Burrus Afranius, who had a brilliant
reputation as a soldier, but knew well to whose wish he owed his promotion.
Agrippina, too, continued to exalt her own dignity; she would enter the
Capitol in a chariot, a practice, which being allowed of old only to the
priests and sacred images, increased the popular reverence for a woman who up
to this time was the only recorded instance of one who, an emperor's
daughter, was sister, wife, and mother of a sovereign. Meanwhile her foremost
champion, Vitellius, in the full tide of his power and in extreme age (so
uncertain are the fortunes of the great) was attacked by an accusation of
which Junius Lupus, a senator, was the author. He was charged with treason
and designs on the throne. The emperor would have lent a ready ear, had not
Agrippina, by threats rather than entreaties, induced him to sentence the
accuser to outlawry. This was all that Vitellius desired.
Several
prodigies occurred in that year. Birds of evil omen perched on the Capitol;
houses were thrown down by frequent shocks of earthquake, and as the panic
spread, all the weak were trodden down in the hurry and confusion of the
crowd. Scanty crops too, and consequent famine were regarded as a token of
calamity. Nor were there merely whispered complaints; while Claudius was
administering justice, the populace crowded round him with a boisterous
clamour and drove him to a corner of the forum, where they violently pressed
on him till he broke through the furious mob with a body of soldiers. It was
ascertained that Rome had provisions for no more than fifteen days, and it
was through the signal bounty of heaven and the mildness of the winter that
its desperate plight was relieved. And yet in past days Italy used to send
supplies for the legions into distant provinces, and even now it is not a
barren soil which causes distress. But we prefer to cultivate Africa and
Egypt, and trust the life of the Roman people to ships and all their risks.
In
the same year war broke out between the Armenians and Iberians, and was the
cause of very serious disturbances between Parthia and Rome. Vologeses was
king of the Parthians; on the mother's side, he was the offspring of a Greek
concubine, and he obtained the throne by the retirement of his brothers.
Pharasmanes had been long in possession of Iberia, and his brother,
Mithridates, ruled Armenia with our powerful support. There was a son of
Pharasmanes named Rhadamistus, tall and handsome, of singular bodily
strength, trained in all the accomplishments of his countrymen and highly
renowned among his neighbours. He boasted so arrogantly and persistently that
his father's prolonged old age kept back from him the little kingdom of
Iberia as to make no concealment of his ambition. Pharasmanes accordingly
seeing the young prince had power in his grasp and was strong in the
attachment of his people, fearing too his own declining years, tempted him
with other prospects and pointed to Armenia, which, as he reminded him, he
had given to Mithridates after driving out the Parthians. But open violence,
he said, must be deferred; artful measures, which might crush him unawares,
were better. So Rhadamistus pretended to be at feud with his father as though
his stepmother's hatred was too strong for him, and went to his uncle. While
he was treated by him like a son, with excessive kindness, he lured the
nobles of Armenia into revolutionary schemes, without the knowledge of
Mithridates, who was actually loading him with honours.
He
then assumed a show of reconciliation with his father, to whom he returned,
telling him all that could be accomplished by treachery was now ready and
that he must complete the affair by the sword. Meanwhile Pharasmanes invented
pretexts for war; when he was fighting with the king of the Albanians and
appealing to the Romans for aid, his brother, he said, had opposed him, and
he would now avenge that wrong by his destruction. At the same time he gave a
large army to his son, who by a sudden invasion drove Mithridates in terror
from the open country and forced him into the fortress of Gorneas, which was
strongly situated and garrisoned by some soldiers under the command of
Caelius Pollio, a camp-prefect, and Casperius, a centurion. There is nothing
of which barbarians are so ignorant as military engines and the skilful
management of sieges, while that is a branch of military science which we
especially understand. And so Rhadamistus having attempted the fortified
walls in vain or with loss, began a blockade, and, finding that his assaults
were despised, tried to bribe the rapacity of the camp-prefect. Casperius
protested earnestly against the overthrow of an allied king and of Armenia,
the gift of the Roman people, through iniquity and greed of gain. At last, as
Pollio pleaded the overpowering numbers of the enemy and Rhadamistus the
orders of his father, the centurion stipulated for a truce and retired,
intending, if he could not deter Pharasmanes from further hostilities, to
inform Ummidius Quadratus, the governor of Syria, of the state of Armenia.
By
the centurion's departure the camp prefect was released, so to say, from
surveillance; and he now urged Mithridates to conclude a treaty. He reminded
him of the tie of brotherhood, of the seniority in age of Pharasmanes, and of
their other bonds of kindred, how he was united by marriage to his brother's
daughter, and was himself the father-in-law of Rhadamistus. "The
Iberians," he said, "were not against peace, though for the moment
they were the stronger; the perfidy of the Armenians was notorious, and he
had nothing to fall back on but a fortress without stores; so he must not
hesitate to prefer a bloodless negotiation to arms." As Mithridates
wavered, and suspected the intentions of the camp-prefect, because he had
seduced one of the king's concubines and was reputed a man who could be
bribed into any wickedness, Casperius meantime went to Pharasmanes, and
required of him that the Iberians should raise the blockade. Pharasmanes, to
his face, replied vaguely and often in a conciliatory tone, while by secret
messages he recommended Rhadamistus to hurry on the siege by all possible
means. Then the price of infamy was raised, and Pollio by secret corruption
induced the soldiers to demand peace and to threaten that they would abandon
the garrison. Under this compulsion, Mithridates agreed to a day and a place
for negotiation and quitted the fortress.
Rhadamistus
at first threw himself into his embraces, feigning respect and calling him
father-in-law and parent. He swore an oath too that he would do him no
violence either by the sword or by poison. At the same time he drew him into
a neighbouring grove, where he assured him that the appointed sacrifice was
prepared for the confirmation of peace in the presence of the gods. It is a
custom of these princes, whenever they join alliance, to unite their right
hands and bind together the thumbs in a tight knot; then, when the blood has
flowed into the extremities, they let it escape by a slight puncture and suck
it in turn. Such a treaty is thought to have a mysterious sanctity, as being
sealed with the blood of both parties. On this occasion he who was applying
the knot pretended that it had fallen off, and suddenly seizing the knees of
Mithridates flung him to the ground. At the same moment a rush was made by a
number of persons, and chains were thrown round him. Then he was dragged
along by a fetter, an extreme degradation to a barbarian; and soon the common
people, whom he had held under a harsh sway, heaped insults on him with
menacing gestures, though some, on the contrary, pitied such a reverse of
fortune. His wife followed him with his little children, and filled every
place with her wailings. They were hidden away in different covered carriages
till the orders of Pharasmanes were distinctly ascertained. The lust of rule
was more to him than his brother and his daughter, and his heart was steeled
to any wickedness. Still he spared his eyes the seeing them slain before his
face. Rhadamistus too, seemingly mindful of his oath, neither unsheathed the
sword nor used poison against his sister and uncle, but had them thrown on
the ground and then smothered them under a mass of heavy clothes. Even the
sons of Mithridates were butchered for having shed tears over their parent's
murder.
Quadratus,
learning that Mithridates had been betrayed and that his kingdom was in the
hands of his murderers, summoned a council, and, having informed them of what
had occurred, consulted them whether he should take vengeance. Few cared for
the honour of the State; most argued in favour of a safe course, saying
"that any crime in a foreign country was to be welcomed with joy, and
that the seeds of strife ought to be actually sown, on the very principle on
which Roman emperors had often under a show of generosity given away this
same kingdom of Armenia to excite the minds of the barbarians. Rhadamistus
might retain his ill-gotten gains, as long as he was hated and infamous; for
this was more to Rome's interest than for him to have succeeded with glory."
To this view they assented, but that they might not be thought to have
approved the crime and receive contrary orders from the emperor, envoys were
sent to Pharasmanes, requiring him to withdraw from Armenian territory and
remove his son.
Julius
Pelignus was then procurator of Cappadocia, a man despised alike for his
feebleness of mind and his grotesque personal appearance. He was however very
intimate with Claudius, who, when in private life, used to beguile the
dullness of his leisure with the society of jesters. This Pelignus collected
some provincial auxiliaries, apparently with the design of recovering
Armenia, but, while he plundered allies instead of enemies, finding himself,
through the desertion of his men and the raids of the barbarians, utterly
defenceless, he went to Rhadamistus, whose gifts so completely overcame him
that he positively encouraged him to assume the ensigns of royalty, and
himself assisted at the ceremony, authorizing and abetting. When the
disgraceful news had spread far and wide, lest the world might judge of other
governors by Pelignus, Helvidius Priscus was sent in command of a legion to
regulate, according to circumstances, the disordered state of affairs. He
quickly crossed Mount Taurus, and had restored order to a great extent more
by moderation than by force, when he was ordered to return to Syria, that
nothing might arise to provoke a war with Parthia.
For
Vologeses, thinking that an opportunity presented itself of invading Armenia,
which, though the possession of his ancestors, was now through a monstrous
crime held by a foreign prince, raised an army and prepared to establish
Tiridates on the throne, so that not a member of his house might be without
kingly power. On the advance of the Parthians, the Iberians dispersed without
a battle, and the Armenian cities, Artaxata and Tigranocerta, submitted to
the yoke. Then a frightful winter or deficient supplies, with pestilence
arising from both causes, forced Vologeses to abandon his present plans.
Armenia was thus again without a king, and was invaded by Rhadamistus, who
was now fiercer than ever, looking on the people as disloyal and sure to
rebel on the first opportunity. They however, though accustomed to be slaves,
suddenly threw off their tameness and gathered round the palace in arms.
Rhadamistus
had no means of escape but in the swiftness of the horses which bore him and
his wife away. Pregnant as she was, she endured, somehow or other, out of
fear of the enemy and love of her husband, the first part of the flight, but
after a while, when she felt herself shaken by its continuous speed, she
implored to be rescued by an honourable death from the shame of captivity. He
at first embraced, cheered, and encouraged her, now admiring her heroism, now
filled with a sickening apprehension at the idea of her being left to any
man's mercy. Finally, urged by the intensity of his love and familiarity with
dreadful deeds, he unsheathed his scymitar, and having stabbed her, dragged
her to the bank of the Araxes and committed her to the stream, so that her
very body might be swept away. Then in headlong flight he hurried to Iberia,
his ancestral kingdom. Zenobia meanwhile (this was her name), as she yet
breathed and showed signs of life on the calm water at the river's edge, was
perceived by some shepherds, who inferring from her noble appearance that she
was no base-born woman, bound up her wound and applied to it their rustic
remedies. As soon as they knew her name and her adventure, they conveyed her
to the city of Artaxata, whence she was conducted at the public charge to
Tiridates, who received her kindly and treated her as a royal person.
In
the consulship of Faustus Sulla and Salvius Otho, Furius Scribonianus was
banished on the ground that he was consulting the astrologers about the
emperor's death. His mother, Junia, was included in the accusation, as one
who still resented the misfortune of exile which she had suffered in the
past. His father, Camillus, had raised an armed insurrection in Dalmatia, and
the emperor in again sparing a hostile family sought the credit of clemency.
But the exile did not live long after this; whether he was cut off by a
natural death, or by poison, was matter of conflicting rumours, according to
people's belief. A decree of the Senate was then passed for the expulsion of
the astrologers from Italy, stringent but ineffectual. Next the emperor, in a
speech, commended all who, from their limited means, voluntarily retired from
the Senatorian order, while those were degraded from it who, by retaining
their seats, added effrontery to poverty.
During
these proceedings he proposed to the Senate a penalty on women who united
themselves in marriage to slaves, and it was decided that those who had thus
demeaned themselves, without the knowledge of the slave's master, should be
reduced to slavery; if with his consent, should be ranked as freedwomen. To
Pallas, who, as the emperor declared, was the author of this proposal, were
offered on the motion of Barea Soranus, consul-elect, the decorations of the
praetorship and fifteen million sesterces. Cornelius Scipio added that he
deserved public thanks for thinking less of his ancient nobility as a
descendant from the kings of Arcadia, than of the welfare of the State, and
allowing himself to be numbered among the emperor's ministers. Claudius
assured them that Pallas was content with the honour, and that he limited
himself to his former poverty. A decree of the Senate was publicly inscribed
on a bronze tablet, heaping the praises of primitive frugality on a freedman,
the possessor of three hundred million sesterces.
Not
equally moderate was his brother, surnamed Felix, who had for some time been
governor of Judaea, and thought that he could do any evil act with impunity,
backed up as he was by such power. It is true that the Jews had shown
symptoms of commotion in a seditious outbreak, and when they had heard of the
assassination of Caius, there was no hearty submission, as a fear still
lingered that any of the emperors might impose the same orders. Felix
meanwhile, by ill-timed remedies, stimulated disloyal acts; while he had, as
a rival in the worst wickedness, Ventidius Cumanus, who held a part of the
province, which was so divided that Galilea was governed by Cumanus, Samaria
by Felix. The two peoples had long been at feud, and now less than ever
restrained their enmity, from contempt of their rulers. And accordingly they
plundered each other, letting loose bands of robbers, forming ambuscades, and
occasionally fighting battles, and carrying the spoil and booty to the two
procurators, who at first rejoiced at all this, but, as the mischief grew,
they interposed with an armed force, which was cut to pieces. The flame of
war would have spread through the province, but it was saved by Quadratus,
governor of Syria. In dealing with the Jews, who had been daring enough to
slay our soldiers, there was little hesitation about their being capitally
punished. Some delay indeed was occasioned by Cumanus and Felix; for Claudius
on hearing the causes of the rebellion had given authority for deciding also
the case of these procurators. Quadratus, however, exhibited Felix as one of
the judges, admitting him to the bench with the view of cowing the ardour of
the prosecutors. And so Cumanus was condemned for the crimes which the two
had committed, and tranquillity was restored to the province.
Not
long afterwards some tribes of the wild population of Cilicia, known as the
Clitae, which had often been in commotion, established a camp, under a leader
Troxobor, on their rocky mountains, whence rushing down on the coast, and on
the towns, they dared to do violence to the farmers and townsfolk, frequently
even to the merchants and shipowners. They besieged the city Anemurium, and
routed some troopers sent from Syria to its rescue under the command of
Curtius Severus; for the rough country in the neighbourhood, suited as it is
for the fighting of infantry, did not allow of cavalry operations. After a
time, Antiochus, king of that coast, having broken the unity of the barbarian
forces, by cajolery of the people and treachery to their leader, slew Troxobor
and a few chiefs, and pacified the rest by gentle measures.
About
the same time, the mountain between Lake Fucinus and the river Liris was
bored through, and that this grand work might be seen by a multitude of
visitors, preparations were made for a naval battle on the lake, just as
formerly Augustus exhibited such a spectacle, in a basin he had made this
side the Tiber, though with light vessels, and on a smaller scale. Claudius
equipped galleys with three and four banks of oars, and nineteen thousand
men; he lined the circumference of the lake with rafts, that there might be
no means of escape at various points, but he still left full space for the
strength of the crews, the skill of the pilots, the impact of the vessels,
and the usual operations of a seafight. On the raft stood companies of the
praetorian cohorts and cavalry, with a breastwork in front of them, from
which catapults and balistas might be worked. The rest of the lake was
occupied by marines on decked vessels. An immense multitude from the
neighbouring towns, others from Rome itself, eager to see the sight or to
show respect to the emperor, crowded the banks, the hills, and mountain tops,
which thus resembled a theatre. The emperor, with Agrippina seated near him,
presided; he wore a splendid military cloak, she, a mantle of cloth of gold.
A battle was fought with all the courage of brave men, though it was between
condemned criminals. After much bloodshed they were released from the
necessity of mutual slaughter.
When
the sight was over, the outlet of the water was opened. The careless
execution of the work was apparent, the tunnel not having been bored down so
low as the bottom, or middle of the lake. Consequently after an interval the
excavations were deepened, and to attract a crowd once more, a show of
gladiators was exhibited, with floating pontoons for an infantry engagement.
A banquet too was prepared close to the outflow of the lake, and it was the
means of greatly alarming the whole company, for the water, in the violence
of its outburst, swept away the adjoining parts, shook the more remote, and
spread terror with the tremendous crash. At the same time, Agrippina availed
herself of the emperor's fright to charge Narcissus, who had been the agent
of the work, with avarice and peculation. He too was not silent, but
inveighed against the domineering temper of her sex, and her extravagant
ambition.
In
the consulship of Didius Junius and Quintus Haterius, Nero, now sixteen years
of age, married Octavia, the emperor's daughter. Anxious to distinguish
himself by noble pursuits, and the reputation of an orator, he advocated the
cause of the people of Ilium, and having eloquently recounted how Rome was
the offspring of Troy, and Aeneas the founder of the Julian line, with other
old traditions akin to myths, he gained for his clients exemption from all
public burdens. His pleading too procured for the colony of Bononia, which
had been ruined by a fire, a subvention of ten million sesterces. The
Rhodians also had their freedom restored to them, which had often been taken
away, or confirmed, according to their services to us in our foreign wars, or
their seditious misdeeds at home. Apamea, too, which had been shaken by an
earthquake, had its tribute remitted for five years.
Claudius,
on the other hand, was being prompted to exhibit the worst cruelty by the
artifices of the same Agrippina. On the accusation of Tarquitius Priscus, she
ruined Statilius Taurus, who was famous for his wealth, and at whose gardens
she cast a greedy eye. Priscus had served under Taurus in his proconsular
government of Africa, and after their return charged him with a few acts of
extortion, but particularly with magical and superstitious practices. Taurus,
no longer able to endure a false accusation and an undeserved humiliation,
put a violent end to his life before the Senate's decision was pronounced.
Tarquitius was however expelled from the Senate, a point which the senators
carried, out of hatred for the accuser, notwithstanding the intrigues of
Agrippina.
That
same year the emperor was often heard to say that the legal decisions of the
commissioners of the imperial treasury ought to have the same force as if
pronounced by himself. Lest it might be supposed that he had stumbled
inadvertently into this opinion, its principle was also secured by a decree
of the Senate on a more complete and ample scale than before. It had indeed
already been arranged by the Divine Augustus that the Roman knights who
governed Egypt should hear causes, and that their decisions were to be as
binding as those of Roman magistrates, and after a time most of the cases
formerly tried by the praetors were submitted to the knights. Claudius handed
over to them the whole administration of justice for which there had been by
sedition or war so many struggles; the Sempronian laws vesting judicial power
in the equestrian order, and those of Servilius restoring it to the Senate,
while it was for this above everything else that Marius and Sulla fought of
old. But those were days of political conflict between classes, and the
results of victory were binding on the State. Caius Oppius and Cornelius
Balbus were the first who were able, with Caesar's support, to settle
conditions of peace and terms of war. To mention after them the Matii, Vedii,
and other too influential names of Roman knights would be superfluous, when
Claudius, we know, raised freedmen whom he had set over his household to
equality with himself and with the laws.
Next
the emperor proposed to grant immunity from taxation to the people of Cos,
and he dwelt much on their antiquity. "The Argives or Coeus, the father
of Latona, were the earliest inhabitants of the island; soon afterwards, by
the arrival of Aesculapius, the art of the physician was introduced and was
practised with much fame by his descendants." Claudius named them one by
one, with the periods in which they had respectively flourished. He said too
that Xenophon, of whose medical skill he availed himself, was one of the same
family, and that they ought to grant his request and let the people of Cos
dwell free from all tribute in their sacred island, as a place devoted to the
sole service of their god. It was also certain that many obligations under
which they had laid Rome and joint victories with her might have been
recounted. Claudius however did not seek to veil under any external
considerations a concession he had made, with his usual good nature, to an
individual.
Envoys
from Byzantium having received audience, in complaining to the Senate of
their heavy burdens, recapitulated their whole history. Beginning with the
treaty which they concluded with us when we fought against that king of
Macedonia whose supposed spurious birth acquired for him the name of the
Pseudo Philip, they reminded us of the forces which they had afterwards sent
against Antiochus, Perses and Aristonicus, of the aid they had given Antonius
in the pirate-war, of their offers to Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompeius, and then
of their late services to the Caesars, when they were in occupation of a
district peculiarly convenient for the land or sea passage of generals and
armies, as well as for the conveyance of supplies.
It
was indeed on that very narrow strait which parts Europe from Asia, at
Europe's furthest extremity, that the Greeks built Byzantium. When they
consulted the Pythian Apollo as to where they should found a city, the oracle
replied that they were to seek a home opposite to the blind men's country.
This obscure hint pointed to the people of Chalcedon, who, though they
arrived there first and saw before others the advantageous position, chose
the worse. For Byzantium has a fruitful soil and productive seas, as immense
shoals of fish pour out of the Pontus and are driven by the sloping surface
of the rocks under water to quit the windings of the Asiatic shore and take
refuge in these harbours. Consequently the inhabitants were at first
money-making and wealthy traders, but afterwards, under the pressure of
excessive burdens, they petitioned for immunity or at least relief, and were
supported by the emperor, who argued to the Senate that, exhausted as they
were by the late wars in Thrace and Bosporus, they deserved help. So their
tribute was remitted for five years.
In
the year of the consulship of Marcus Asinius and Manius Acilius it was seen
to be portended by a succession of prodigies that there were to be political
changes for the worse. The soldiers' standards and tents were set in a blaze
by lightning. A swarm of bees settled on the summit of the Capitol; births of
monsters, half man, half beast, and of a pig with a hawk's talons, were
reported. It was accounted a portent that every order of magistrates had had
its number reduced, a quaestor, an aedile, a tribune, a praetor and consul
having died within a few months. But Agrippina's terror was the most
conspicuous. Alarmed by some words dropped by Claudius when half intoxicated,
that it was his destiny to have to endure his wives' infamy and at last
punish it, she determined to act without a moment's delay. First she
destroyed Lepida from motives of feminine jealousy. Lepida indeed as the
daughter of the younger Antonia, as the grandniece of Augustus, the cousin of
Agrippina, and sister of her husband Cneius, thought herself of equally high
rank. In beauty, youth, and wealth they differed but slightly. Both were
shameless, infamous, and intractable, and were rivals in vice as much as in
the advantages they had derived from fortune. It was indeed a desperate
contest whether the aunt or the mother should have most power over Nero.
Lepida tried to win the young prince's heart by flattery and lavish
liberality, while Agrippina on the other hand, who could give her son empire
but could not endure that he should be emperor, was fierce and full of
menace.
It
was charged on Lepida that she had made attempts on the Emperor's consort by
magical incantations, and was disturbing the peace of Italy by an imperfect
control of her troops of slaves in Calabria. She was for this sentenced to
death, notwithstanding the vehement opposition of Narcissus, who, as he more
and more suspected Agrippina, was said to have plainly told his intimate
friends that "his destruction was certain, whether Britannicus or Nero
were to be emperor, but that he was under such obligations to Claudius that
he would sacrifice life to his welfare. Messalina and Silius had been
convicted, and now again there were similar grounds for accusation. If Nero
were to rule, or Britannicus succeed to the throne, he would himself have no
claim on the then reigning sovereign. Meanwhile, a stepmother's treacherous
schemes were convulsing the whole imperial house, with far greater disgrace
than would have resulted from his concealment of the profligacy of the
emperor's former wife. Even as it was, there was shamelessness enough, seeing
that Pallas was her paramour, so that no one could doubt that she held
honour, modesty and her very person, everything, in short, cheaper than
sovereignty." This, and the like, he was always saying, and he would
embrace Britannicus, expressing earnest wishes for his speedy arrival at a
mature age, and would raise his hand, now to heaven, now to the young prince,
with entreaty that as he grew up, he would drive out his father's enemies and
also take vengeance on the murderers of his mother.
Under
this great burden of anxiety, he had an attack of illness, and went to
Sinuessa to recruit his strength with its balmy climate and salubrious
waters. Thereupon, Agrippina, who had long decided on the crime and eagerly
grasped at the opportunity thus offered, and did not lack instruments,
deliberated on the nature of the poison to be used. The deed would be
betrayed by one that was sudden and instantaneous, while if she chose a slow
and lingering poison, there was a fear that Claudius, when near his end,
might, on detecting the treachery, return to his love for his son. She
decided on some rare compound which might derange his mind and delay death. A
person skilled in such matters was selected, Locusta by name, who had lately
been condemned for poisoning, and had long been retained as one of the tools
of despotism. By this woman's art the poison was prepared, and it was to be
administered by an eunuch, Halotus, who was accustomed to bring in and taste
the dishes.
All
the circumstances were subsequently so well known, that writers of the time
have declared that the poison was infused into some mushrooms, a favourite
delicacy, and its effect not at the instant perceived, from the emperor's
lethargic, or intoxicated condition. His bowels too were relieved, and this
seemed to have saved him. Agrippina was thoroughly dismayed. Fearing the
worst, and defying the immediate obloquy of the deed, she availed herself of
the complicity of Xenophon, the physician, which she had already secured.
Under pretence of helping the emperor's efforts to vomit, this man, it is
supposed, introduced into his throat a feather smeared with some rapid
poison; for he knew that the greatest crimes are perilous in their inception,
but well rewarded after their consummation.
Meanwhile
the Senate was summoned, and prayers rehearsed by the consuls and priests for
the emperor's recovery, though the lifeless body was being wrapped in
blankets with warm applications, while all was being arranged to establish
Nero on the throne. At first Agrippina, seemingly overwhelmed by grief and
seeking comfort, clasped Britannicus in her embraces, called him the very
image of his father, and hindered him by every possible device from leaving
the chamber. She also detained his sisters, Antonia and Octavia, closed every
approach to the palace with a military guard, and repeatedly gave out that
the emperor's health was better, so that the soldiers might be encouraged to
hope, and that the fortunate moment foretold by the astrologers might arrive.
At
last, at noon on the 13th of October, the gates of the palace were suddenly
thrown open, and Nero, accompanied by Burrus, went forth to the cohort which
was on guard after military custom. There, at the suggestion of the
commanding officer, he was hailed with joyful shouts, and set on a litter.
Some, it is said, hesitated, and looked round and asked where Britannicus
was; then, when there was no one to lead a resistance, they yielded to what
was offered them. Nero was conveyed into the camp, and having first spoken
suitably to the occasion and promised a donative after the example of his
father's bounty, he was unanimously greeted as emperor. The decrees of the
Senate followed the voice of the soldiers, and there was no hesitation in the
provinces. Divine honours were decreed to Claudius, and his funeral rites
were solemnized on the same scale as those of Augustus; for Agrippina strove
to emulate the magnificence of her great-grandmother, Livia. But his will was
not publicly read, as the preference of the stepson to the son might provoke
a sense of wrong and angry feeling in the popular mind.
THE destruction of
Messalina shook the imperial house; for a strife arose among the freedmen,
who should choose a wife for Claudius, impatient as he was of a single life
and submissive to eat the rule of wives. The ladies were fired with no less
jealousy. Each insisted on her rank, beauty, and fortune, and pointed to her
claims to such a marriage. But the keenest competition was between Lollia
Paulina, the daughter of Marcus Lollius, an ex-consul, and Julia Agrippina,
the daughter of Germanicus. Callistus favoured the first, Pallas the second.
Aelia Paetina however, of the family of the Tuberones, had the support of
Narcissus. The emperor, who inclined now one way, now another, as he listened
to this or that adviser, summoned the disputants to a conference and bade
them express their opinions and give their reasons.
Narcissus
dwelt on the marriage of years gone by, on the tie of offspring, for Paetina
was the mother of Antonia, and on the advantage of excluding a new element
from his household, by the return of a wife to whom he was accustomed, and
who would assuredly not look with a stepmother's animosity on Britannicus and
Octavia, who were next in her affections to her own children. Callistus
argued that she was compromised by her long separation, and that were she to
be taken back, she would be supercilious on the strength of it. It would be
far better to introduce Lollia, for, as she had no children of her own, she
would be free from jealousy, and would take the place of a mother towards her
stepchildren. Pallas again selected Agrippina for special commendation
because she would bring with her Germanicus's grandson, who was thoroughly
worthy of imperial rank, the scion of a noble house and a link to unite the
descendants of the Claudian family. He hoped that a woman who was the mother
of many children and still in the freshness of youth, would not carry off the
grandeur of the Caesars to some other house.
This
advice prevailed, backed up as it was by Agrippina's charms. On the pretext
of her relationship, she paid frequent visits to her uncle, and so won his
heart, that she was preferred to the others, and, though not yet his wife,
already possessed a wife's power. For as soon as she was sure of her
marriage, she began to aim at greater things, and planned an alliance between
Domitius, her son by Cneius Aenobarbus, and Octavia, the emperor's daughter.
This could not be accomplished without a crime, for the emperor had betrothed
Octavia to Lucius Silanus, a young man otherwise famous, whom he had brought
forward as a candidate for popular favour by the honour of triumphal
distinctions and by a magnificent gladiatorial show. But no difficulty seemed
to be presented by the temper of a sovereign who had neither partialities nor
dislikes, but such as were suggested and dictated to him.
Vitellius
accordingly, who used the name of censor to screen a slave's trickeries, and
looked forward to new despotisms, already impending, associated himself in
Agrippina's plans, with a view to her favour, and began to bring charges
against Silanus, whose sister, Junia Calvina, a handsome and lively girl, had
shortly before become his daughter-in-law. Here was a starting point for an
accuser. Vitellius put an infamous construction on the somewhat incautious
though not criminal love between the brother and sister. The emperor
listened, for his affection for his daughter inclined him the more to admit
suspicions against his son-in-law. Silanus meanwhile, who knew nothing of the
plot, and happened that year to be praetor, was suddenly expelled from the Senate
by an edict of Vitellius, though the roll of Senators had been recently
reviewed and the lustrum closed. Claudius at the same time broke off the
connection; Silanus was forced to resign his office, and the one remaining
day of his praetorship was conferred on Eprius Marcellus.
In
the year of the consulship of Caius Pompeius and Quintus Veranius, the
marriage arranged between Claudius and Agrippina was confirmed both by
popular rumour and by their own illicit love. Still, they did not yet dare to
celebrate the nuptials in due form, for there was no precedent for the
introduction of a niece into an uncle's house. It was positively incest, and
if disregarded, it would, people feared, issue in calamity to the State.
These scruples ceased not till Vitellius undertook the management of the
matter in his own way. He asked the emperor whether he would yield to the
recommendations of the people and to the authority of the Senate. When
Claudius replied that he was one among the citizens and could not resist
their unanimous voice, Vitellius requested him to wait in the palace, while
he himself went to the Senate. Protesting that the supreme interest of the
commonwealth was at stake, he begged to be allowed to speak first, and then
began to urge that the very burdensome labours of the emperor in a world-wide
administration, required assistance, so that, free from domestic cares, he
might consult the public welfare. How again could there be a more virtuous
relief for the mind of an imperial censor than the taking of a wife to share
his prosperity and his troubles, to whom he might intrust his inmost thoughts
and the care of his young children, unused as he was to luxury and pleasure,
and wont from his earliest youth to obey the laws.
Vitellius,
having first put forward these arguments in a conciliatory speech, and met
with decided acquiescence from the Senate, began afresh to point out, that,
as they all recommended the emperor's marriage, they ought to select a lady
conspicuous for noble rank and purity, herself too the mother of children.
"It cannot," he said, "be long a question that Agrippina
stands first in nobility of birth. She has given proof too that she is not
barren, and she has suitable moral qualities. It is, again, a singular
advantage to us, due to divine providence, for a widow to be united to an
emperor who has limited himself to his own lawful wives. We have heard from
our fathers, we have ourselves seen that married women were seized at the
caprice of the Caesars. This is quite alien to the propriety of our day.
Rather let a precedent be now set for the taking of a wife by an emperor.
But, it will be said, marriage with a brother's daughter is with us a
novelty. True; but it is common in other countries, and there is no law to
forbid it. Marriages of cousins were long unknown, but after a time they
became frequent. Custom adapts itself to expediency, and this novelty will
hereafter take its place among recognized usages."
There
were some who rushed out of the Senate passionately protesting that if the
emperor hesitated, they would use violence. A promiscuous throng assembled,
and kept exclaiming that the same too was the prayer of the Roman people.
Claudius without further delay presented himself in the forum to their
congratulations; then entering the Senate, he asked from them a decree which
should decide that for the future marriages between uncles and brothers'
daughters should be legal. There was, however, found only one person who
desired such a marriage, Alledius Severus, a Roman knight, who, as many said,
was swayed by the influence of Agrippina. Then came a revolution in the
State, and everything was under the control of a woman, who did not, like
Messalina, insult Rome by loose manners. It was a stringent, and, so to say,
masculine despotism; there was sternness and generally arrogance in public,
no sort of immodesty at home, unless it conduced to power. A boundless greed
of wealth was veiled under the pretext that riches were being accumulated as
a prop to the throne.
On
the day of the marriage Silanus committed suicide, having up to that time
prolonged his hope of life, or else choosing that day to heighten the popular
indignation. His sister, Calvina, was banished from Italy. Claudius further
added that sacrifices after the ordinances of King Tullius, and atonements
were to be offered by the pontiffs in the grove of Diana, amid general
ridicule at the idea devising penalties and propitiations for incest at such
a time. Agrippina, that she might not be conspicuous only by her evil deeds,
procured for Annaeus Seneca a remission of his exile, and with it the
praetorship. She thought this would be universally welcome, from the
celebrity of his attainments, and it was her wish too for the boyhood of
Domitius to be trained under so excellent an instructor, and for them to have
the benefit of his counsels in their designs on the throne. For Seneca, it
was believed, was devoted to Agrippina from a remembrance of her kindness,
and an enemy to Claudius from a bitter sense of wrong.
It
was then resolved to delay no longer. Memmius Pollio, the consul-elect, was
induced by great promises to deliver a speech, praying Claudius to betroth
Octavia to Domitius. The match was not unsuitable to the age of either, and
was likely to develop still more important results. Pollio introduced the
motion in much the same language as Vitellius had lately used. So Octavia was
betrothed, and Domitius, besides his previous relationship, became now the
emperor's affianced son-in-law, and an equal of Britannicus, through the
exertions of his mother and the cunning of those who had been the accusers of
Messalina, and feared the vengeance of her son.
About
the same time an embassy from the Parthians, which had been sent, as I have
stated, to solicit the return of Meherdates, was introduced into the Senate,
and delivered a message to the following effect:- "They were not,"
they said, "unaware of the treaty of alliance, nor did their coming
imply any revolt from the family of the Arsacids; indeed, even the son of
Vonones, Phraates's grandson, was with them in their resistance to the
despotism of Gotarzes, which was alike intolerable to the nobility and to the
people. Already brothers, relatives, and distant kin had been swept off by
murder after murder; wives actually pregnant, and tender children were added
to Gotarzes' victims, while, slothful at home and unsuccessful in war, he
made cruelty a screen for his feebleness. Between the Parthians and ourselves
there was an ancient friendship, founded on a state alliance, and we ought to
support allies who were our rivals in strength, and yet yielded to us out of
respect. Kings' sons were given as hostages, in order that when Parthia was
tired of home rule, it might fall back on the emperor and the Senate, and
receive from them a better sovereign, familiar with Roman habits."
In
answer to these and like arguments Claudius began to speak of the grandeur of
Rome and the submissive attitude of the Parthians. He compared himself to the
Divine Augustus, from whom, he reminded them, they had sought a king, but
omitted to mention Tiberius, though he too had sent them sovereigns. He added
some advice for Meherdates, who was present, and told him not to be thinking
of a despot and his slaves, but rather of a ruler among fellow citizens, and
to practise clemency and justice which barbarians would like the more for
being unused to them. Then he turned to the envoys and bestowed high praise
on the young foster-son of Rome, as one whose self-control had hitherto been
exemplary. "Still," he said, "they must bear with the caprices
of kings, and frequent revolutions were bad. Rome, sated with her glory, had
reached such a height that, she wished even foreign nations to enjoy
repose." Upon this Caius Cassius, governor of Syria, was commissioned to
escort the young prince to the bank of the Euphrates.
Cassius
was at that time pre-eminent for legal learning. The profession of the
soldier is forgotten in a quiet period, and peace reduces the enterprising
and indolent to an equality. But Cassius, as far as it was possible without
war, revived ancient discipline, kept exercising the legions, in short, used
as much diligence and precaution as if an enemy were threatening him. This
conduct he counted worthy of his ancestors and of the Cassian family which
had won renown even in those countries. He then summoned those at whose
suggestion a king had been sought from Rome, and having encamped at Zeugma
where the river was most easily fordable and awaited the arrival of the chief
men of Parthia and of Acbarus, king of the Arabs, he reminded Meherdates that
the impulsive enthusiasm of barbarians soon flags from delay or even changes
into treachery, and that therefore he should urge on his enterprise. The
advice was disregarded through the perfidy Acbarus, by whom the foolish young
prince, who thought that the highest position merely meant self-indulgence,
was detained for several days in the town of Edessa. Although a certain
Carenes pressed them to come and promised easy success if they hastened their
arrival, they did not make for Mesopotamia, which was close to them, but, by
a long detour, for Armenia, then ill-suited to their movements, as winter was
beginning.
As
they approached the plains, wearied with the snows and mountains, they were
joined by the forces of Carenes, and having crossed the river Tigris they
traversed the country of the Adiabeni, whose king Izates had avowedly
embraced the alliance of Meherdates, though secretly and in better faith he
inclined to Gotarzes. In their march they captured the city of Ninos, the
most ancient capital of Assyria, and a fortress, historically famous, as the
spot where the last battle between Darius and Alexander the power of Persia
fell. Gotarzes meantime was offering vows to the local divinities on a
mountain called Sambulos, with special worship of Hercules, who at a stated
time bids the priests in a dream equip horses for the chase and place them
near his temple. When the horses have been laden with quivers full of arrows,
they scour the forest and at length return at night with empty quivers,
panting violently. Again the god in a vision of the night reveals to them the
track along which he roamed through the woods, and everywhere slaughtered
beasts are found.
Gotarzes,
his army not being yet in sufficient force, made the river Corma a line of
defence, and though he was challenged to an engagement by taunting messages,
he contrived delays, shifted his positions and sent emissaries to corrupt the
enemy and bribe them to throw off their allegiance. Izates of the Adiabeni
and then Acbarus of the Arabs deserted with their troops, with their
countrymen's characteristic fickleness, confirming previous experience, that
barbarians prefer to seek a king from Rome than to keep him. Meherdates,
stript of his powerful auxiliaries and suspecting treachery in the rest,
resolved, as his last resource, to risk everything and try the issue of a
battle. Nor did Gotarzes, who was emboldened by the enemy's diminished
strength, refuse the challenge. They fought with terrible courage and
doubtful result, till Carenes, who having beaten down all resistance had
advanced too far, was surprised by a fresh detachment in his rear. Then
Meherdates in despair yielded to promises from Parrhaces, one of his father's
adherents, and was by his treachery delivered in chains to the conqueror.
Gotarzes taunted him with being no kinsman of his or of the Arsacids, but a
foreigner and a Roman, and having cut off his ears, bade him live, a memorial
of his own clemency, and a disgrace to us. After this Gotarzes fell ill and
died, and Vonones, who then ruled the Medes, was summoned to the throne. He
was memorable neither for his good nor bad fortune; he completed a short and
inglorious reign, and then the empire of Parthia passed to his son Vologeses.
Mithridates
of Bosporus, meanwhile, who had lost his power and was a mere outcast, on
learning that the Roman general, Didius, and the main strength of his army
had retired, and that Cotys, a young prince without experience, was left in
his new kingdom with a few cohorts under Julius Aquila, a Roman knight,
disdaining both, roused the neighbouring tribes, and drew deserters to his
standard. At last he collected an army, drove out the king of the Dandaridae,
and possessed himself of his dominions. When this was known, and the invasion
of Bosporus was every moment expected, Aquila and Cotys, seeing that
hostilities had been also resumed by Zorsines, king of the Siraci, distrusted
their own strength, and themselves too sought the friendship of the foreigner
by sending envoys to Eunones, who was then chief of the Adorsi. There was no
difficulty about alliance, when they pointed to the power of Rome in contrast
with the rebel Mithridates. It was accordingly stipulated that Eunones should
engage the enemy with his cavalry, and the Romans undertake the siege of
towns.
Then
the army advanced in regular formation, the Adorsi in the van and the rear,
while the centre was strengthened by the cohorts, and native troops of
Bosporus with Roman arms. Thus the enemy was defeated, and they reached Soza,
a town in Dandarica, which Mithridates had abandoned, where it was thought
expedient to leave a garrison, as the temper of the people was uncertain.
Next they marched on the Siraci, and after crossing the river Panda besieged
the city of Uspe, which stood on high ground, and had the defence of wall and
fosses; only the walls, not being of stone, but of hurdles and wicker-work
with earth between, were too weak to resist an assault. Towers were raised to
a greater height as a means of annoying the besieged with brands and darts.
Had not night stopped the conflict, the siege would have been begun and
finished within one day.
Next
day they sent an embassy asking mercy for the freeborn, and offering ten
thousand slaves. As it would have been inhuman to slay the prisoners, and
very difficult to keep them under guard, the conquerors rejected the offer,
preferring that they should perish by the just doom of war. The signal for
massacre was therefore given to the soldiers, who had mounted the walls by
scaling ladders. The destruction of Uspe struck terror into the rest of the
people, who thought safety impossible when they saw how armies and ramparts,
heights and difficult positions, rivers and cities, alike yielded to their
foe. And so Zorsines, having long considered whether he should still have
regard to the fallen fortunes of Mithridates or to the kingdom of his
fathers, and having at last preferred his country's interests, gave hostages
and prostrated himself before the emperor's image, to the great glory of the
Roman army, which all men knew to have come after a bloodless victory within
three days' march of the river Tanais. In their return however fortune was
not equally favourable; some of their vessels, as they were sailing back,
were driven on the shores of the Tauri and cut off by the barbarians, who
slew the commander of a cohort and several centurions.
Meanwhile
Mithridates, finding arms an unavailing resource, considered on whose mercy
he was to throw himself. He feared his brother Cotys, who had once been a
traitor, then become his open enemy. No Roman was on the spot of authority
sufficient to make his promises highly valued. So he turned to Eunones, who
had no personal animosity against him, and had been lately strengthened by
his alliance with us. Adapting his dress and expression of countenance as
much as possible to his present condition, he entered the palace, and
throwing himself at the feet of Eunones he exclaimed, "Mithridates, whom
the Romans have sought so many years by land and sea, stands before you by
his own choice. Deal as you please with the descendant of the great
Achaemenes, the only glory of which enemies have not robbed me."
The
great name of Mithridates, his reverse, his prayer, full of dignity, deeply
affected Eunones. He raised the suppliant, and commended him for having
chosen the nation of the Adorsi and his own good faith in suing for mercy. He
sent at the same time envoys to Caesar with a letter to this effect, that
friendship between emperors of Rome and sovereigns of powerful peoples was
primarily based on a similarity of fortune, and that between himself and
Claudius there was the tie of a common victory. Wars had glorious endings,
whenever matters were settled by an amnesty. The conquered Zorsines had on
this principle been deprived of nothing. For Mithridates, as he deserved
heavier punishment, he asked neither power nor dominions, only that he might
not be led in triumph, and pay the penalty of death.
Claudius,
though merciful to foreign princes, was yet in doubt whether it were better
to receive the captive with a promise of safety or to claim his surrender by
the sword. To this last he was urged by resentment at his wrongs, and by
thirst for vengeance. On the other hand it was argued that it would be
undertaking a war in a country without roads, on a harbourless sea, against
warlike kings and wandering tribes, on a barren soil; that a weary disgust
would come of tardy movements, and perils of precipitancy; that the glory of
victory would be small, while much disgrace would ensue on defeat. Why should
not the emperor seize the offer and spare the exile, whose punishment would
be the greater, the longer he lived in poverty? Moved by these considerations,
Claudius wrote to Eunones that Mithridates had certainly merited an extreme
and exemplary penalty, which he was not wanting in power to inflict, but it
had been the principle of his ancestors to show as much forbearance to a
suppliant as they showed persistence against a foe. As for triumphs, they
were won over nations and kings hitherto unconquered.
After
this, Mithridates was given up and brought to Rome by Junius Cilo, the
procurator of Pontus. There in the emperor's presence he was said to have
spoken too proudly for his position, and words uttered by him to the
following effect became the popular talk: "I have not been sent, but
have come back to you; if you do not believe me, let me go and pursue
me." He stood too with fearless countenance when he was exposed to the
people's gaze near the Rostra, under military guard. To Cilo and Aquila were
voted, respectively, the consular and praetorian decorations.
In
the same consulship, Agrippina, who was terrible in her hatred and detested
Lollia, for having competed with her for the emperor's hand, planned an
accusation, through an informer who was to tax her with having consulted
astrologers and magicians and the image of the Clarian Apollo, about the
imperial marriage. Upon this, Claudius, without hearing the accused, first
reminded the Senate of her illustrious rank, that the sister of Lucius
Volusius was her mother, Cotta Messalinus her granduncle, Memmius Regulus
formerly her husband (for of her marriage to Caius Caesar he purposely said
nothing), and then added that she had mischievous designs on the State, and
must have the means of crime taken from her. Consequently, her property
should be confiscated, and she herself banished from Italy. Thus out of
immense wealth only five million sesterces were left to the exile. Calpurnia
too, a lady of high rank, was ruined, simply because the emperor had praised
her beauty in a casual remark, without any passion for her. And so
Agrippina's resentment stopped short of extreme vengeance. A tribune was
despatched to Lollia, who was to force her to suicide. Next on the
prosecution of the Bithynians, Cadius Rufus, was condemned under the law
against extortion.
Narbon
Gaul, for its special reverence of the Senate, received a privilege. Senators
belonging to the province, without seeking the emperor's approval, were to be
allowed to visit their estates, a right enjoyed by Sicily. Ituraea and
Judaea, on the death of their kings, Sohaemus and Agrippa, were annexed to
the province of Syria. It was also decided that the augury of the public
safety, which for twenty-five years had been neglected, should be revived and
henceforth observed. The emperor likewise widened the sacred precincts of the
capital, in conformity with the ancient usage, according to which, those who
had enlarged the empire were permitted also to extend the boundaries of Rome.
But Roman generals, even after the conquest of great nations, had never
exercised this right, except Lucius Sulla and the Divine Augustus.
There
are various popular accounts of the ambitious and vainglorious efforts of our
kings in this matter. Still, I think, it is interesting to know accurately
the original plan of the precinct, as it was fixed by Romulus. From the ox
market, where we see the brazen statue of a bull, because that animal is
yoked to the plough, a furrow was drawn to mark out the town, so as to
embrace the great altar of Hercules; then, at regular intervals, stones were
placed along the foot of the Palatine hill to the altar of Consus, soon
afterwards, to the old Courts, and then to the chapel of Larunda. The Roman
forum and the Capitol were not, it was supposed, added to the city by
Romulus, but by Titus Tatius. In time, the precinct was enlarged with the
growth of Rome's fortunes. The boundaries now fixed by Claudius may be easily
recognized, as they are specified in the public records.
In
the consulship of Caius Antistius and Marcus Suilius, the adoption of
Domitius was hastened on by the influence of Pallas. Bound to Agrippina,
first as the promoter of her marriage, then as her paramour, he still urged
Claudius to think of the interests of the State, and to provide some support
for the tender years of Britannicus. "So," he said, "it had
been with the Divine Augustus, whose stepsons, though he had grandsons to be
his stay, had been promoted; Tiberius too, though he had offspring of his
own, had adopted Germanicus. Claudius also would do well to strengthen
himself with a young prince who could share his cares with him."
Overcome by these arguments, the emperor preferred Domitius to his own son,
though he was but two years older, and made a speech in the senate, the same
in substance as the representations of his freedman. It was noted by learned
men, that no previous example of adoption into the patrician family of the
Claudii was to be found; and that from Attus Clausus there had been one
unbroken line.
However,
the emperor received formal thanks, and still more elaborate flattery was
paid to Domitius. A law was passed, adopting him into the Claudian family
with the name of Nero. Agrippina too was honoured with the title of Augusta.
When this had been done, there was not a person so void of pity as not to
feel keen sorrow at the position of Britannicus. Gradually forsaken by the
very slaves who waited on him, he turned into ridicule the ill-timed
attentions of his stepmother, perceiving their insincerity. For he is said to
have had by no means a dull understanding; and this is either a fact, or
perhaps his perils won him sympathy, and so he possessed the credit of it,
without actual evidence.
Agrippina,
to show her power even to the allied nations, procured the despatch of a
colony of veterans to the chief town of the Ubii, where she was born. The
place was named after her. Agrippa, her grandfather, had, as it happened,
received this tribe, when they crossed the Rhine, under our protection.
During the same time, there was a panic in Upper Germany through an irruption
of plundering bands of Chatti. Thereupon Lucius Pomponius, who was in
command, directed the Vangiones and Nemetes, with the allied cavalry, to
anticipate the raid, and suddenly to fall upon them from every quarter while
they were dispersed. The general's plan was backed up by the energy of the
troops. These were divided into two columns; and those who marched to the
left cut off the plunderers, just on their return, after a riotous enjoyment
of their spoil, when they were heavy with sleep. It added to the men's joy
that they had rescued from slavery after forty years some survivors of the
defeat of Varus.
The
column which took the right-hand and the shorter route, inflicted greater
loss on the enemy who met them, and ventured on a battle. With much spoil and
glory they returned to Mount Taunus, where Pomponius was waiting with the
legions, to see whether the Chatti, in their eagerness for vengeance, would
give him a chance of fighting. They however fearing to be hemmed in on one
side by the Romans, on the other by the Cherusci, with whom they are
perpetually at feud, sent envoys and hostages to Rome. To Pomponius was
decreed the honour of a triumph; a mere fraction of his renown with the next
generation, with whom his poems constitute his chief glory.
At
this same time, Vannius, whom Drusus Caesar had made king of the Suevi, was
driven from his kingdom. In the commencement of his reign he was renowned and
popular with his countrymen; but subsequently, with long possession, he
became a tyrant, and the enmity of neighbours, joined to intestine strife,
was his ruin. Vibillius, king of the Hermunduri, and Vangio and Sido, sons of
a sister of Vannius, led the movement. Claudius, though often entreated,
declined to interpose by arms in the conflict of the barbarians, and simply
promised Vannius a safe refuge in the event of his expulsion. He wrote
instructions to Publius Atellius Hister, governor of Pannonia, that he was to
have his legions, with some picked auxiliaries from the province itself,
encamped on the riverbank, as a support to the conquered and a terror to the
conqueror, who might otherwise, in the elation of success, disturb also the
peace of our empire. For an immense host of Ligii, with other tribes, was
advancing, attracted by the fame of the opulent realm which Vannius had
enriched during thirty years of plunder and of tribute. Vannius's own native
force was infantry, and his cavalry was from the Iazyges of Sarmatia; an army
which was no match for his numerous enemy. Consequently, he determined to
maintain himself in fortified positions, and protract the war.
But
the Iazyges, who could not endure a siege, dispersed themselves throughout
the surrounding country and rendered an engagement inevitable, as the Ligii
and Hermunduri had there rushed to the attack. So Vannius came down out of
his fortresses, and though he was defeated in battle, notwithstanding his
reverse, he won some credit by having fought with his own hand, and received
wounds on his breast. He then fled to the fleet which was awaiting him on the
Danube, and was soon followed by his adherents, who received grants of land
and were settled in Pannonia. Vangio and Sido divided his kingdom between
them; they were admirably loyal to us, and among their subjects, whether the
cause was in themselves or in the nature of despotism, much loved, while seeking
to acquire power, and yet more hated when they had acquired it.
Meanwhile,
in Britain, Publius Ostorius, the propraetor, found himself confronted by
disturbance. The enemy had burst into the territories of our allies with all
the more fury, as they imagined that a new general would not march against
them with winter beginning and with an army of which he knew nothing.
Ostorius, well aware that first events are those which produce alarm or
confidence, by a rapid movement of his light cohorts, cut down all who
opposed him, pursued those who fled, and lest they should rally, and so an
unquiet and treacherous peace might allow no rest to the general and his
troops, he prepared to disarm all whom he suspected, and to occupy with
encampments the whole country to the Avon and Severn. The Iceni, a powerful
tribe, which war had not weakened, as they had voluntarily joined our
alliance, were the first to resist. At their instigation the surrounding
nations chose as a battlefield a spot walled in by a rude barrier, with a
narrow approach, impenetrable to cavalry. Through these defences the Roman
general, though he had with him only the allied troops, without the strength
of the legions, attempted to break, and having assigned their positions to
his cohorts, he equipped even his cavalry for the work of infantry. Then at a
given signal they forced the barrier, routing the enemy who were entangled in
their own defences. The rebels, conscious of their guilt, and finding escape
barred, performed many noble feats. In this battle, Marius Ostorius, the
general's son, won the reward for saving a citizen's life.
The
defeat of the Iceni quieted those who were hesitating between war and peace.
Then the army was marched against the Cangi; their territory was ravaged,
spoil taken everywhere without the enemy venturing on an engagement, or if
they attempted to harass our march by stealthy attacks, their cunning was
always punished. And now Ostorius had advanced within a little distance of
the sea, facing the island Hibernia, when feuds broke out among the Brigantes
and compelled the general's return, for it was his fixed purpose not to
undertake any fresh enterprise till he had consolidated his previous
successes. The Brigantes indeed, when a few who were beginning hostilities
had been slain and the rest pardoned, settled down quietly; but on the
Silures neither terror nor mercy had the least effect; they persisted in war
and could be quelled only by legions encamped in their country. That this
might be the more promptly effected, a colony of a strong body of veterans
was established at Camulodunum on the conquered lands, as a defence against
the rebels, and as a means of imbuing the allies with respect for our laws.
The
army then marched against the Silures, a naturally fierce people and now full
of confidence in the might of Caractacus, who by many an indecisive and many
a successful battle had raised himself far above all the other generals of
the Britons. Inferior in military strength, but deriving an advantage from
the deceptiveness of the country, he at once shifted the war by a stratagem
into the territory of the Ordovices, where, joined by all who dreaded peace
with us, he resolved on a final struggle. He selected a position for the
engagement in which advance and retreat alike would be difficult for our men
and comparatively easy for his own, and then on some lofty hills, wherever
their sides could be approached by a gentle slope, he piled up stones to serve
as a rampart. A river too of varying depth was in his front, and his armed
bands were drawn up before his defences.
Then
too the chieftains of the several tribes went from rank to rank, encouraging
and confirming the spirit of their men by making light of their fears,
kindling their hopes, and by every other warlike incitement. As for
Caractacus, he flew hither and thither, protesting that that day and that
battle would be the beginning of the recovery of their freedom, or of
everlasting bondage. He appealed, by name, to their forefathers who had
driven back the dictator Caesar, by whose valour they were free from the
Roman axe and tribute, and still preserved inviolate the persons of their
wives and of their children. While he was thus speaking, the host shouted
applause; every warrior bound himself by his national oath not to shrink from
weapons or wounds.
Such
enthusiasm confounded the Roman general. The river too in his face, the
rampart they had added to it, the frowning hilltops, the stern resistance and
masses of fighting men everywhere apparent, daunted him. But his soldiers
insisted on battle, exclaiming that valour could overcome all things; and the
prefects and tribunes, with similar language, stimulated the ardour of the
troops. Ostorius having ascertained by a survey the inaccessible and the
assailable points of the position, led on his furious men, and crossed the
river without difficulty. When he reached the barrier, as long as it was a
fight with missiles, the wounds and the slaughter fell chiefly on our
soldiers; but when he had formed the military testudo, and the rude,
ill-compacted fence of stones was torn down, and it was an equal hand-to-hand
engagement, the barbarians retired to the heights. Yet even there, both light
and heavy-armed soldiers rushed to the attack; the first harassed the foe
with missiles, while the latter closed with them, and the opposing ranks of
the Britons were broken, destitute as they were of the defence of
breast-plates or helmets. When they faced the auxiliaries, they were felled
by the swords and javelins of our legionaries; if they wheeled round, they
were again met by the sabres and spears of the auxiliaries. It was a glorious
victory; the wife and daughter of Caractacus were captured, and his brothers
too were admitted to surrender.
There
is seldom safety for the unfortunate, and Caractacus, seeking the protection
of Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes, was put in chains and delivered up to
the conquerors, nine years after the beginning of the war in Britain. His
fame had spread thence, and travelled to the neighbouring islands and
provinces, and was actually celebrated in Italy. All were eager to see the
great man, who for so many years had defied our power. Even at Rome the name
of Caractacus was no obscure one; and the emperor, while he exalted his own
glory, enhanced the renown of the vanquished. The people were summoned as to
a grand spectacle; the praetorian cohorts were drawn up under arms in the
plain in front of their camp; then came a procession of the royal vassals,
and the ornaments and neck-chains and the spoils which the king had won in
wars with other tribes, were displayed. Next were to be seen his brothers,
his wife and daughter; last of all, Caractacus himself. All the rest stooped
in their fear to abject supplication; not so the king, who neither by humble
look nor speech sought compassion.
When
he was set before the emperor's tribunal, he spoke as follows: "Had my
moderation in prosperity been equal to my noble birth and fortune, I should
have entered this city as your friend rather than as your captive; and you
would not have disdained to receive, under a treaty of peace, a king
descended from illustrious ancestors and ruling many nations. My present lot
is as glorious to you as it is degrading to myself. I had men and horses,
arms and wealth. What wonder if I parted with them reluctantly? If you Romans
choose to lord it over the world, does it follow that the world is to accept
slavery? Were I to have been at once delivered up as a prisoner, neither my
fall nor your triumph would have become famous. My punishment would be
followed by oblivion, whereas, if you save my life, I shall be an everlasting
memorial of your clemency." Upon this the emperor granted pardon to
Caractacus, to his wife, and to his brothers. Released from their bonds, they
did homage also to Agrippina who sat near, conspicuous on another throne, in
the same language of praise and gratitude. It was indeed a novelty, quite
alien to ancient manners, for a woman to sit in front of Roman standards. In
fact, Agrippina boasted that she was herself a partner in the empire which
her ancestors had won.
The
Senate was then assembled, and speeches were delivered full of pompous eulogy
on the capture of Caractacus. It was as glorious, they said, as the display
of Syphax by Scipio, or of Perses by Lucius Paulus, or indeed of any captive
prince by any of our generals to the people of Rome. Triumphal distinctions
were voted to Ostorius, who thus far had been successful, but soon afterwards
met with reverses; either because, when Caractacus was out of the way, our
discipline was relaxed under an impression that the war was ended, or because
the enemy, out of compassion for so great a king, was more ardent in his
thirst for vengeance. Instantly they rushed from all parts on the
camp-prefect, and legionary cohorts left to establish fortified positions
among the Silures, and had not speedy succour arrived from towns and
fortresses in the neighbourhood, our forces would then have been totally
destroyed. Even as it was, the camp-prefect, with eight centurions, and the
bravest of the soldiers, were slain; and shortly afterwards, a foraging party
of our men, with some cavalry squadrons sent to their support, was utterly
routed.
Ostorius
then deployed his light cohorts, but even thus he did not stop the flight,
till our legions sustained the brunt of the battle. Their strength equalized
the conflict, which after a while was in our favour. The enemy fled with
trifling loss, as the day was on the decline. Now began a series of
skirmishes, for the most part like raids, in woods and morasses, with
encounters due to chance or to courage, to mere heedlessness or to
calculation, to fury or to lust of plunder, under directions from the
officers, or sometimes even without their knowledge. Conspicuous above all in
stubborn resistance were the Silures, whose rage was fired by words rumoured
to have been spoken by the Roman general, to the effect, that as the Sugambri
had been formerly destroyed or transplanted into Gaul, so the name of the
Silures ought to be blotted out. Accordingly they cut off two of our
auxiliary cohorts, the rapacity of whose officers let them make incautious
forays; and by liberal gifts of spoil and prisoners to the other tribes, they
were luring them too into revolt, when Ostorius, worn out by the burden of
his anxieties, died, to the joy of the enemy, who thought that a campaign at
least, though not a single battle, had proved fatal to general whom none
could despise.
The
emperor on hearing of the death of his representative appointed Aulus Didius
in his place, that the province might not be left without a governor. Didius,
though he quickly arrived, found matters far from prosperous, for the legion
under the command of Manlius Valens had meanwhile been defeated, and the
disaster had been exaggerated by the enemy to alarm the new general, while he
again magnified it, that he might win the more glory by quelling the movement
or have a fairer excuse if it lasted. This loss too had been inflicted on us
by the Silures, and they were scouring the country far and wide, till Didius
hurried up and dispersed them. After the capture of Caractacus, Venutius of
the Brigantes, as I have already mentioned, was pre-eminent in military
skill; he had long been loyal to Rome and had been defended by our arms while
he was united in marriage to the queen Cartismandua. Subsequently a quarrel
broke out between them, followed instantly by war, and he then assumed a
hostile attitude also towards us. At first, however, they simply fought
against each other, and Cartismandua by cunning stratagems captured the
brothers and kinsfolk of Venutius. This enraged the enemy, who were stung
with shame at the prospect of falling under the dominion of a woman. The
flower of their youth, picked out for war, invaded her kingdom. This we had
foreseen; some cohorts were sent to her aid and a sharp contest followed,
which was at first doubtful but had a satisfactory termination. The legion
under the command of Caesius Nasica fought with a similar result. For Didius,
burdened with years and covered with honours, was content with acting through
his officers and merely holding back the enemy. These transactions, though
occurring under two propraetors, and occupying several years, I have closely
connected, lest, if related separately, they might be less easily remembered.
I now return to the chronological order.
In
the fifth consulship of Tiberius Claudius with Sextius Cornelius Orfitus for
his colleague, Nero was prematurely invested with the dress of manhood, that
he might be thought qualified for political life. The emperor willingly
complied with the flatteries of the Senate who wished Nero to enter on the
consulship in his twentieth year, and meanwhile, as consul-elect, to have
pro-consular authority beyond the limits of the capital with the title of
"prince of the youth of Rome." A donative was also given to the
soldiery in Nero's name, and presents to the city populace. At the games too
of the circus which were then being celebrated to win for him popular favour,
Britannicus wore the dress of boyhood, Nero the triumphal robe, as they rode
in the procession. The people would thus behold the one with the decorations
of a general, the other in a boy's habit, and would accordingly anticipate
their respective destinies. At the same time those of the centurions and
tribunes who pitied the lot of Britannicus were removed, some on false
pretexts, others by way of a seeming compliment. Even of the freedmen, all
who were of incorruptible fidelity were discarded on the following
provocation. Once when they met, Nero greeted Britannicus by that name and
was greeted in return as Domitius. Agrippina reported this to her husband,
with bitter complaint, as the beginning of a quarrel, as implying, in fact,
contempt of Nero's adoption and a cancelling at home of the Senate's decree
and the people's vote. She said, too, that, if the perversity of such
malignant suggestions were not checked, it would issue in the ruin of the
State. Claudius, enraged by what he took as a grave charge, punished with
banishment or death all his son's best instructors, and set persons appointed
by his stepmother to have the care of him.
Still
Agrippina did not yet dare to attempt her greatest scheme, unless Lusius Geta
and Rufius Crispinus were removed from the command of the praetorian cohorts;
for she thought that they cherished Messalina's memory and were devoted to
her children. Accordingly, as the emperor's wife persistently affirmed that
faction was rife among these cohorts through the rivalry of the two officers,
and that there would be stricter discipline under one commander, the
appointment was transferred to Burrus Afranius, who had a brilliant
reputation as a soldier, but knew well to whose wish he owed his promotion.
Agrippina, too, continued to exalt her own dignity; she would enter the
Capitol in a chariot, a practice, which being allowed of old only to the
priests and sacred images, increased the popular reverence for a woman who up
to this time was the only recorded instance of one who, an emperor's
daughter, was sister, wife, and mother of a sovereign. Meanwhile her foremost
champion, Vitellius, in the full tide of his power and in extreme age (so
uncertain are the fortunes of the great) was attacked by an accusation of
which Junius Lupus, a senator, was the author. He was charged with treason
and designs on the throne. The emperor would have lent a ready ear, had not
Agrippina, by threats rather than entreaties, induced him to sentence the
accuser to outlawry. This was all that Vitellius desired.
Several
prodigies occurred in that year. Birds of evil omen perched on the Capitol;
houses were thrown down by frequent shocks of earthquake, and as the panic
spread, all the weak were trodden down in the hurry and confusion of the
crowd. Scanty crops too, and consequent famine were regarded as a token of
calamity. Nor were there merely whispered complaints; while Claudius was
administering justice, the populace crowded round him with a boisterous
clamour and drove him to a corner of the forum, where they violently pressed
on him till he broke through the furious mob with a body of soldiers. It was
ascertained that Rome had provisions for no more than fifteen days, and it
was through the signal bounty of heaven and the mildness of the winter that
its desperate plight was relieved. And yet in past days Italy used to send
supplies for the legions into distant provinces, and even now it is not a
barren soil which causes distress. But we prefer to cultivate Africa and
Egypt, and trust the life of the Roman people to ships and all their risks.
In
the same year war broke out between the Armenians and Iberians, and was the
cause of very serious disturbances between Parthia and Rome. Vologeses was
king of the Parthians; on the mother's side, he was the offspring of a Greek
concubine, and he obtained the throne by the retirement of his brothers.
Pharasmanes had been long in possession of Iberia, and his brother,
Mithridates, ruled Armenia with our powerful support. There was a son of
Pharasmanes named Rhadamistus, tall and handsome, of singular bodily
strength, trained in all the accomplishments of his countrymen and highly
renowned among his neighbours. He boasted so arrogantly and persistently that
his father's prolonged old age kept back from him the little kingdom of
Iberia as to make no concealment of his ambition. Pharasmanes accordingly
seeing the young prince had power in his grasp and was strong in the
attachment of his people, fearing too his own declining years, tempted him
with other prospects and pointed to Armenia, which, as he reminded him, he
had given to Mithridates after driving out the Parthians. But open violence,
he said, must be deferred; artful measures, which might crush him unawares,
were better. So Rhadamistus pretended to be at feud with his father as though
his stepmother's hatred was too strong for him, and went to his uncle. While
he was treated by him like a son, with excessive kindness, he lured the
nobles of Armenia into revolutionary schemes, without the knowledge of
Mithridates, who was actually loading him with honours.
He
then assumed a show of reconciliation with his father, to whom he returned,
telling him all that could be accomplished by treachery was now ready and
that he must complete the affair by the sword. Meanwhile Pharasmanes invented
pretexts for war; when he was fighting with the king of the Albanians and
appealing to the Romans for aid, his brother, he said, had opposed him, and
he would now avenge that wrong by his destruction. At the same time he gave a
large army to his son, who by a sudden invasion drove Mithridates in terror
from the open country and forced him into the fortress of Gorneas, which was
strongly situated and garrisoned by some soldiers under the command of
Caelius Pollio, a camp-prefect, and Casperius, a centurion. There is nothing
of which barbarians are so ignorant as military engines and the skilful
management of sieges, while that is a branch of military science which we
especially understand. And so Rhadamistus having attempted the fortified
walls in vain or with loss, began a blockade, and, finding that his assaults
were despised, tried to bribe the rapacity of the camp-prefect. Casperius
protested earnestly against the overthrow of an allied king and of Armenia,
the gift of the Roman people, through iniquity and greed of gain. At last, as
Pollio pleaded the overpowering numbers of the enemy and Rhadamistus the
orders of his father, the centurion stipulated for a truce and retired,
intending, if he could not deter Pharasmanes from further hostilities, to
inform Ummidius Quadratus, the governor of Syria, of the state of Armenia.
By
the centurion's departure the camp prefect was released, so to say, from
surveillance; and he now urged Mithridates to conclude a treaty. He reminded
him of the tie of brotherhood, of the seniority in age of Pharasmanes, and of
their other bonds of kindred, how he was united by marriage to his brother's
daughter, and was himself the father-in-law of Rhadamistus. "The
Iberians," he said, "were not against peace, though for the moment
they were the stronger; the perfidy of the Armenians was notorious, and he
had nothing to fall back on but a fortress without stores; so he must not
hesitate to prefer a bloodless negotiation to arms." As Mithridates
wavered, and suspected the intentions of the camp-prefect, because he had
seduced one of the king's concubines and was reputed a man who could be
bribed into any wickedness, Casperius meantime went to Pharasmanes, and
required of him that the Iberians should raise the blockade. Pharasmanes, to
his face, replied vaguely and often in a conciliatory tone, while by secret
messages he recommended Rhadamistus to hurry on the siege by all possible
means. Then the price of infamy was raised, and Pollio by secret corruption
induced the soldiers to demand peace and to threaten that they would abandon
the garrison. Under this compulsion, Mithridates agreed to a day and a place
for negotiation and quitted the fortress.
Rhadamistus
at first threw himself into his embraces, feigning respect and calling him
father-in-law and parent. He swore an oath too that he would do him no
violence either by the sword or by poison. At the same time he drew him into
a neighbouring grove, where he assured him that the appointed sacrifice was
prepared for the confirmation of peace in the presence of the gods. It is a
custom of these princes, whenever they join alliance, to unite their right
hands and bind together the thumbs in a tight knot; then, when the blood has
flowed into the extremities, they let it escape by a slight puncture and suck
it in turn. Such a treaty is thought to have a mysterious sanctity, as being
sealed with the blood of both parties. On this occasion he who was applying
the knot pretended that it had fallen off, and suddenly seizing the knees of
Mithridates flung him to the ground. At the same moment a rush was made by a
number of persons, and chains were thrown round him. Then he was dragged
along by a fetter, an extreme degradation to a barbarian; and soon the common
people, whom he had held under a harsh sway, heaped insults on him with
menacing gestures, though some, on the contrary, pitied such a reverse of
fortune. His wife followed him with his little children, and filled every
place with her wailings. They were hidden away in different covered carriages
till the orders of Pharasmanes were distinctly ascertained. The lust of rule
was more to him than his brother and his daughter, and his heart was steeled
to any wickedness. Still he spared his eyes the seeing them slain before his
face. Rhadamistus too, seemingly mindful of his oath, neither unsheathed the
sword nor used poison against his sister and uncle, but had them thrown on
the ground and then smothered them under a mass of heavy clothes. Even the
sons of Mithridates were butchered for having shed tears over their parent's
murder.
Quadratus,
learning that Mithridates had been betrayed and that his kingdom was in the
hands of his murderers, summoned a council, and, having informed them of what
had occurred, consulted them whether he should take vengeance. Few cared for
the honour of the State; most argued in favour of a safe course, saying
"that any crime in a foreign country was to be welcomed with joy, and
that the seeds of strife ought to be actually sown, on the very principle on
which Roman emperors had often under a show of generosity given away this
same kingdom of Armenia to excite the minds of the barbarians. Rhadamistus
might retain his ill-gotten gains, as long as he was hated and infamous; for
this was more to Rome's interest than for him to have succeeded with glory."
To this view they assented, but that they might not be thought to have
approved the crime and receive contrary orders from the emperor, envoys were
sent to Pharasmanes, requiring him to withdraw from Armenian territory and
remove his son.
Julius
Pelignus was then procurator of Cappadocia, a man despised alike for his
feebleness of mind and his grotesque personal appearance. He was however very
intimate with Claudius, who, when in private life, used to beguile the
dullness of his leisure with the society of jesters. This Pelignus collected
some provincial auxiliaries, apparently with the design of recovering
Armenia, but, while he plundered allies instead of enemies, finding himself,
through the desertion of his men and the raids of the barbarians, utterly
defenceless, he went to Rhadamistus, whose gifts so completely overcame him
that he positively encouraged him to assume the ensigns of royalty, and
himself assisted at the ceremony, authorizing and abetting. When the
disgraceful news had spread far and wide, lest the world might judge of other
governors by Pelignus, Helvidius Priscus was sent in command of a legion to
regulate, according to circumstances, the disordered state of affairs. He
quickly crossed Mount Taurus, and had restored order to a great extent more
by moderation than by force, when he was ordered to return to Syria, that
nothing might arise to provoke a war with Parthia.
For
Vologeses, thinking that an opportunity presented itself of invading Armenia,
which, though the possession of his ancestors, was now through a monstrous
crime held by a foreign prince, raised an army and prepared to establish
Tiridates on the throne, so that not a member of his house might be without
kingly power. On the advance of the Parthians, the Iberians dispersed without
a battle, and the Armenian cities, Artaxata and Tigranocerta, submitted to
the yoke. Then a frightful winter or deficient supplies, with pestilence
arising from both causes, forced Vologeses to abandon his present plans.
Armenia was thus again without a king, and was invaded by Rhadamistus, who
was now fiercer than ever, looking on the people as disloyal and sure to
rebel on the first opportunity. They however, though accustomed to be slaves,
suddenly threw off their tameness and gathered round the palace in arms.
Rhadamistus
had no means of escape but in the swiftness of the horses which bore him and
his wife away. Pregnant as she was, she endured, somehow or other, out of
fear of the enemy and love of her husband, the first part of the flight, but
after a while, when she felt herself shaken by its continuous speed, she
implored to be rescued by an honourable death from the shame of captivity. He
at first embraced, cheered, and encouraged her, now admiring her heroism, now
filled with a sickening apprehension at the idea of her being left to any
man's mercy. Finally, urged by the intensity of his love and familiarity with
dreadful deeds, he unsheathed his scymitar, and having stabbed her, dragged
her to the bank of the Araxes and committed her to the stream, so that her
very body might be swept away. Then in headlong flight he hurried to Iberia,
his ancestral kingdom. Zenobia meanwhile (this was her name), as she yet
breathed and showed signs of life on the calm water at the river's edge, was
perceived by some shepherds, who inferring from her noble appearance that she
was no base-born woman, bound up her wound and applied to it their rustic
remedies. As soon as they knew her name and her adventure, they conveyed her
to the city of Artaxata, whence she was conducted at the public charge to
Tiridates, who received her kindly and treated her as a royal person.
In
the consulship of Faustus Sulla and Salvius Otho, Furius Scribonianus was
banished on the ground that he was consulting the astrologers about the
emperor's death. His mother, Junia, was included in the accusation, as one
who still resented the misfortune of exile which she had suffered in the
past. His father, Camillus, had raised an armed insurrection in Dalmatia, and
the emperor in again sparing a hostile family sought the credit of clemency.
But the exile did not live long after this; whether he was cut off by a
natural death, or by poison, was matter of conflicting rumours, according to
people's belief. A decree of the Senate was then passed for the expulsion of
the astrologers from Italy, stringent but ineffectual. Next the emperor, in a
speech, commended all who, from their limited means, voluntarily retired from
the Senatorian order, while those were degraded from it who, by retaining
their seats, added effrontery to poverty.
During
these proceedings he proposed to the Senate a penalty on women who united
themselves in marriage to slaves, and it was decided that those who had thus
demeaned themselves, without the knowledge of the slave's master, should be
reduced to slavery; if with his consent, should be ranked as freedwomen. To
Pallas, who, as the emperor declared, was the author of this proposal, were
offered on the motion of Barea Soranus, consul-elect, the decorations of the
praetorship and fifteen million sesterces. Cornelius Scipio added that he
deserved public thanks for thinking less of his ancient nobility as a
descendant from the kings of Arcadia, than of the welfare of the State, and
allowing himself to be numbered among the emperor's ministers. Claudius
assured them that Pallas was content with the honour, and that he limited
himself to his former poverty. A decree of the Senate was publicly inscribed
on a bronze tablet, heaping the praises of primitive frugality on a freedman,
the possessor of three hundred million sesterces.
Not
equally moderate was his brother, surnamed Felix, who had for some time been
governor of Judaea, and thought that he could do any evil act with impunity,
backed up as he was by such power. It is true that the Jews had shown
symptoms of commotion in a seditious outbreak, and when they had heard of the
assassination of Caius, there was no hearty submission, as a fear still
lingered that any of the emperors might impose the same orders. Felix
meanwhile, by ill-timed remedies, stimulated disloyal acts; while he had, as
a rival in the worst wickedness, Ventidius Cumanus, who held a part of the
province, which was so divided that Galilea was governed by Cumanus, Samaria
by Felix. The two peoples had long been at feud, and now less than ever
restrained their enmity, from contempt of their rulers. And accordingly they
plundered each other, letting loose bands of robbers, forming ambuscades, and
occasionally fighting battles, and carrying the spoil and booty to the two
procurators, who at first rejoiced at all this, but, as the mischief grew,
they interposed with an armed force, which was cut to pieces. The flame of
war would have spread through the province, but it was saved by Quadratus,
governor of Syria. In dealing with the Jews, who had been daring enough to
slay our soldiers, there was little hesitation about their being capitally
punished. Some delay indeed was occasioned by Cumanus and Felix; for Claudius
on hearing the causes of the rebellion had given authority for deciding also
the case of these procurators. Quadratus, however, exhibited Felix as one of
the judges, admitting him to the bench with the view of cowing the ardour of
the prosecutors. And so Cumanus was condemned for the crimes which the two
had committed, and tranquillity was restored to the province.
Not
long afterwards some tribes of the wild population of Cilicia, known as the
Clitae, which had often been in commotion, established a camp, under a leader
Troxobor, on their rocky mountains, whence rushing down on the coast, and on
the towns, they dared to do violence to the farmers and townsfolk, frequently
even to the merchants and shipowners. They besieged the city Anemurium, and
routed some troopers sent from Syria to its rescue under the command of
Curtius Severus; for the rough country in the neighbourhood, suited as it is
for the fighting of infantry, did not allow of cavalry operations. After a
time, Antiochus, king of that coast, having broken the unity of the barbarian
forces, by cajolery of the people and treachery to their leader, slew Troxobor
and a few chiefs, and pacified the rest by gentle measures.
About
the same time, the mountain between Lake Fucinus and the river Liris was
bored through, and that this grand work might be seen by a multitude of
visitors, preparations were made for a naval battle on the lake, just as
formerly Augustus exhibited such a spectacle, in a basin he had made this
side the Tiber, though with light vessels, and on a smaller scale. Claudius
equipped galleys with three and four banks of oars, and nineteen thousand
men; he lined the circumference of the lake with rafts, that there might be
no means of escape at various points, but he still left full space for the
strength of the crews, the skill of the pilots, the impact of the vessels,
and the usual operations of a seafight. On the raft stood companies of the
praetorian cohorts and cavalry, with a breastwork in front of them, from
which catapults and balistas might be worked. The rest of the lake was
occupied by marines on decked vessels. An immense multitude from the
neighbouring towns, others from Rome itself, eager to see the sight or to
show respect to the emperor, crowded the banks, the hills, and mountain tops,
which thus resembled a theatre. The emperor, with Agrippina seated near him,
presided; he wore a splendid military cloak, she, a mantle of cloth of gold.
A battle was fought with all the courage of brave men, though it was between
condemned criminals. After much bloodshed they were released from the
necessity of mutual slaughter.
When
the sight was over, the outlet of the water was opened. The careless
execution of the work was apparent, the tunnel not having been bored down so
low as the bottom, or middle of the lake. Consequently after an interval the
excavations were deepened, and to attract a crowd once more, a show of
gladiators was exhibited, with floating pontoons for an infantry engagement.
A banquet too was prepared close to the outflow of the lake, and it was the
means of greatly alarming the whole company, for the water, in the violence
of its outburst, swept away the adjoining parts, shook the more remote, and
spread terror with the tremendous crash. At the same time, Agrippina availed
herself of the emperor's fright to charge Narcissus, who had been the agent
of the work, with avarice and peculation. He too was not silent, but
inveighed against the domineering temper of her sex, and her extravagant
ambition.
In
the consulship of Didius Junius and Quintus Haterius, Nero, now sixteen years
of age, married Octavia, the emperor's daughter. Anxious to distinguish
himself by noble pursuits, and the reputation of an orator, he advocated the
cause of the people of Ilium, and having eloquently recounted how Rome was
the offspring of Troy, and Aeneas the founder of the Julian line, with other
old traditions akin to myths, he gained for his clients exemption from all
public burdens. His pleading too procured for the colony of Bononia, which
had been ruined by a fire, a subvention of ten million sesterces. The
Rhodians also had their freedom restored to them, which had often been taken
away, or confirmed, according to their services to us in our foreign wars, or
their seditious misdeeds at home. Apamea, too, which had been shaken by an
earthquake, had its tribute remitted for five years.
Claudius,
on the other hand, was being prompted to exhibit the worst cruelty by the
artifices of the same Agrippina. On the accusation of Tarquitius Priscus, she
ruined Statilius Taurus, who was famous for his wealth, and at whose gardens
she cast a greedy eye. Priscus had served under Taurus in his proconsular
government of Africa, and after their return charged him with a few acts of
extortion, but particularly with magical and superstitious practices. Taurus,
no longer able to endure a false accusation and an undeserved humiliation,
put a violent end to his life before the Senate's decision was pronounced.
Tarquitius was however expelled from the Senate, a point which the senators
carried, out of hatred for the accuser, notwithstanding the intrigues of
Agrippina.
That
same year the emperor was often heard to say that the legal decisions of the
commissioners of the imperial treasury ought to have the same force as if
pronounced by himself. Lest it might be supposed that he had stumbled
inadvertently into this opinion, its principle was also secured by a decree
of the Senate on a more complete and ample scale than before. It had indeed
already been arranged by the Divine Augustus that the Roman knights who
governed Egypt should hear causes, and that their decisions were to be as
binding as those of Roman magistrates, and after a time most of the cases
formerly tried by the praetors were submitted to the knights. Claudius handed
over to them the whole administration of justice for which there had been by
sedition or war so many struggles; the Sempronian laws vesting judicial power
in the equestrian order, and those of Servilius restoring it to the Senate,
while it was for this above everything else that Marius and Sulla fought of
old. But those were days of political conflict between classes, and the
results of victory were binding on the State. Caius Oppius and Cornelius
Balbus were the first who were able, with Caesar's support, to settle
conditions of peace and terms of war. To mention after them the Matii, Vedii,
and other too influential names of Roman knights would be superfluous, when
Claudius, we know, raised freedmen whom he had set over his household to
equality with himself and with the laws.
Next
the emperor proposed to grant immunity from taxation to the people of Cos,
and he dwelt much on their antiquity. "The Argives or Coeus, the father
of Latona, were the earliest inhabitants of the island; soon afterwards, by
the arrival of Aesculapius, the art of the physician was introduced and was
practised with much fame by his descendants." Claudius named them one by
one, with the periods in which they had respectively flourished. He said too
that Xenophon, of whose medical skill he availed himself, was one of the same
family, and that they ought to grant his request and let the people of Cos
dwell free from all tribute in their sacred island, as a place devoted to the
sole service of their god. It was also certain that many obligations under
which they had laid Rome and joint victories with her might have been
recounted. Claudius however did not seek to veil under any external
considerations a concession he had made, with his usual good nature, to an
individual.
Envoys
from Byzantium having received audience, in complaining to the Senate of
their heavy burdens, recapitulated their whole history. Beginning with the
treaty which they concluded with us when we fought against that king of
Macedonia whose supposed spurious birth acquired for him the name of the
Pseudo Philip, they reminded us of the forces which they had afterwards sent
against Antiochus, Perses and Aristonicus, of the aid they had given Antonius
in the pirate-war, of their offers to Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompeius, and then
of their late services to the Caesars, when they were in occupation of a
district peculiarly convenient for the land or sea passage of generals and
armies, as well as for the conveyance of supplies.
It
was indeed on that very narrow strait which parts Europe from Asia, at
Europe's furthest extremity, that the Greeks built Byzantium. When they
consulted the Pythian Apollo as to where they should found a city, the oracle
replied that they were to seek a home opposite to the blind men's country.
This obscure hint pointed to the people of Chalcedon, who, though they
arrived there first and saw before others the advantageous position, chose
the worse. For Byzantium has a fruitful soil and productive seas, as immense
shoals of fish pour out of the Pontus and are driven by the sloping surface
of the rocks under water to quit the windings of the Asiatic shore and take
refuge in these harbours. Consequently the inhabitants were at first
money-making and wealthy traders, but afterwards, under the pressure of
excessive burdens, they petitioned for immunity or at least relief, and were
supported by the emperor, who argued to the Senate that, exhausted as they
were by the late wars in Thrace and Bosporus, they deserved help. So their
tribute was remitted for five years.
In
the year of the consulship of Marcus Asinius and Manius Acilius it was seen
to be portended by a succession of prodigies that there were to be political
changes for the worse. The soldiers' standards and tents were set in a blaze
by lightning. A swarm of bees settled on the summit of the Capitol; births of
monsters, half man, half beast, and of a pig with a hawk's talons, were
reported. It was accounted a portent that every order of magistrates had had
its number reduced, a quaestor, an aedile, a tribune, a praetor and consul
having died within a few months. But Agrippina's terror was the most
conspicuous. Alarmed by some words dropped by Claudius when half intoxicated,
that it was his destiny to have to endure his wives' infamy and at last
punish it, she determined to act without a moment's delay. First she
destroyed Lepida from motives of feminine jealousy. Lepida indeed as the
daughter of the younger Antonia, as the grandniece of Augustus, the cousin of
Agrippina, and sister of her husband Cneius, thought herself of equally high
rank. In beauty, youth, and wealth they differed but slightly. Both were
shameless, infamous, and intractable, and were rivals in vice as much as in
the advantages they had derived from fortune. It was indeed a desperate
contest whether the aunt or the mother should have most power over Nero.
Lepida tried to win the young prince's heart by flattery and lavish
liberality, while Agrippina on the other hand, who could give her son empire
but could not endure that he should be emperor, was fierce and full of
menace.
It
was charged on Lepida that she had made attempts on the Emperor's consort by
magical incantations, and was disturbing the peace of Italy by an imperfect
control of her troops of slaves in Calabria. She was for this sentenced to
death, notwithstanding the vehement opposition of Narcissus, who, as he more
and more suspected Agrippina, was said to have plainly told his intimate
friends that "his destruction was certain, whether Britannicus or Nero
were to be emperor, but that he was under such obligations to Claudius that
he would sacrifice life to his welfare. Messalina and Silius had been
convicted, and now again there were similar grounds for accusation. If Nero
were to rule, or Britannicus succeed to the throne, he would himself have no
claim on the then reigning sovereign. Meanwhile, a stepmother's treacherous
schemes were convulsing the whole imperial house, with far greater disgrace
than would have resulted from his concealment of the profligacy of the
emperor's former wife. Even as it was, there was shamelessness enough, seeing
that Pallas was her paramour, so that no one could doubt that she held
honour, modesty and her very person, everything, in short, cheaper than
sovereignty." This, and the like, he was always saying, and he would
embrace Britannicus, expressing earnest wishes for his speedy arrival at a
mature age, and would raise his hand, now to heaven, now to the young prince,
with entreaty that as he grew up, he would drive out his father's enemies and
also take vengeance on the murderers of his mother.
Under
this great burden of anxiety, he had an attack of illness, and went to
Sinuessa to recruit his strength with its balmy climate and salubrious
waters. Thereupon, Agrippina, who had long decided on the crime and eagerly
grasped at the opportunity thus offered, and did not lack instruments,
deliberated on the nature of the poison to be used. The deed would be
betrayed by one that was sudden and instantaneous, while if she chose a slow
and lingering poison, there was a fear that Claudius, when near his end,
might, on detecting the treachery, return to his love for his son. She
decided on some rare compound which might derange his mind and delay death. A
person skilled in such matters was selected, Locusta by name, who had lately
been condemned for poisoning, and had long been retained as one of the tools
of despotism. By this woman's art the poison was prepared, and it was to be
administered by an eunuch, Halotus, who was accustomed to bring in and taste
the dishes.
All
the circumstances were subsequently so well known, that writers of the time
have declared that the poison was infused into some mushrooms, a favourite
delicacy, and its effect not at the instant perceived, from the emperor's
lethargic, or intoxicated condition. His bowels too were relieved, and this
seemed to have saved him. Agrippina was thoroughly dismayed. Fearing the
worst, and defying the immediate obloquy of the deed, she availed herself of
the complicity of Xenophon, the physician, which she had already secured.
Under pretence of helping the emperor's efforts to vomit, this man, it is
supposed, introduced into his throat a feather smeared with some rapid
poison; for he knew that the greatest crimes are perilous in their inception,
but well rewarded after their consummation.
Meanwhile
the Senate was summoned, and prayers rehearsed by the consuls and priests for
the emperor's recovery, though the lifeless body was being wrapped in
blankets with warm applications, while all was being arranged to establish
Nero on the throne. At first Agrippina, seemingly overwhelmed by grief and
seeking comfort, clasped Britannicus in her embraces, called him the very
image of his father, and hindered him by every possible device from leaving
the chamber. She also detained his sisters, Antonia and Octavia, closed every
approach to the palace with a military guard, and repeatedly gave out that
the emperor's health was better, so that the soldiers might be encouraged to
hope, and that the fortunate moment foretold by the astrologers might arrive.
At
last, at noon on the 13th of October, the gates of the palace were suddenly
thrown open, and Nero, accompanied by Burrus, went forth to the cohort which
was on guard after military custom. There, at the suggestion of the
commanding officer, he was hailed with joyful shouts, and set on a litter.
Some, it is said, hesitated, and looked round and asked where Britannicus
was; then, when there was no one to lead a resistance, they yielded to what
was offered them. Nero was conveyed into the camp, and having first spoken
suitably to the occasion and promised a donative after the example of his
father's bounty, he was unanimously greeted as emperor. The decrees of the
Senate followed the voice of the soldiers, and there was no hesitation in the
provinces. Divine honours were decreed to Claudius, and his funeral rites
were solemnized on the same scale as those of Augustus; for Agrippina strove
to emulate the magnificence of her great-grandmother, Livia. But his will was
not publicly read, as the preference of the stepson to the son might provoke
a sense of wrong and angry feeling in the popular mind.
Claude, né le 1er août 10 av. J.-C. à Lugdunum (Lyon) et mort le 13 octobre 54 à Rome, est le quatrième empereur romain, régnant de 41 à 54 apr. J.-C.
Né en Gaule, fils de Drusus et d'Antonia la Jeune (fille
de Marc Antoine et
d'Octavie), il est le
premier empereur né hors d'Italie. Enfant méprisé en raison de ses
déficiences physiques, il est le mal-aimé de la famille impériale et devient
un adulte à l’élocution et à la démarche mal assurées, tenu à l’écart de
toute activité publique. Seul représentant adulte de la dynastie julio-claudienne après
l’assassinat de Caligula en 41 apr. J.-C., il est proclamé empereur par les prétoriens, qu’il comble en retour
d’une gratification considérable (un donativum), inaugurant ainsi une dépendance dangereuse.
Dépourvu
d'expérience politique mais cultivé, Claude se montre un administrateur
capable. Il s'intéresse aux affaires publiques, travaille avec le Sénat sur les lois et préside
les procès. Son administration de l'Empire renforce la centralisation en
organisant des bureaux dirigés par ses affranchis. Il agrandit l'Empire en annexant de nouveaux territoires,
les futures provinces de Lycie, Maurétanie, Norique et Thrace. En 43, il entame la conquête de la Bretagne, ce qui lui vaut, ainsi
qu'à son fils, le surnom de Britannicus.
Ouvert à la
promotion des provinciaux, il étend la citoyenneté
romaine à de nombreuses cités dans les provinces, notamment en Gaule où
il est né. Sensible aux demandes des notables gaulois, il obtient en 48 du
Sénat que ceux-ci puissent accéder aux magistratures publiques de Rome et
donc au Sénat même. Censeur, il renouvelle les effectifs de cette institution, éliminant
ceux qui ne remplissent plus les conditions pour y siéger, ce qui lui aliène
une partie de la noblesse en place.
Sa vie personnelle
est peu heureuse : Messaline, sa troisième épouse, lui donne deux enfants, Octavie et Britannicus, mais son inconduite,
ou son ambition politique, pousse Claude à la faire exécuter. En quatrièmes
noces, il épouse sa nièce Agrippine la Jeune, qui lui fait adopter Néron. Il meurt en 54, empoisonné à l'instigation d'Agrippine selon l'avis de la
plupart des historiens. Néron lui succède.
Les faiblesses
physiques de Claude et l’influence prêtée à ses femmes et à ses affranchis le
font mépriser par les auteurs antiques, point de vue repris par les
historiens jusqu'au xixe siècle. Depuis, les avis les plus
récents nuancent ces jugements négatifs et réévaluent l'importance de cet
empereur pour le considérer en continuateur notable de l'œuvre de ses
prédécesseurs.
Sources antiques
littéraires et historiographie[modifier | modifier le code]
Buste de Sénèque, double hermès du iiie siècle,
d'après un original du ier siècle, Collection antique de Berlin (de).
Claude a été très
sévèrement décrit par son contemporain Sénèque, pour des raisons personnelles, puis par les historiens
antiques postérieurs qui ont construit une image fortement dévalorisée de
l'empereur, présenté comme faible de corps et d'esprit et manipulé par son
entourage. Cette vision ne change qu'à partir du xixe siècle
pour connaître une position nettement valorisante. Deux inflexions
historiographiques ont eu lieu ensuite, une durant les années 1930 et une
durant les années 1990. La première revalorise fortement l'aspect
centralisateur et bureaucratique, position largement nuancée durant les
années 1990 qui voient à l'occasion de deux colloques de nombreux travaux
fournir une analyse plus détaillée de sa vie et de son règne1,2.
Le biais des
sources littéraires antiques[modifier | modifier le code]
Les sources antiques
présentent Claude de façon négative, au mieux considéré comme un imbécile
marqué de tares physiques et jouet de ses épouses et de ses affranchisA 1, au pire comme un tyran
indigne, aussi cruel que son prédécesseur Caligula3,4.
Sénèque, familier de la famille de Germanicus, le frère de Claude, et de la cour impériale, est exilé par
Claude en Corse en
41, à l'instigation de MessalineA 2, et n'en revient qu'en 49, grâce à Agrippine. Contemporain de Claude
mais hostileA 3, il
exprime son ressentiment après les funérailles de Claude dans un pamphlet, l'Apocoloquintose (du grec
Ἀποκολοκύνθωσις
« citrouillification »), catalogue caricatural des tares et des
déficiences physiques du défunt. D'autres détails sur le physique de Claude,
et aussi sur ses travaux et sa politique à l'égard des médecins figurent dans
l'Histoire naturelle de Pline l'Ancien, qui appartient à
la génération suivante5.
La vision négative
des historiens antiques[modifier | modifier le code]
Vie des douze Césars, ouvert à la vie de Claude. Édité à
Lyon en 1569.
Les historiens du
second siècle, Tacite, Suétone et Dion Cassius, sont les sources les
plus abondantes disponibles. Ils ont façonné la vision négative de Claude6. Les Annales de Tacite, son
dernier ouvrage (probablement composé sous Trajan), suivent l'ordre chronologique année par année et s'étendent
de la mort d'Auguste à celle de Néron, avec une importante lacune entre les
années 38 à 47 (les livres VII à X et le début du livre XI, perdus) qui
correspond au règne de Caligula et à la première moitié du règne de Claude. Suétone est un biographe, qui regroupe les
événements sans préoccupation de la chronologie et étudie la personnalité de
chaque empereur dans la Vie des douze Césars. Sa Vie de Claude, combinant points positifs et négatifs, le situe un peu à
part, entre les « mauvais » empereurs Tibère, Galba et Domitien et les
« bons » princes avec quelques défauts, tels Jules César et Vespasien7. Suétone, et Tacite
encore plus, considèrent Claude comme indigne de régner8. Enfin, Dion Cassius consacre au
règne de Claude le soixantième livre de son Histoire
romaine, ce qui compense la lacune des Annales de Tacite. Toutefois,
après l’année 47, cette histoire n’est parvenue à l’époque moderne que par
des extraits transcrits par l’intermédiaire d’abréviateurs byzantins, et peut
donc être lacunaire9.
La progressive
réhabilitation du règne de Claude[modifier | modifier le code]
Le portrait négatif
de Claude dépeint par les auteurs antiques est intégré sans aucun recul par
les premiers auteurs modernes comme Edward Gibbon dans leur présentation de la « décadence
romaine ». Cette dépréciation est la cause d'un manque d'intérêt des
historiens de l'art pour l'étude de l'iconographie de l'empereur. Le premier
relevé exhaustif n'arrive qu'en 1938 avec les travaux de Meriwether Stuart,
et les analyses critiques durant les années 198010. Les premières nuances aux jugements dépréciatifs sans cesse
repris surviennent avec les premières études numismatiques, épigraphiques et papyrologiques au cours du xixe siècle4.
La réhabilitation
commence en 1932 avec les travaux d'Arnaldo Momigliano qui met en évidence le soin et l'équité apportés par
Claude à l'administration de l'Empire11. Cet auteur est porté par le contexte intellectuel des grands
travaux et de la planification de l'Italie
mussolinienne. Sa biographie12 insiste donc sur un Claude
réformateur, bureaucrate et centralisateur. Cette vision rencontre un écho
favorable aux États-Unis en plein New Deal de Roosevelt, puis Vincenzo Scramuzza publie en 1940 The
Emperor Claudius13 avec
une approche similaire14.
Dans son bilan
historiographique14,
Anne-Claire Michel expose que « les historiens d'après-guerre et
surtout des années 1990 ont nuancé cette valorisation excessive et réévaluent
la contribution de l'empereur à l'histoire du principat. Dans cet objectif, deux colloques internationaux sont
organisés au début des années 1990 : l'un en France15 et l'autre en Allemagne16 ». Ils marquent le 2000e anniversaire de la naissance de Claude et redéfinissent
le portrait de cet empereur autrefois marqué d’une réputation d’incapable17. Cette coopération scientifique
entre historiens et archéologues a pour ambition d'analyser si le principat
claudien constitue un tournant dans l'histoire impériale. Les conclusions
tirées de ces recherches et réflexions sont claires, les années 41 à 54
s'inscrivent dans la continuité des règnes précédents, notamment des
ambitions augustéennes, et prouvent l'acceptation du nouveau régime par le
peuple romain14. À la
même époque Barbara Levick publie une biographie nuançant définitivement plusieurs
poncifs de la vie de Claude, que ce soit sur son arrivée au pouvoir, qui
n'est pas due au seul hasard, ou sur son œuvre centralisatrice18.
Durant les années
2000, plusieurs historiens continuent de s'intéresser à l'empereur et à son
règne et enrichissent encore les connaissances que l'on a de Claude. Annalisa
Tortoriello19 et
Pierangelo Buongiorno20 complètent
ainsi nos connaissances de la politique impériale ; Donato Fasolini21 établit en 2006 un outil
de travail bibliographique complet sur Claude ; Josiah Osgood22 réalise une synthèse
historiographique du principat et une étude de la diffusion de son image dans
les provinces18.
L'historiographie de
la fin du xxe siècle établit que les sources littéraires antiques jugent les
empereurs essentiellement en fonction de leurs relations avec le Sénat. Ainsi, le caractère
populaire d'une grande partie des décisions de Claude et sa défiance envers
cette institution après de nombreux complots expliquent l'insistance et le
parti-pris de nombre d'auteurs23. Ce portrait négatif s'inscrit plus largement dans le rejet
par la majorité des élites intellectuelles de la nouvelle forme de
gouvernement mise en place par Auguste, qui avait conservé les formes
républicaines, et constamment renforcée par ses successeurs qui s'éloignent
progressivement du prince collaborant étroitement avec le Sénat24. Une vision historiographique
plus récente considère cette interprétation comme exagérée, et voit dans les
écrits de Tacite et Suétone la volonté de mettre en valeur les qualités des
premiers Antonins,
par contraste avec les Julio-Claudiens25, et plus particulièrement pour le couple Claude-Messaline, dont les défauts sont
opposés aux exemplaires époux Trajan et Plotine26.
Origines et jeunesse[modifier | modifier le code]
Claude fait partie
de la troisième génération des Julio-Claudiens. Dernier enfant de Drusus
l’ancien et Antonia
la Jeune, il naît à Lugdunum en 10 av.
J.-C. Son père décède l'année suivante et il est élevé avec sévérité par
sa mère et sa grand-mère27. Les auteurs anciens le décrivent comme un peu attardé et
affligé de tares physiques28, qui motivent une relative mise à l'écart des cérémonies
publiques par sa famille. Ses problèmes physiques ont été diversement
diagnostiqués par les auteurs contemporains, tandis qu'il montre de réelles
capacités intellectuelles durant ses études27.
Ascendance[modifier | modifier le code]
Ascendance de Claude, à sa naissance. En grisé, parents décédés à cette date
Autel de la Paix, détail de la frise montrant
probablement Antonia la Jeune, Drusus et leur fils Germanicus.
Claude appartient
par son grand-père Tiberius Claudius Nero à l’illustre gens patricienne des Claudii. Ce dernier a épousé Livie29, et en a deux garçons, Tibère et Drusus l’ancien29, avant que l’empereur Auguste n'oblige Livie, enceinte de Drusus, à divorcer et à l’épouser. Ils n'ont
aucun enfant29,
malgré la rumeur selon laquelle Drusus aurait été le fils illégitime
d'AugusteA 4. Plus
tard, Auguste renforce ses liens avec les Claudii en mariant Drusus à sa nièce Antonia la Jeune, fille de Marc Antoine et d'Octavie la Jeune. Drusus et
Antonia ont comme enfants Germanicus, Livilla et Claude, et peut-être deux autres enfants morts très
jeunes30.
Tandis que son
mari Drusus dirige
les armées romaines au-delà du Rhin, Antonia met au monde Claude le 1er août 10 av. J.-C., à Lugdunum (Lyon), où Auguste a établi ses quartiers31. Il prend le nom de Tiberius
Claudius Nero32.
En 9 av. J.-C., son père Drusus
meurt lors de ses campagnes en Germanie, la jambe brisée après une chute de
cheval. Lors de ses funérailles publiques, le Sénat lui décerne à titre
posthume le surnom de Germanicus (vainqueur des Germains), transmissible à ses fils33. Claude, âgé alors d'un an, est
élevé par sa mère Antonia qui se retire à la campagne et reste veuve. Elle
qualifie cet enfant maladif d'avorton et voit en lui un étalon de stupidité34. Il semble qu'elle ait fini par
le confier à sa grand-mère LivieA 5. Livie ne se montre pas moins dure, elle lui envoie souvent
des lettres de reproches courtes et sèchesA 6. Il est mal considéré par sa famille, d'autant plus que son
frère Germanicus a toutes les qualités qu'il n'a pasA 7. Il est confié à la
surveillance d'un « responsable de bêtes de somme », chargé de
le châtier sévèrement au moindre prétexteA 8,35.
Problèmes de santé,
pathologies envisagées[modifier | modifier le code]
Le rejet familial
est causé par la faiblesse du jeune Claude. Dès le début de sa biographie,
Suétone indique que Claude subit diverses maladies persistant durant toute
son enfance et sa jeunesse. Sénèque met en scène la déesse Fièvre qui vit nombre
d'années avec luiA 9. Dion Cassius évoque un Claude
élevé dans la maladie dès l’enfance, affecté par un tremblement de la tête et
des mainsA 5. Les
deux premiers auteurs fournissent l’essentiel des détails physiques connus.
Pour Suétone, Claude a les genoux faibles, le faisant tituber, sa tête
chancelle perpétuellement. Il a un rire désagréable. Lorsqu'il est emporté
par la colère, il bégaye, sa bouche écume et ses narines coulent, son visage
apparait hideusement déforméA 10. Dans l’Apocoloquintose, Sénèque, qui l’a côtoyé, confirme ou précise plusieurs
symptômes : Claude « remue la tête sans arrêt ; il traîne
le pied droit … répond avec des sons brouillés et une voix indistincte »A 11. Sénèque fait aussi allusion
à une possible surditéA 12 et évoque une main flasqueA
9. Suétone et Dion Cassius le disent aussi
apathique, lent d'esprit et s'embrouillant facilementA 13,A
5.
Néanmoins, Claude ne
semble souffrir d'aucune infirmité dans ses moments de calmeA 10. Régis Martin synthétise en
constatant un caractère serein au repos, pouvant alterner avec une série de
tics lors des mouvements et sous le coup d'émotion36. On constate alors une faiblesse des jambes pouvant entrainer
la claudication, des hochements de tête incontrôlés, des troubles de
l’élocution, avec parfois des écoulements du nez et de la bouche, une
tendance à la surdité. En revanche, les accusations de débilité d’esprit ne
peuvent être prises en compte face aux qualités intellectuelles de Claude
attestées par sa culture37.
Divers diagnostics
sur ces déficiences physiques observées dès l’enfance sont proposés.
L’hypothèse d’une naissance prématurée, envisagée en 1916 par l'Américain Thomas de Coursey-Ruth,
déduite des qualifications de la mère de Claude (avorton simplement ébauché),
n’est pas retenue38.
Avant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, la poliomyélite (alors appelée « paralysie infantile ») en est
souvent considérée comme la cause. C'est ainsi l’idée retenue par Robert Graves dans son
roman Moi, Claude,
publié en 1934. Selon George Burden et Ali Murad, un certain nombre de
troubles observés chez Claude suggèrent qu'il est atteint de la maladie de Gilles de La Tourette39,40. Cependant la poliomyélite ou
la maladie de la Tourette n'expliquent pas tous les symptômes précédemment
décrits, et les théories récentes mettent plutôt en cause une infirmité motrice cérébrale,
décrite par Ernestine Leon41, accompagnée de spasmes42,43.
Le docteur Mirko Grmek signale une pathologie neurologique qui recoupe
l’ensemble des symptômes de Claude, la maladie de Little (ou diplégie spastique), qui apparaît
chez les nourrissons victimes d’un accouchement difficile, accompagné d’une insuffisance de débit
sanguin génératrice de lésions cérébrales plus ou moins étendues. Les
répercussions peuvent être des troubles de la démarche, provoquant le
croisement spastique des jambes « en ciseau », des troubles de
l’élocution tels qu’une voix saccadée et des mouvements incontrôlés du visage
et des membres supérieurs, tout en préservant une intelligence normale44.
Adolescence[modifier | modifier le code]
En 6 apr.
J.-C., Germanicus et Claude président les jeux
funéraires en l’honneur de leur père défunt.
Pour prévenir les moqueries du public que pourrait provoquer la vue de ses
tics, Claude y assiste la tête dissimulée sous un capuchon A 8,45. La prise de la toge virile entre quinze et dix-sept ans est un rite de passage pour un jeune
Romain, qui marque sa sortie de l’enfance. En raison de l’état de santé de
Claude, la famille organise la cérémonie dans la clandestinité, en le faisant
porter en litière au
Capitole au milieu de la nuit, sans aucune solennitéA 8.
Claude s'applique à
ses études, mais sans éveiller de considération chez sa mère Antonia ni sa
grand-mère LivieA 6.
En 7, on
engage Tite-Live pour
lui inculquer l'histoire, assisté par Sulpicius Flavius et par le
philosophe Athénodore. L'adolescent étudie la rhétorique et rédige dans une « apologie de Cicéron » la défense de son
style contre les critiques d'Asinius GallusA 14. Selon une missive envoyée à Livie, Auguste est surpris de la
clarté avec laquelle Claude prononce un discours en privé, lui qui s'exprime
avec confusionA 15,46.
Claude commence une
histoire romaine, en deux livres, partant de la mort de Jules César et couvrant
les guerres civiles romaines et le second triumvirat. La relecture et les reproches que font sa mère et sa
grand-mère lui indiquent qu’il ne peut raconter cette période avec sincérité.
Quand, plus tard, Claude reprend la rédaction de l’histoire romaine, il part
de la période de paix après les guerres civilesA
14,47.
Le mariage du jeune
Claude est arrangé par son entourage48. Ainsi, de la même façon que Germanicus a été marié à Agrippine
l'Aînée, petite-fille d'Auguste, Claude est
promis à Aemilia Lepida, arrière-petite-fille d’Auguste, alliances consanguines qui
resserrent les lignées des Julii et des Claudii et renforcent leur prestige29. Mais ces fiançailles sont rompues après la conspiration des
parents de celle-ci contre Auguste. Une seconde fiancée, Livia Medullina, descendante de
l’illustre Camille,
meurt de maladie le jour prévu pour le mariageA
16. Vers 9 apr. J.-C., Claude, alors
âgé de 18 ans, est marié à Plautia
Urgulanilla, fille de Plautius Silvanus, un
protégé de Livie. En 12 apr. J.-C., Plautia lui donne un fils, Drusus,
qui meurt à l'adolescence.
Âge adulte[modifier | modifier le code]
Les analyses
historiques construisent deux visions opposées de Claude avant son
avènement : suivant une lecture littéraliste de Suétone, il est très tôt jugé inapte au rôle d'empereur par Auguste et Tibère ; écarté durant des
années de toute fonction publique, et longtemps isolé, il ne doit son
accession à l’Empire qu’à
la mort de ses nombreux concurrents et aux espoirs tardifs qu'une partie
du Sénat et
des forces prétoriennes mettent en lui49.
Selon un point de
vue plus favorable, on ne peut affirmer l'exclusion de Claude, privé de toute
importance dynastique avant son avènement. Contrairement à l'impression
laissée par Suétone, il apparaît dès le principat d'Auguste comme un membre à
part entière de la Domus Augusta, la nébuleuse de filiations naturelles ou adoptives et
d’alliances matrimoniales organisée autour de la parenté d’Auguste. Deux éléments sont pris
en considération dans cette approche : l’inclusion de Claude dans les
stratégies matrimoniales et sa présence dans la statuaire impériale
officielle, qui constitue une source alternative aux écrits dépréciatifs de
Suétone50.
Place de Claude
dans la Domus Augusta[modifier | modifier le code]
Phalère (décoration militaire) en verre avec le
buste de Tibère, encadré par ceux de ses fils Drusus et Germanicus.
En 4 apr.
J.-C., après la mort de ses petits-fils Caius et Lucius Cesar, Auguste organise une nouvelle fois sa succession en
resserrant les liens entre sa lignée, les Julii, et la famille des Claudii, issue de Livie : il adopte comme ses fils son dernier petit-fils Agrippa Postumus et son
beau-fils Tibère,
et l’oblige à adopter à son tour son neveu Germanicus, ce qui laisse Claude hors de la lignée successorale directe51.
En 12 apr.
J.-C., Germanicus reçoit le consulat et préside les Ludi
Martiales. À l’occasion de cet événement, Auguste
répond à Livie dans une lettre citée par Suétone sur l’attitude à adopter
envers Claude, une fois pour toutes. Après en avoir discuté avec Tibère, il
informe Livie et Antonia qu’il ne veut pas que Claude soit dans la loge
impériale, car il attirerait les regards et les moqueries qui rejailliraient
sur sa famille. Il admet toutefois qu'il participe à la préparation du repas
des prêtres, à condition que son beau-frère Silvanus le guide et le surveilleA 15,52. Barbara Levick voit dans
cette lettre la décision officielle d’exclure Claude de tout événement
public, et donc de la succession impériale53. Selon Pierre Renucci, Claude peut faire quelques apparitions
publiques, en étant encadré par des parents ou des amis, mais constate qu’il
ne fera rien de plus54. Frédéric Hurlet est plus
nuancé, et note qu’il est normal qu’Auguste se soucie de soigner les
apparences, mais qu’il exprime dans cette lettre et d’autres plus
bienveillantes son désir de former le jeune Claude en lui donnant des
exemples à imiter55.
Les lettres
d’Auguste transcrites par Suétone ont beau laisser entendre que l’empereur
tient Claude à l’écart, l’affirmation officielle de son appartenance à
la Domus Augusta est
attestée par les groupes de statues représentant les membres de la dynastie
impériale56. Le plus
remarqué est le groupe qui ornait la porte de la ville de Pavie. Si l’arche, les statues et
les dédicaces ont disparu, l’inscription d’une série de dédicaces a été
maladroitement transcrite au xie siècle
et reconstituée par Theodor MommsenA 17. Datées des années 7 et 8 apr. J.-C., elles nomment
Auguste et Livie et toute leur descendance masculine à cette date : à
droite d’Auguste quatre noms, Tibère, Germanicus et leurs fils
respectifs Drusus le Jeune et Nero Cesar ; à gauche de Livie quatre autres noms, les princes
décédés Caius et Lucius Cesar, avec Drusus
César, second fils de Germanicus, et enfin
Claude. Plusieurs spécialistes ont émis l’hypothèse de l’ajout postérieur du
nom de Claude car sa présence contredit la marginalisation insinuée par
Suétone, mais Frédéric Hurlet réfute cette possibilité car elle induirait
d’impossibles irrégularités dans la disposition des dédicaces57.
La succession
d’Auguste[modifier | modifier le code]
Auguste meurt
en 14 apr. J.-C. Son testament distribue sa fortune à Tibère
et Livie au premier rang, puis à Drusus le Jeune, Germanicus et ses trois
fils au second rang, et relègue Claude comme héritier de troisième rang, avec
divers parents et amis53,
avec un legs particulier de 800 000 sestercesA 18,N
1. Quoique ce testament n’ait qu’une valeur
privée, il correspond au schéma de succession politique préparé par Auguste,
en l’absence de toute règle officielle de transmission du pouvoir58.
Quel que soit le
dédain de la famille impériale souligné par Suétone, il semble avéré que
Claude recueille en ces circonstances une certaine estime publique. Les chevaliers choisissent Claude
pour conduire leur délégation et discuter les modalités de leur participation
au cortège funèbre d’Auguste, tandis que les sénateurs l'ajoutent au collège
des prêtres créé pour le culte d'Auguste, les Sodales
Augustales A 19, en compagnie de Tibère, Germanicus et Drusus le JeuneA 20. Frédéric Hurlet remarque que
Claude est alors considéré comme un des héritiers spirituels d'Auguste, au
même plan que ses trois parents59. Toutefois, les fonctions sacerdotales, seul rôle officiel
accordé à Claude, ne sont que des dignités mineures octroyées à tout jeune
aristocrate de haut rang54.
Sous le règne de
Tibère[modifier | modifier le code]
Statue de Tibère (ier siècle), Paris, musée du Louvre.
Après la mort
d'Auguste, Claude sollicite son oncle Tibère pour obtenir les mêmes honneurs que son frère Germanicus. Selon Levick, Tibère
maintient l’exclusion convenue avec Auguste, et répond en n'accordant à
Claude que les ornements consulaires 60.
Claude insiste, Tibère lui retourne un mot disant qu'il lui envoie
quarante aurei pour
les Sigillaires,
fête où l'on offre des menus cadeaux aux enfantsA
21,61. Quand les sénateurs proposent que Claude participe à leurs
débats, Tibère refuse encoreA 19.
En octobre
19 apr. J.-C., Germanicus décède soudainement en Orient. L’urne
contenant ses cendres est rapportée en Italie pour organiser ses funérailles
publiques, probablement en janvier 20 apr. J.-C. Le cortège
funèbre est accueilli à Terracine, à 100 km de Rome, par Claude et son cousin Drusus le Jeune accompagnés
des consuls, des sénateurs et de citoyens, tandis que ni Antonia la Jeune,
mère du défunt, ni Tibère, son père adoptif, ne se déplacent62,61. Parmi les monuments décrétés par le Sénat en l'honneur de
Germanicus, on connait précisément la statuaire d'un arc à l'entrée du cirque Flaminius, grâce à
l'inscription de la Tabula SiarensisA 22 : outre Germanicus sur un char y figurent ses parents,
son frère Claude et sa sœur Livilla, et ses enfants, à l'exclusion de Tibère
et de la descendance de ce dernier. Levick affirme que Claude est à une place
humiliante, entre la sœur de Germanicus et ses enfants63, jugement que Hurlet considère
comme abusif dans la mesure où la disposition précise des statues est
inconnue64.
Germanicus laisse
une veuve, Agrippine l'Aînée, et six enfants, dont trois fils qui s’opposent comme
héritiers présomptifs à Drusus le Jeune, fils de Tibère et époux de Livilla, sœur de Germanicus et de
Claude. Les rivalités durant les années suivantes entre les deux branches
familiales sont aggravées par les intrigues de l’ambitieux préfet du prétoire Séjan, ancien proche de
Germanicus, homme de confiance de l’empereur et détesté par Drusus le Jeune.
Séjan se rapproche de la Domus Augusta par la promesse en 20 d’un mariage entre sa fille
et Drusus, fils
de ClaudeA 23,65. Le mariage n’a toutefois pas
lieu, car le jeune homme meurt avant, étouffé par une poire qu’il jouait à
rattraper au vol avec sa boucheA 24,66.
Famille impériale en 23 ap. J.-C. En gris, personnes décédées à cette date
En 23, le fils de
Tibère Drusus le Jeune (Drusus
II) meurt, empoisonné par Séjan avec la complicité de Livilla, forfait
seulement révélé des années plus tard67,68.
Cette disparition ne laisse dans la ligne de succession que les deux fils en
bas âge qu’il a eu de Livilla, et les trois fils de Germanicus, deux
adolescents, Nero et Drusus III, et Caius encore enfant. Tibère a
entamé la promotion de Nero et de Drusus III, en leur faisant octroyer
la questure cinq
ans avant l’âge légal, et en mariant Nero à la fille du défunt Drusus II69,70. Mais Claude est pour la première fois le seul parent adulte
du vieux Tibère, ce qui ferait de lui un héritier potentiel. C’est
probablement de ce moment que date la réflexion de sa sœur Livilla qui, ayant
entendu dire qu’il serait un jour empereur, déplore publiquement qu’un tel
malheur et qu’une telle honte soient réservés au peuple romainA 6. Selon Frédéric Hurlet, la
rancœur de Livilla ne traduit pas l’incapacité de son frère comme le suggère
Suétone, mais se comprend mieux par la crainte que Claude évince ses fils65.
Vers 24, Claude
répudie Plautia Urgulanilla, sous l’accusation de débauche et d’adultère, et lui renvoie
sa fille, un bébé de quelques mois, considérée comme illégitime71,72. Il se remarie peu après, la même année ou certainement avant
28 ou 30, avec Ælia Pætina, fille d’un ancien consul et liée à la famille de Séjan, dont
il a une fille, Claudia Antonia73. Claude apparaît très rarement dans les années 23 à 30, comme
neutralisé par cette alliance73, tandis que Séjan et Livilla éliminent Agrippine l'Aînée et ses
fils Nero et Drusus. Leurs complots sont
dénoncés à Tibère en 31 : Séjan est alors exécuté, Livilla disparait et
est frappée de damnatio memoriae74. Claude reprend ses distances
en divorçant d’Ælia Pætina, devenue embarrassante par ses liens de parenté
avec Séjan71.
Travaux érudits[modifier | modifier le code]
Claude est durant
toute sa vie un auteur prolifique. Selon l'historien Arnaldo
Momigliano, c'est durant le règne de Tibère,
correspondant au sommet de la production littéraire de Claude, qu'il devient
mal vu politiquement de parler de la Rome
républicaine75. Si Velleius Paterculus, qui ménage
Octave et Tibère et flatte Séjan, est publié, Aulus Cremutius
Cordus est condamné en 25 apr.
J.-C., accusé d'avoir composé des Annales louant les assassins de César Brutus et CassiusA 25. Les jeunes se
tournent vers l'histoire impériale plus récente, ou vers des sujets antiques
peu connus. Claude est à cette époque l'un des rares savants à s'intéresser à
ces deux domaines. En plus de son Histoire
du règne d'Auguste, écrite en quarante-et-un
livres en latin76,
probablement un par année sur la période entre 27 av.
J.-C. à 14 apr. J.-C.77, dont la première version en deux livres lui avait causé des
déboiresA 14, on
compte parmi ses œuvres une Histoire
des Tyrrhéniens (nom
grec des Étrusques)
en vingt volumes et une Histoire de Carthage en huit volumes,
toutes deux en grec78.
Ces Histoires, commencées sous l'égide de Tite-Live, sont probablement achevées avant la proclamation de Claude77. Arnaldo Momigliano, qui pourtant
réhabilite le gouvernement de Claude, dédaigne ces œuvres historiques et les
classe au rang de compilations pédantes d'auteurs antérieurs. Jacques Heurgon le contredit
en 1954 en affirmant le sérieux de l'intérêt étruscologique de Claude. En
effet, son mariage pendant quinze ans avec Plautia
Urgulanilla, issue d'une puissante famille
toscane, a dû lui ouvrir l'accès à la culture
étrusque79. On le constate lorsqu'il soutient
devant le Sénat le maintien du collège des haruspices, car « il ne fallait pas laisser périr le plus
ancien des arts cultivés en ItalieA 26 ». Et dans son discours
sur les sénateurs gaulois, il donne des détails
des rois étrusques de Rome sensiblement différents de ceux de Tite-Live80.
Enfin, il rédige
son autobiographie en
huit volumes que Suétone juge dénuée d'espritA 14. Claude critique sévèrement ses prédécesseurs et les membres
de sa famille dans les discours qui ont survécuA
27.
Aucun de ces travaux
n'a survécu. Suétone énumère les ouvrages de Claude, mais ne semble puiser
que dans son autobiographie pour rapporter la sévérité qu'il subit dans son
enfance81. Claude est aussi
la source de quelques passages de l’Histoire
naturelle de Pline
l'Ancien82 sur la géographie et l'histoire
naturelle77.
Claude a proposé
d'autre part une réforme de l'alphabet latin76 en y ajoutant trois
nouvelles lettres, dont deux sont l'équivalent
des lettres modernes : le V (le digamma inversum Ⅎ), consonne que l’écriture latine ne
distingue pas de la voyelle U [u], le Y [w] (le sonus medius) et une troisième (l'antisigma)
transcrivant les sons PS [p͡s] et BS [b͡s]. Il publie avant son avènement un écrit les
proposant et les institue de manière officielle durant son censoratA 14, mais ses lettres ne
perdurent pas après son règneA 28.
Loisirs décriés[modifier | modifier le code]
Mis à l'écart,
Claude ne se consacre pas seulement aux loisirs intellectuels. Selon Suétone
il s'entoure de gens abjects et s’adonne à l’ivrognerie et aux jeuxA 21,83,84.
Amateur passionné de jeu de dés, que Sénèque caricature en le figurant secouant un cornet
trouéA 29, il écrit
même un traité sur ce jeu, perdu comme ses autres écrits85.
Il fréquente les
banquets avec une goinfrerie sans mesure, buvant et mangeant jusqu’à sombrer
dans la torpeurA 30,A 31. Aurelius Victor évoque un
Claude « honteusement soumis à son ventreA
32 ». Aux yeux des historiens romains ces
excès sont le signe d’une absence d’éducation, d’un défaut de maîtrise de soi
et d’une soumission à ses sens, défauts caractéristiques d’un tyran86. Il éprouve parfois des
douleurs stomacales si vives qu’il parle de se suiciderA 33. Là encore, plusieurs
interprétations médicales sont possibles : pancréatite chronique, liée à
l’abus éthylique et très douloureuse, ulcère
gastro-duodénal ou dyspepsie stomacale87. Sénèque fait aussi dans
son Apocoloquintose une allusion caricaturale aux flatulences et à la goutte affectant ClaudeA 34, les flatulences pouvant
coïncider avec la dyspepsie et la goutte, une hyperuricémie en terme moderne, un mal vraisemblable vus ses excès
alimentaires88.
Succession de
Tibère[modifier | modifier le code]
Tibère meurt
le 16 mars 37. Tacite affirme qu’il a hésité
sur le choix de son successeur, entre ses petits-fils adoptif et naturel,
Caligula, un jeune homme inexpérimenté, et Tiberius
Gemellus, encore enfant, et qu’il a même pensé à
Claude, d’âge plus mûr et désireux du Bien, mais dont la « faiblesse
mentale » (« imminuta mens ») constituait un obstacleA
35. Son testament désigne comme cohéritiers
Caligula et Gemellus, à égalitéA 36. Caligula prend les devants avec l'aide du préfet du prétoire Macron, qui le fait acclamer avant
d’être confirmé par le Sénat89. Peu après, il élimine Tiberius Gemellus en l’accusant d’une
prétendue tentative d’empoisonnementA 37.
Le testament de
Tibère place Claude en héritier de troisième ligne, comme l’avait fait
Auguste60, avec tout de même
un legs de deux millions de sestercesN 2, et le recommande, lui et d’autres parents, aux armées, au
Sénat et au peuple romainA 38.
Sénateur sous
Caligula[modifier | modifier le code]
Aussitôt proclamé
empereur, Caligula multiplie les manifestations de piété filiale, célèbre des
cérémonies funèbres en l’honneur de Tibère et de ses parents défunts Germanicus et Agrippine l'Aînée, accorde des
titres à sa grand-mère Antonia la Jeune. Se nommant lui-même consul
suffect, il prend son oncle Claude comme collègue
durant deux moisA 39,A 40, du 1er juillet au 31 août90, ce qui le fait enfin entrer au SénatA 41. Même si cette promotion est
le plus grand honneur possible pour Claude, elle est tardive – il a
46 ans – et ne suffit pas à lui donner l'influence qu'il pouvait espérer91. De plus, il ne donne pas toute
satisfaction dans ses fonctions, car Caligula l’accuse de négligence dans le
suivi de l’installation de statues dédiées à ses défunts frères Nero et Drusus92,A 42. Suétone rapporte l’attitude
changeante de Caligula envers Claude : il le laisse présider quelques
spectacles à sa place, occasion d’être acclamé comme « oncle de
l’empereur » ou « frère de Germanicus »93. Mais lorsque Claude fait
partie d’une délégation envoyée en Germanie par le Sénat pour féliciter l’empereur d’avoir échappé à
un complot, Caligula s’indigne qu’on lui envoie son oncle comme à un enfant à
régenterA 43,94.
En octobre 38,
un incendie ravage le quartier des Aemiliana, qu'on situe dans la banlieue de Rome. D'après Suétone,
Claude, réfugié pendant deux jours dans un bâtiment public, engage tous les
moyens possibles pour combattre le feu, envoyant des soldats et ses esclaves,
appelant les magistrats de la plèbe de tous les quartiers, et récompensant
sur le champ l'aide des pompiers volontairesA 44. Après la destruction de sa demeure dans l'incendie, le Sénat
vote sa reconstruction sur fonds publicsA 19,95.
Claude est alors un
homme mûr, à la taille bien faite et élancée, dont les cheveux blancs
ajoutent à la gentillesse naturelle de son visage, donnant, selon Suétone,
grandeur et dignitas à
son être entierA 10.
Il épouse Messaline, une petite-nièce d’Auguste beaucoup plus jeune que lui et
qui lui donne aussitôt deux enfants, Octavie et Britannicus71. En l’absence de sources antiques, on ignore tout de
Messaline avant qu’elle soit impératrice, sauf son ascendance : par son
père Marcus Valerius Messalla Barbatus (en) et par sa mère Domitia
Lepida Minor, elle est une arrière-petite-fille
d’Octavie la Jeune,
qui est la sœur d’Auguste, et aussi la grand-mère de Claude96. En revanche, la date de
naissance de la mariée97, son âge, la date de cette union et surtout sa raison sont
toutes conjecturales98.
Les seuls points de repère chronologiques connus sont : 12 ans
comme âge minimum légal de mariage d’une Romaine et la mise au monde de
Britannicus vingt jours après la proclamation de Claude selon Suétone, soit
le 12 février 41A 45. Tous les historiens s’accordent pour situer le mariage sous
Caligula, peu avant 41 selon Ronald Syme, peut-être lors du consulat de Claude en 37 pour C. Ehrhardt,
ou encore en 38 ou au début de 39 pour Levick99 pour placer la naissance d’Octavie un an ou deux avant
celle de son frère, en 39 ou début 40100.
Messaline, fortunée
et d’une lignée prestigieuse, est un des meilleurs partis du moment, capable
de renflouer Claude. Pour certains historiens, Caligula la neutralise en la
mariant à Claude et évite ainsi de légitimer un autre aristocrate, capable
d’être un prétendant potentiel101. Barbara Levick fait aussi remarquer que la famille de
Messaline, et surtout sa tante Claudia
Pulchra, ont fidèlement soutenu Agrippine l'Aînée sous
Tibère, malgré les poursuites encourues. La prestigieuse alliance avec la
famille impériale serait alors une sorte de récompense102.
Claude dit de Gabies, reprise d'une statue de
Caligula. Musée du Louvre.
Selon Suétone, la
promotion de Claude comme sénateur ne lui vaut pas plus de respect à la cour
impériale : on le ridiculise lorsqu’il s’endort, comme souvent à la fin
des repas, en le bombardant de noyaux ou en le faisant réveiller sous le
fouet des bouffons. Au Sénat, quoiqu’il soit règlementairement intégré au
groupe des anciens consuls, on ne lui donne la parole qu’en dernier. Enfin,
il est presque ruiné lorsqu’on lui impose son adhésion à un collège de
prêtres, qui l’oblige à payer huit millions de sestercesA
46.
Plusieurs
inscriptions honorifiques datées d'entre 37 et 41 montrent au contraire que
Claude connait un certain prestige dans les provinces, comme celle sur une
base de statue près du temple de Rome et d’Auguste
de Pola en IllyrieA
47, à Alexandrie
de Troade en Asie, dédié par un chevalier devenu duumvir de cette colonieA 48,103.
Une autre inscription à Lugdunum, près du temple municipal, associe Caligula à une princesse
impériale et à Claude, elle pourrait dater du séjour de Caligula en Gaule à
la fin de l'été 39 ou plus vraisemblablement en 40A
49,104.
Les événements de
janvier 41 et la prise du pouvoir[modifier | modifier le code]
Après plus de trois
ans de règne, le mécontentement contre Caligula est tel que nombreux sont
ceux qui souhaitent sa disparition, et quelques-uns vont oser passer à l’acte105. Dans la rivalité entre les
prétendants à la succession, Claude trouve « malgré lui » le
soutien efficace des forces armées stationnées à Rome, tandis que le Sénat,
assemblée vénérable mais impuissante, est incapable de restaurer un régime
d’apparence républicaine106 et doit entériner la proclamation du nouvel empereur107.
Le meurtre de
Caligula[modifier | modifier le code]
Claude proclamé empereur, peinture de Charles Lebayle selon le
récit de Flavius Josèphe, 1886.
Caligula est
assassiné le 24 janvier 41. La narration de son meurtre
par Flavius Josèphe est la plus détailléeA 50 et est antérieure à celle de Suétone : Caligula
quitte vers midi une représentation de théâtre, accompagné de Claude, de son
beau-frère Marcus Vinicius, de Valerius Asiaticus et d’une escorte de trois tribuns du prétoire, dont
Cassius Chaerea et Cornelius Sabinus. Dans un passage menant au palais,
Claude, Vinicius et Asiaticus quittent Caligula, donnant, volontairement ou
non, l’opportunité à Cassius Chaerea et Sabinus de frapper à mort Caligula108,109. Sa femme Caesonia et sa fille Julia sont aussi tuées pendant
l'opération. Lorsque les Germains de la garde personnelle de Caligula
apprennent sa mort, ils tuent au hasard trois sénateurs présents sur les
lieux du meurtre110,A 51.
Lorsque Claude
apprend le meurtre de son neveu, il s'éloigne, ignorant si les meurtriers
n'en ont pas après lui 111, en allant sur une terrasse110. Il y est découvert par un soldat et ses compagnons qui
mettent Claude en sécurité en le portant en litière jusqu'au camp de la garde
prétorienne, laissant croire qu'il est mort112. Selon Renucci, qui reprend la célèbre narration de SuétoneA 52, Claude échappe ainsi de peu
à un destin funeste : il aurait pu être tué par les loyalistes le
considérant comme comploteur ou par les meurtriers voulant éliminer toute la
dynastie113. Castorio
considère cette scène d’anthologie d’un Claude apeuré, découvert par hasard
et proclamé malgré lui empereur, comme une caricature peu crédible :
Caligula s’était fait trop d’ennemis pour que l’acte de Chaerea soit une
initiative isolée105.
Flavius Josèphe donne le nom d’un conjuré, Calliste, affranchi de Caligula, riche et influent, mais qui redoutait
l’arbitraire de son maître et servait Claude secrètementA 53. Castorio estime que Calliste
n’aurait pas pris le risque d’un complot sans avoir l’assurance de la
protection de Claude en cas de succès114. Enfin, Castorio n’exclut pas que cet avènement de Claude,
« par hasard », soit un récit forgé a
posteriori, qui offre l’avantage d’exonérer
Claude d’une participation au complot, quitte à passer pour couard et
ridicule106. Mais si
certains historiens115 ont
supposé une participation directe de Claude à la conjuration, ou son
acceptation tacite, en l'état actuel de nos connaissances, rien ne permet de
valider ces hypothèses116.
Le Sénat et Claude[modifier | modifier le code]
Immédiatement, les
consuls Cn. Sentius Saturninus et Q. Pomponius Secundus réunissent le Sénat
et, avec des cohortes urbaines, prennent le contrôle du Capitole et du forumA 52,A 54,117. Le Sénat envoie deux
messagers à Claude, tribuns de la plèbe sacro-saints et non sénateurs pour éviter de laisser des
otages, pour le convaincre de venir s'expliquer devant l'assemblée. Claude à
son tour évite de se déplacer, et demande aux messagers de transmettre ses
bonnes intentions au Sénat118.
Certains historiens,
se fondant sur Flavius JosèpheA 55, estiment que Claude était alors influencé par le roi
de Judée, Hérode AgrippaA 56. Cependant, une
seconde version du même auteur, probablement fondée sur une Vie d'Agrippa, minimise son rôle
dans les événementsA 57.
Hérode Agrippa, après avoir convaincu Claude de ne pas abandonner le pouvoir,
va négocier avec le Sénat et le convainc de ne pas prendre les armes. Il fait
croire que Claude ne peut venir parce qu'il est retenu de force par les
prétoriens119.
Les assassins de
Caligula n'ont pas prévu de remplaçant. Plusieurs noms circulent : le
beau-frère de Caligula, Marcus Vinicius, Lucius Annius Vinicianus ou encore Valerius
AsiaticusA 58,120. Aucun n'est retenu, et quelques hauts personnages tel GalbaA 59 sont contactés.
Quoi qu'il en soit, la garde prétorienne acclame Claude empereur dès le soir
du 24 ou au début du 25. Le Sénat ne peut qu'avaliser. Claude promet un donativum de
15 000 sesterces selon SuétoneN 3 ou 5 000 drachmes selon Josèphe (soit 20 000 sesterces) à chaque prétorien111,121. Cette somme, dix fois supérieure à ce qu'avait consenti son
prédécesseur, persuade les derniers partisans du Sénat de se rallier à lui.
L'assemblée tente une dernière manœuvre en envoyant Cassius Chaerea, un des officiers
qui ont tué Caligula, mais il est reçu par des prétoriens hurlant au nouvel
empereur et sortant les glaives. Claude répond via Agrippa qu'il n'avait pas
souhaité le pouvoir, mais qu'il le conservait après avoir été nommé par les
gardes. Il ajoute qu'il gouvernera avec le Sénat122.
Dès son avènement,
Claude s'emploie à rassurer, à restaurer sa réputation et à asseoir sa
légitimité. Il annonce par édit que ses colères seront courtes et
inoffensives, il réfute sa prétendue stupidité en affirmant qu'il feignait
pour échapper aux menaces de CaligulaA 60,107.
Claude décrète
immédiatement une amnistie généraleA 61, seul Cassius Chaerea est exécuté, car on ne peut impunément assassiner un
empereur. Son complice le tribun Cornelius
Sabinus est amnistié, mais il se suicide par
solidarité124. Claude
fait détruire les poisons trouvés dans l'appartement de Caligula et brûler
tous ses dossiers compromettantsA 62,125,
mais refuse que sa mémoire soit condamnée par une damnatio memoriae et que le
jour de sa mort soit noté comme un jour de fête126. Il rappelle les exilés du règne précédent, dont ses
nièces Agrippine la Jeune et Julia Livilla127.
Claude n'a pas
autant de légitimité que ses prédécesseurs, car il ne descend d'Auguste ni
par le sang ni par l'adoption ; il insiste donc, dès sa proclamation,
sur son appartenance à la domus Augusta, la maison d'Auguste128. Il promet de gouverner en prenant exemple sur AugusteA 61. Il s'appelle
maintenant Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus129 : il adopte le nom
d'Auguste comme ses prédécesseurs au début de leur règne, et le cognomen de
« César » qui devient à cette occasion un titre alors qu'il avait
été transmis jusqu'à Caligula uniquement par filiation naturelle ou adoption129. C'est probablement le Sénat
qui est à l'initiative de cette transformation130. En revanche, il refuse de prendre comme prénom le titre d'ImperatorA 61, trop connoté militairement (« commandant
victorieux »)131.
Il conserve le surnom honorifique de Germanicus, lien avec son défunt frère
héroïque, et utilise fréquemment l'expression « fils de Drusus » (filius Drusi) dans ses titres pour
rappeler son père exemplaire et s'approprier sa popularité. Il déifie sa
grand-mère paternelle Livie, l'épouse du divin Auguste, et accorde à sa défunte
mère Antonia la Jeune le titre d'AugustaA 61,126.
Enfin, il attend trente jours avant de venir accepter les honneurs et les
titres dus à l'empereur, de même que celui de Père
de la patrie qu'il ne prendra qu'un an plus
tard132.
Famille de Claude et de Messaline, vers 42
Quelques jours après
l'avènement de son mari, le 12 février, Messaline met au monde un héritier
impérial, que Claude nomme Tiberius Claudius
Germanicus, le futur Britannicus133. La même année 41, le couple
impérial complète les alliances familiales : Claude marie sa fille
ainée Claudia Antonia à Pompée Magnus, illustre descendant de Pompée, fiance sa seconde
fille Claudia Octavia, encore enfant, à Junius
Silanus et leur fait décerner les premiers
honneurs du vigintiviratA 63. De son côté, Messaline accuse d’adultère Julia Livilla, sœur de Caligula,
et son amant présumé Sénèque. Renvoyée en exil, Julia Livilla meurt ou est exécutée peu
aprèsA 2,127. Les historiens modernes
admettent que Messaline ait pu redouter l’importance de Julia Livilla,
précédemment accusée de complot et exilée, et de surcroît épouse de Marcus Vinicius, envisagé par le
Sénat comme successeur possible de Caligula134.
Relations avec le
Sénat[modifier | modifier le code]
À l’inverse de
Caligula, Claude s'applique à ménager les sénateurs en leur témoignant les
marques de courtoisie dues à leur rang. Par exemple, pendant les sessions
régulières, l'empereur est assis parmi l’assemblée du Sénat, parlant lorsque
vient son tour et se levant pour s’adresser à l’assemblée, bien que la
position debout prolongée lui soit difficile. Lors de la présentation d’une
loi, il est assis sur le banc réservé aux tribuns dans son rôle de porteur de
la puissance tribunitienne (étant patricien, l'empereur ne peut pas officiellement être tribun de la plèbe mais ce
pouvoir a été accordé aux empereurs précédents)136. Suétone, faute de l’épingler pour son manque de civilité,
insinue qu’il en montre tropA 64,131.
Néanmoins, Claude reste prudent et, après avoir sollicité l’accord du Sénat,
se fait accompagner dans la curie d’une escorte de protection formée du préfet du prétoire
et de tribuns militairesA 65.
D'après un extrait
de discours retrouvé sur un fragment de papyrus, Claude encourage les
sénateurs à débattre des projets de loi137. Claude sévit aussi contre l’absentéisme au Sénat138, au point que, selon Dion Cassius, plusieurs sénateurs
sévèrement punis de leur absence se suicidentA 66, épisode dépourvu de précision dont on ne sait la part de
réalité ou de médisance139. En 45, pour couper court aux absences, Claude retire au
Sénat le droit de délivrer des congés, et se le fait attribuer exclusivementA 67,140.
Complots et
représailles[modifier | modifier le code]
Tête en bronze d'un empereur romain, probablement Claude, ier siècle.
Découvert à Rendham (en). British Museum
Néanmoins, des
menaces émanent rapidement d’une partie du Sénat. Exécutions et suicides de
sénateurs vont se succéder, pour des complots ou des suspicions impériales,
rapportés par Suétone, Dion Cassius et Tacite. Ceux-ci les expliquent par le
caractère peureux de Claude, redoutant un assassinat et jouet des intrigues
d’une Messaline perverse soutenue par ses affranchis. Ces historiens
justifient les accusations formulées par Messaline par sa jalousie contre les
rivales possibles, son avidité pour les biens de ses victimes ou sa volonté
de domination sexuelle, parfois même les deux. L’attitude des historiens
modernes varie du respect des grands auteurs antiques, où tout est vrai, à la
circonspection qui tente de démêler le vrai du faux pour réinterpréter
l’Histoire, jusqu’à l’hypercritique, qui nie toute certitude historique sur
la présentation négative des intentions de Claude et de son entourage141. Parmi les théories
interprétant les motivations impériales, Levick considère que le couple
impérial se concilie les rivaux potentiels, et attend qu’ils soient
vulnérables pour les éliminer si le danger persiste142. Renucci partage cette vision : Tacite et les autres
historiens ne doivent pas être lus au premier degré, mais sous-entendent
beaucoup plus qu’ils n’expriment. Pour lui, Claude n’hésite pas à éliminer
ceux qu’il craint, quitte à tenter de les endormir dans un premier temps par
divers honneurs et alliances pour les éliminer quand l’occasion se présente143.
Peu de temps après
la proclamation de Claude, en 42, Suétone et Dion Cassius citent une première
exécution de sénateur, celle d’Appius Silanus, légat en Espagne puis époux en secondes noces de Domitia
Lepida, la mère de Messaline. Selon Dion Cassius, il aurait offensé Messaline
en refusant d’être son amant. Tout en émettant des réserves, Suétone expose
avec une machination rocambolesque : en exploitant la peur de Claude,
Messaline puis l’affranchi Narcisse prétendent avoir rêvé de son assassinat
par Appius Silanus, et obtiennent sa mise à mort dès qu’il se présente au
palaisA 68,A 69,144. Des historiens modernes doutent de ce récit, trop conforme à
l’image d’une Messaline criminelle et frustrée et d’un Claude peureux
manipulé par son entourage. Pour Levick145, suivie par Renucci, Claude n’est ni stupide ni innocent et
c’est lui l’inspirateur d’une élimination préventive de Silanus, après
l’avoir attiré à la cour impériale146. D’autres supposent un complot de Silanus, découvert à temps111.
Peu après, Scribonianus, légat de Dalmatie, se révolte, incité par
le sénateur Vinicianus, cité en 41 comme successeur possible de Caligula et
craignant de le payer de sa vie. Mal préparée, peut-être improvisée à la
suite de l’exécution d’Appius Silanus, la tentative est un échec, les soldats
refusent de suivre Scribonianus qui se suicide ou est tué147. Caecina Paetus, membre de la
conspiration, est arrêté en Dalmatie et transféré à Rome. Son épouse Arria l’encourage au suicide
en se poignardant elle-mêmeA 70. Selon Dion Cassius, les mises en accusation se font au
Sénat, en présence de Claude, et un grand nombre de conspirateurs, des
sénateurs dont Vinicianus et des chevaliers, préfèrent le suicide à la
délation et la torture orchestrées selon Dion Cassius par Messaline et NarcisseA 71,124. Mais, contrairement aux
poursuites menées sous Tibère, les enfants des conjurés sont épargnés147. Cette sédition avortée montre
la fidélité de l’armée à Claude, confirmée durant tout son règne. Après cette
alerte, il fait voter par le Sénat le titre de Claudia Pia Fidelis pour
récompenser les légions de Dalmatie qui ont refusé de marcher contre luiA 72, une façon d’appeler les
sénateurs à témoigner de leur soutien à l’empereur148.
Épurations
dynastiques[modifier | modifier le code]
Dion Cassius situe
lors des années 46 et 47 apr. J.-C. une série d’éliminations
dans la famille impériale, visant les gendres de Claude et l’entourage des
sœurs de Caligula, Agrippine la Jeune et Julia Livilla. En 46, selon Dion
Cassius, Messaline empoisonne Marcus Vinicius, ex beau-frère de Caligula, qui aurait refusé d’être son
amant. Dion indique aussi qu’il était suspecté de vouloir venger la mort de
son épouse Julia LivillaA 73,149.
Une tentative d’assassinat du fils d’Agrippine, le petit Domitius
Ahenobarbus, futur Néron, aussi imputée à Messaline, est qualifiée de fable par
Suétone150.
En 46 ou en 47, le
gendre de Claude, Pompée Magnus est exécuté pour des motifs que ni Suétone ni Dion
Cassius n’indiquentA 74,A 75 mais que les historiens
modernes supposent être la volonté de Messaline et peut-être celle de Claude
d’éliminer une possible concurrence de leur fils Britannicus. L’exécution en
même temps du père de Pompée Crassus Frugi (en) et de sa mère, n’est évoquée que par Sénèque, qui en
fait porter la responsabilité à Claude151,152.
Claudia Antonia est remariée au demi-frère de Messaline, Faustus Sylla, un
gendre moins problématique153.
En 46, Asinius Gallus, petit-fils de
l'orateur Asinius Pollio et frère utérin de Drusus II, et Statilius Corvinus,
ancien consul, montent une révolution de palais avec des affranchis et des
esclaves de ClaudeA 76.
Asinius Gallus est seulement exiléA 73. Les sources antiques sont laconiques, le sort de Corvinus et
celui des autres complices sont inconnus154. En 47, est mis en accusation Decimus
Valerius Asiaticus, richissime sénateur
originaire de Vienne, très influent en Gaule, deux fois consul. L’accusation
d’adultère masque d’autres motifs. Tacite accuse Messaline de convoiter
ses jardins,
motif conventionnel, puis expose des soupçons plus inquiétants :
Asiaticus pourrait soulever les Gaules et l’armée de Germanie. De plus
Asiaticus était présent lors du meurtre de Caligula et aurait été évoqué pour
sa succession. Arrêté avant son supposé départ pour la Germanie, il comparait
devant Claude, qui ne lui laisse que le choix de son mode de mort. Il s’ouvre
donc les veines dans ses jardinsA 77. Pour Renucci, Asiaticus pourrait être un des derniers à
payer de sa vie son implication dans l’assassinat de Caligula155. Un an après, dans son
discours sur l’admission des Gaulois, Claude le qualifie sans le nommer de
« brigand » (latro) et de « prodige de palestre »156.
L’ampleur de cette
succession de purges n’est pas précisément connue, mais selon Suétone et
Sénèque, Claude durant son règne aurait poussé au suicide ou fait exécuter
trente-cinq sénateurs et plus de trois cents chevaliersA
78,A 79. Parmi ces victimes, dix-huit sont identifiées nommément, et
seulement deux sont morts après 47. Renucci situe donc la plupart des
éliminations comme une suite de la prise du pouvoir en 41, et suppose qu’une
faction dure des opposants à Caligula n’a pas rallié son successeur154.
Renouvellement du
Sénat[modifier | modifier le code]
En 47
et 48 apr. J.-C., Claude exerce la censure avec Lucius Vitellius. Cette fonction, tombée en désuétude après Auguste, lui
permet de renouveler les effectifs du Sénat, de l’ordre
sénatorial et de l’ordre équestre rassemblant
les chevaliers, tout en respectant les apparences républicainesA 44. Il démet du Sénat de
nombreux sénateurs qui ne répondent plus aux qualités morales ou aux
conditions financières attendues, mais selon une méthode déjà pratiquée par
Auguste, il les avertit individuellement à l’avance et leur permet de
démissionner sans humiliation publiqueA 80,157.
Dans le même temps, il fait voter pour les provinciaux titulaires de la citoyenneté romaine le droit
d’être candidats aux magistratures du cursus
honorum, ce qui les fait entrer au Sénat à
l’issue de leur mandat. La Table claudienne gravée à Lugdunum conserve son discours sur l'admission
de sénateurs gaulois. Il complète les rangs du Sénat par l’inscription des
nouveaux magistrats, et pour atteindre l’effectif de six cents, inaugure une
nouvelle pratique, l'adlectio : il inscrit d’office des chevaliers répondant aux
conditions de fortune et d'honorabilité, sans qu’il leur soit nécessaire
d’avoir exercé au préalable la questure158.
Il pallie
l’extinction des lignées patriciennes en accordant cette qualité aux sénateurs les plus
anciens, ou à ceux dont les parents s’étaient illustrésA 80.
Claude et l'Empire[modifier | modifier le code]
Après les désordres
de Caligula, Claude veut restaurer l'État romain, en développant sa
centralisation. Secondé par des affranchis compétents, il renforce
l'administration ébauchée par Auguste, surveille le gouvernement des
provinces en limitant les abus et garantit la paix
romaine par l'annexion de plusieurs royaumes
clients. Plus qu'Auguste, il s'intéresse aux provinciaux et diffuse
généreusement la citoyenneté romaine159.
Monnayage et
propagande impériale[modifier | modifier le code]
Le monnayage est un
puissant instrument de propagande pour les empereurs romains, qui touche
facilement les millions d'habitants de l'Empire160. Claude l'utilise pour ses frappes en or (aureus), en argent (denier), et en quantités
considérables pour les petites espèces en laiton (sesterce) et en bronze (as et ses sous-multiples). Les frappes de laiton et de
bronze de l'atelier de Rome sont complétées en Occident par les émissions
effectuées dans les camps militaires et par les imitations produites par des officines
locales tolérées par les autorités161. Par leur abondance, ces émissions, officielles et imitées,
se substituent aux anciennes monnaies gauloises et espagnoles, provoquent la
fermeture des petits ateliers monétaires encore actifs dans quelques municipes provinciaux et
alimentent le petit commerce en Gaule, en Germanie et en Bretagne162.
l'exaltation de certains
membres de sa famille, afin de réaffirmer sa légitimité
l'idée de Victoire, associée à
l'empereur
l'exemple d'Auguste
les valeurs liées à la
personne et à la politique de Claude
Dès les premières
émissions en 41/42 apr. J.-C., l'empereur est figuré avec son
père Drusus ou sa
mère Antonia la Jeune sur des séries en or, en argent ou en bronze, émises à
Rome et à Lugdunum.
Son fils Britannicus apparaît dès sa naissance en 41 sur des monnaies avec
l'inscription Spes Augusta (« Espoir Auguste »)164. D'autres frappes de sesterces à partir de 42/43 montrent son frère Germanicus puis l'épouse de
ce dernier Agrippine l'Aînée. Enfin, des bronzes frappés à Rome en 42 montrent les
fondateurs de la lignée impériale, Auguste et au revers Livie que Claude vient de faire diviniser165.
Sesterce émis par Claude au début
de son règne, en l'honneur de son père Drusus. Vers 42-43
Dupondius, Antonia la Jeune ANTONIA
AVGVSTA, env. 41-50, RIC Claudius 92166.
Monnaie frappée par la colonie romaine de Patras (Péloponnèse) : bustes des trois enfants de Claude.
En revanche, aucune
monnaie n’est émise à l’effigie de Messaline à Rome ou à Lugdunum. De
nombreuses cités de la partie orientale de l’Empire qui bénéficient de leur
indépendance monétaire frappent des monnaies qui exaltent la fécondité de
Messaline, mère de l’héritier présomptif de l’empereur. Nicée, Nicomédie la figurent portant
des épis de blé, attribut de Déméter, déesse de la fertilité167. Une émission d’Alexandrie la montre présentant dans sa main ouverte deux
personnages miniatures, ses deux enfants. Frappé à Césarée de Cappadoce, le portrait
de Messaline porte au revers Octavie et Britannicus se tenant par les mains
accompagnés de leur demi-sœur Claudia Antonia167.
Dans l'affirmation
de la légitimité de Claude, plus étonnantes sont les monnaies qui rappellent
sa proclamation par les militaires168 L'une montre dès 41-42, avec de nombreuses frappes
ultérieures, l'empereur associé aux gardes prétoriennes. Une seconde avec la
légende PRAETOR(iani) RECEPT(i) fait voir l'empereur et un soldat se serrant la main169. Il est probable, selon Levick
et Campbell, que ces monnayages récompensent les prétoriens ayant proclamé
Claude empereur170,
mais ces types sont ensuite réutilisés171 :
Claude en toge serrant la main d'un prétorien porteur
d'enseigne, légende PRAETOR RECEPT
Caserne de la Garde prétorienne,
surmontée de l'étendard militaire et de la Fides ; légende IMPER RECEPT
La Victoire est une condition
obligée pour la reconnaissance du pouvoir. Or Claude à son avènement ne peut
vanter aucun exploit militaire personnel ou de ses généraux. Il célèbre donc
ceux de son père par des émissions au profil de Drusus avec au revers un arc de triomphe, une statue
équestre entre deux trophées et l'inscription DE GERMANIS. À partir de 46 et
jusqu'en 51, Claude célèbre sa conquête de la Bretagne avec des monnaies au revers identique, et la mention DE
BRITANN(is)172.
Aureus à l'effigie de Drusus, arc de triomphe surmonté d'un
cavalier entre deux trophées, avec la légende DE GERM(anis)
Aureus, arc de triomphe surmonté d'un cavalier entre deux
trophées, avec la légende DE BRITANN(is)
Denier à l'effigie de Claude, 54. Revers : Carpentum à
droite tiré par quatre chevaux ; sur le char orné de bas-reliefs, deux
Victoires et un quadrige.
Des séries
monétaires émises pour les mérites d'Auguste sont reproduites par Claude : la figuration d'une
couronne en feuilles de chêne avec la légende OB CIVES SERVATOS représente
la couronne civique accordée au défenseur des citoyens romains, Auguste
autrefois, Claude à présent qui l'a placée au toit de sa maisonA 81. Autre reprise de monnaies
augustéennes, les pièces de l'atelier monétaire de Lugdunum montrant l'autel
du sanctuaire fédéral des Trois Gaules et légendées ROM ET AVG, connues par un rare quadrans173. Elles rappellent le
lieu et le jour de naissance de Claude, qui coïncident avec le jour de
consécration de cet autel174.
Des allégories liées
à la politique de Claude apparaissent sur les monnaies du début de son règne
en 41/42. les monnaies LIBERTAS frappées à Rome montrant une femme tenant à
la main un pileus (bonnet
de l'affranchissement) annonce non pas la liberté au sens moderne mais la fin
de la tyrannie du règne précédent, et son absence sous Claude. Une autre
allégorie est remarquable car aucune monnaie ne l'a fait apparaître avant, et
elle n'est reprise par aucun des successeurs de Claude : CONSTANTIA,
émise en or, en argent et en bronze, montre une femme debout tenant une
torche et une corne d'abondance, ou debout et casquée, tenant un long sceptre, ou encore
assise sur une chaise curule, levant la main droite à hauteur de son visage.
Aucun culte de cette vertu divinisée n'existe à Rome, et cette allégorie est
visiblement personnellement liée à Claude. Il semble hasardeux de rattacher
la CONSTANTIA à un événement précis du règne, elle renvoie plutôt à une
notion stoïcienne de
cohérence de conduite et de fidélité à ses engagements, une affirmation
officielle de programme de bon gouvernement175.
As de bronze, LIBERTAS AVGVSTA, la Liberté Auguste
Bronze, CONSTANTIA AVGVSTI la Constance debout en armes
Argent, CONSTANTIA AVGVSTI, la Constance d'Auguste, assise
La centralisation
du pouvoir[modifier | modifier le code]
Pas plus sous la
République que sous l’Empire, le Sénat ne dispose de capacités
opérationnelles pour administrer l’Empire : seulement un trésor, l’Aerarium, aux moyens financiers
limités, pas de personnel administratif ou technique ni de bureaux, hormis
des archives176. Sous
la République, les magistrats et les gouverneurs de provinces se faisaient
assister par leur personnel, esclaves et affranchis, tandis que des questeurs géraient leur
trésorerie177,178. Auguste organisa la gestion
des provinces impériales qu’il administrait par ses légats et celle de ses
domaines privés sur ce modèle, avec les affranchis et les esclaves de sa
maison, la domus Augusta. Il créa pour gérer les revenus perçus une caisse impériale,
le fiscus,
parallèle à l’Aerarium.
Claude hérite de cette administration embryonnaire et la développe en
spécialisant des bureaux, placés chacun sous l’autorité d’un affranchi de la domus Augusta179.
Le service le plus
important est celui des finances (a rationibus), qui gère le trésor de la maison impériale (le fiscus), en relation avec
les fisci provinciaux180. Il est confié à Pallas, précédemment homme de
confiance d’Antonia la Jeune, la mère de ClaudeA 82,181.
Le service de la correspondance administrative (ab
epistulis), probablement créé par Auguste en
relation avec la poste impériale180, est dirigé par Narcisse, ancien esclave de CaligulaA 83. Narcisse est l’homme de confiance de Claude, et parfois son
porte-parole, par exemple en 43 pour apaiser une légion récalcitrante lors de
la campagne de Bretagne182.
Claude, qui exerce
activement son rôle judiciaire, crée un service traitant les causes évoquées
en appel à l'empereur (a cognitibus) et les requêtes (ab libellis), confié à Calliste, ancien affranchi de Caligula. Un dernier service (a studiis) s’occupe des questions
diverses, des recherches documentaires et de la rédaction des documents et
des discours officiels180. Il est géré par PolybeA 83, qui est exécuté en 47 pour des raisons obscures, sur une
accusation de Messaline d’après Dion CassiusA 84. Son poste est repris par Calliste.
Cette organisation
ne fait pas une distinction nette entre les revenus privés de l’empereur et
ceux de l’ÉtatN 4, ce qui
explique qu’elle donne un poids important au personnel de la maison d’Auguste183. La responsabilité élevée de
ces hommes, de rang social inférieur et grecs de surcroit, joue dans l'image
négative transmise par les historiens qui répètent tous que Claude est soumis
à leur influence184.
De surcroit, l’énorme richesse de plusieurs d’entre eux leur vaut une
réputation de corruption. Dion Cassius affirme qu’ils vendaient le titre de
citoyen romain au prix fort d’abord, puis à vil prix, les charges militaires
et celles de procurateur et de gouverneur, et même les denrées alimentaires,
créant une pénurieA 85,185. Pline l'Ancien constate que
Pallas, Narcisse et Calliste étaient plus riches que Crassus, l'homme le plus riche de
l'époque républicaine après Sylla avec des biens estimés à deux cents
millions de sestercesA 86.
Toutefois, ces mêmes
sources accusatrices admettent que ces affranchis étaient loyaux envers
ClaudeA 87. Enfin Suétone
leur reconnait même une certaine efficacité186,11.
L'expansion de
l'Empire[modifier | modifier le code]
L'Empire romain sous Claude.
L'Empire à l'avènement de
Claude
Annexion de royaumes clients
Conquêtes armées
Sous le règne de
Claude, l'Empire connait une nouvelle expansion, celle-ci ayant été limitée
depuis l'époque d'Auguste. Des territoires déjà sous protectorat romain sont
annexés : le Norique,
la Judée après
le décès de son dernier roi Hérode
Agrippa Ier en 42, la Pamphylie et la Lycie en 43, à la suite d’une révolte locale et du meurtre de
citoyens romainsA 88,187. Après l’assassinat par Caligula du roi de Maurétanie Ptolémée, et l’insurrection d’un
de ses affranchis, Ædemon en 40, l’agitation de tribus maures se poursuit en 42 et
43188. En 43,
l’ancien royaume est divisé en deux provinces, Maurétanie césarienne et Maurétanie tingitaneA 89,189.
Camée du triomphe de Claude : deux centaures
tirent le char impérial en piétinant les vaincus. Claude tient le foudre de Jupiter tandis que la
Victoire lui apporte la couronne triomphale. À ses côtés, Messaline tenant un
épi, Octavie couronnée de laurier et Britannicus en habit militaire190. – Bibliothèque royale (Pays-Bas).
La Britannia (actuelle
Grande-Bretagne) est une cible alléchante par sa richesse, déjà reconnue par
les commerçants romains. La conquête, envisagée par Caligula, est entamée par
Claude en 43. Il envoie Aulus Plautius à la tête de quatre légions, prenant prétexte de l'appel
à l'aide d'un allié local en difficultéA 90. Claude lui-même se rend dans l'île avec ses gendres pendant
une quinzaine de jours recueillir la victoireA 91,189.
À l’automne 43 et
avant son retour à Rome, le Sénat lui accorde un triomphe et l’édification d’un arc
de triomphe à Rome et d’un autre à Boulogne-sur-Mer. Le Sénat lui
donne également le titre honorifique de « Britannicus » qu’il
n'accepte que pour son fils, et n'utilise pas lui-même. Le triomphe de Claude
est célébré en 44, une cérémonie que Rome n’avait pas connue depuis celui de
Germanicus en 17. Messaline suit le char triomphal en carpentum, avec plusieurs généraux
vêtus des ornements triomphauxA 90,191.
L’usage d’un carpentum est un honneur exceptionnel accordé à Messaline, car
circuler dans cette voiture attelée à deux roues est le privilège des Vestales, qui n’a été accordé
avant qu’à Livie192.
Claude a enfin une
gloire militaire comme ses parents, et a réussi là où Jules César lui-même avait
échoué, soumettre les Bretons et l’Océan193. Il renouvelle ce triomphe en instaurant une fête annuelle
qui le commémoreA 92.
En 47, il défile au côté d’Aulus Plautius, qui reçoit une ovation. En 51, il célèbre la
capture du chef breton Caratacos en reconstituant au Champ de Mars la prise d’assaut
d’une ville bretonne194.
En 46, les Romains
interviennent en Thrace,
dont l'assassinat du roi Rhémétalcès III par son épouse est suivi d'une révolte contre la tutelle
romaine. Les témoignages historiques sur le conflit sont tardifs et réduits à
quelques passages chez Eusèbe de Césarée et Georges le Syncelle. Le royaume conquis est divisé en deux, le nord est rattaché
à la Mésie et
une nouvelle province de Thrace est créée195. Cette annexion reporte la frontière sur le Danube et
sécurise les provinces impériales de Macédoine et d’Achaïe, dont Claude remet le contrôle au SénatA 93.
Sur le front du
Rhin, Claude reste sur la stratégie défensive préconisée par Auguste et
suivie par Tibère, d’autant plus que plusieurs légions basées dans les
provinces rhénanes sont désormais engagées en Bretagne. Les peuples
germaniques tentent parfois des incursions de pillage dans l’Empire, suivies
de représailles romaines. En 47, le légat de Germanie inférieure Corbulon chasse les pirates basés à l’embouchure du Rhin, ramène
les Frisons dans
un vague protectorat romain, et intervient contre les Chauques. Claude lui décerne
les ornements triomphaux, conclusion honorifique assortie de l’ordre de ne pas
prolonger sa campagne militaire au-delà du RhinA
94,196.Corbulon occupe alors ses troupes au creusement d’un canal
entre le Rhin et
la Meuse196. Des
aménagements complètent l’organisation stratégique du secteur rhénan. Claude
fait achever la traversée des Alpes par le col
du Brenner, reliant l'Italie à la Germanie et
mettant ainsi la dernière touche à des chantiers entamés par son père Drusus197.
Gouvernement des
provinces[modifier | modifier le code]
Buste de Claude en tenue militaire, issu de la cité de Bilbilis, Musée de Saragosse.
Claude fait preuve,
à l’égard des provinciaux, d’une ouverture d’esprit et d’une bienveillance
que l’on constate dans son célèbre discours sur l’ouverture du Sénat aux
notables gaulois et aussi par des mesures ignorées des auteurs antiques et
ponctuellement tracées par diverses sources épigraphiques. L’historien Gilbert Charles-Picard estime
que cette attitude novatrice vient de la double culture grecque et latine de
Claude, parfaitement bilingue, et de son érudition historique qui lui inspire
une sympathie pour les peuples vaincus198.
À partir des sources
littéraires et de quelques inscriptions épigraphiques, un certain nombre
de gouverneurs de provinces ont été identifiés
par les historiens, un échantillon qui ne couvre que très partiellement
l’Empire. On constate néanmoins que peu de gouverneurs nommés par Caligula
sont maintenus sous Claude, et que ces derniers sont des hommes de confiance
de Claude ou de ses amis. Si quelques gouverneurs sont des hommes nouveaux, un grand nombre
sont des sénateurs issus de la vieille noblesse romaine. Dans les provinces impériales qui
dépendent de l’empereur, les gouverneurs compétents sont maintenus en poste
quatre ou cinq ans, et parfois récompensés des ornements triomphaux, tandis
que les gouverneurs de provinces
sénatoriales n’exercent qu’un an, sauf
quelques exceptions comme pour GalbaA 95 proconsul d’Afrique pendant deux ans pour rétablir l’ordre, ou d'autres
en Achaïe et
en Crète199,200.
Claude veille à
limiter les abus des gouverneurs. Pour lutter contre ceux qui tardent trop à
rejoindre leur poste, il impose que tout nouveau gouverneur quitte Rome avant
le premier avril pour gagner sa provinceA 96,138.
Il interdit aussi aux gouverneurs d’enchaîner deux mandats à la suite,
pratique destinée à esquiver les poursuites judiciaires à Rome. Cette mesure
permet aux administrés qu’ils auraient lésés de les mettre en accusation à
l’issue de leur affectationA 92. De même, les légats qui accompagnent les gouverneurs doivent
rester à Rome un certain temps avant de repartir pour une autre mission, le
temps qu'une accusation puisse être formulée contre eux201,202.
Claude tranche aussi
la question de la responsabilité des contentieux fiscaux dans les provinces
qu’elles soient impériales ou sénatoriales : la collecte des revenus
alimentant la caisse impériale, le fiscus était assurée par des procurateurs nommés par l’empereur, tandis que le traitement des
litiges relevait en principe du gouverneur de la province. En 53, Claude
attribue aux procurateurs du fisc le droit de juger des litiges et fait
ratifier ce transfert d’autorité judiciaire par le SénatA 64. Cette mesure est critiquée
par Tacite, qui constate l’érosion du pouvoir judiciaire appartenant
autrefois aux préteurs donc aux sénateurs, au bénéfice des chevaliers et des
affranchis de l’empereurA 97,203.
Claude tente de
remédier aux abus d’usage de la poste impériale par des personnes n’y ayant
pas droit, le cursus publicus, dont la charge pesait lourdement sur les cités197 comme l’indique
l’inscription de Tegea en AchaïeA 98,204.
Diffusion de la
citoyenneté romaine[modifier | modifier le code]
Claude effectue
un recensement en 48 qui dénombre
5 984 072 citoyens romainsA 80, soit une augmentation de près d'un million depuis celui mené
à la mort d'Auguste.
Claude témoigne
d'une remarquable ouverture pour la concession de la citoyenneté
romaine : il naturalise à titre individuel
de nombreux Orientaux205. La création de colonies
romaines ou la promotion de cités latines au
statut de colonies naturalise collectivement leurs résidents libres. Ces
colonies sont parfois issues de communautés préexistantes, en particulier de
celles qui comprenaient des élites parvenant à rallier la population à la
cause romaine. En reconnaissance, ces cités insèrent le nom de Claude dans
leur toponyme206 : Lugdunum devient la Colonia
copia Claudia Augusta Lugudunum, Cologne la Colonia Claudia Ara
Agrippinensium205.
La naturalisation
par la promotion militaire est une autre voie ouverte par Claude. En droit,
la citoyenneté est requise pour l’enrôlement des légionnaires, mais le
recrutement local fait entrer dans l’armée de nombreux pérégrins, provinciaux dépourvus
du droit de cité, comme légionnaires avec un droit de cité fictif ou
comme auxiliaires.
Claude généralise l’accord de citoyenneté en la décernant par diplôme militaire en fin de
service pour le soldat auxiliaire, pour sa concubine et leurs enfants207.
La Tabula Clesiana- Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trente (Italie).
Cette générosité
envers les provinciaux suscite l’agacement de sénateurs, comme Sénèque qui
prétend que Claude « voulait voir en toge tous les Grecs, les
Gaulois, les Espagnols et les Bretons »A 99. Claude se montre pourtant rigoureux et exige que les
nouveaux citoyens connaissent le latin208. Dans les cas individuels d’usurpation de la citoyenneté,
Claude peut d’après Suétone se montrer sévère et faire décapiter des
contrevenants, ou ramener à leur condition d'esclave les affranchis usurpant
le rang de chevalierA 100.
Le pragmatisme de
Claude apparaît dans l'édit conservé par la Tabula
ClesianaA 101, par lequel il trouve une solution
réaliste à la situation des Anaunes (it), une tribu voisine de Trente. Un envoyé de Claude avait découvert que beaucoup d'habitants
avaient obtenu la citoyenneté romaine abusivement. Après enquête, et plutôt que de sévir,
l'empereur déclare qu'à partir de ce jour ils seraient considérés comme
détenant la pleine citoyenneté : les priver de leur statut illégalement
acquis aurait été source de problèmes plus graves que l'entorse à la règle204.
Claude et Rome[modifier | modifier le code]
Extension du pomerium[modifier | modifier le code]
En 49 apr.
J.-C., Claude étend le périmètre urbain de Rome (le pomerium) et inclut l'AventinA 102. Il suit une coutume ancienne qui veut que l'agrandissement
du territoire soumis aux Romains autorise l'extension des limites de la ville
de Rome, justifiée pour Claude par la conquête
de la BretagneA 103. Toutefois, si l'on suit
Sénèque, ce droit n'est valable que pour les annexions réalisées en ItalieA 104, ce qui met en doute la
légitimité de l'agrandissement de Claude209210.
Activités
judiciaires[modifier | modifier le code]
Comme ses
prédécesseurs, Claude détient l’imperium, qui lui donne le droit de juger, et la puissance tribunitienne, qui fait
de lui le destinataire des appels de citoyens condamnés. Contrairement à ses
prédécesseurs, Claude exerce assidûment ses attributions. Il siège au forum
du matin au soir, quelquefois même lors de jours de fêtes ou des dates
religieuses, traditionnellement chômésA 105,211.
Il juge un grand nombre d'affaires, personnellement ou en compagnie d’un
consul ou d’un préteurA 106. Suétone admet la qualité de certains de ses jugements mais
comme à son habitude, il conclut négativement7 : « dans ses sentences, […] tour à tour
circonspect et perspicace, ou étourdi et précipité, quelquefois d’une
légèreté qui ressemblait à de la folie », avis qu’il illustre d’exemples
tournant le plus souvent Claude en ridiculeA 107,212.
Outre son activité
personnelle de juge, Claude prend plusieurs mesures pour améliorer le
fonctionnement judiciaire et réduire l'encombrement des tribunaux de Rome,
face aux multiples abus juridiques et à l’inflation du volume d’affaires.
Pour limiter l’étirement en longueur des procédures judiciaires, il oblige
les juges à clore leurs affaires avant la vacance des tribunaux213,138. Il augmente la capacité des tribunaux en étendant la durée
de session à l’ensemble de l’annéeA 67,211.
Pour lutter contre les manœuvres dilatoires des plaignants qui s’absentent
après avoir porté leur accusation, tandis qu'ils obligent l’accusé à demeurer
à Rome et allongent la procédure, Claude oblige ces plaignants à rester, eux
aussi, à Rome pendant le traitement de leurs affaires, et enjoint aux juges
de rendre une sentence en leur défaveur en cas d’absence non justifiée211.
Pierre Renucci
explique l’encombrement des tribunaux par l’emballement sous Tibère des
procès en maiestas, à
l’origine à l’encontre du Peuple romain, puis contre la personne ou l’image
de l’empereur214. La
récompense légale des accusateurs qui leur attribue le quart des biens du
condamné incitait à la délation pour des motifs même futiles, propos
d’ivrogne ou plaisanterie inconsidéréeA 108,214.
Sans revenir sur les dispositions légales de la mise en accusation, Claude
met un coup d’arrêt aux procès de maiestas en se défiant des calomniateursA 109,214.
Claude arbitre les
différends dans les provinces qui lui sont soumis, comme l'affaire d'Alexandrie. Au début de son règne
en effet, les Grecs et les Juifs d'Alexandrie lui envoyèrent chacun une
ambassade à la suite d'émeutes opposant les deux communautés. En réponse,
Claude fait exécuter deux agitateurs grecs d'Alexandrie et rédige une Lettre aux Alexandrins qui
refuse de prendre parti sur les responsables des soulèvements mais prévient
qu'il sera implacable contre ceux qui les reprendraient ; il réaffirme
les droits des Juifs dans cette ville215 mais leur interdit dans le même temps d'y continuer
l'envoi de colons en masse. D'après Josèphe, il reconnut ensuite les droits
et libertés de tous les Juifs de l'empire216.
Production
législative[modifier | modifier le code]
Buste de Claude, salon de la paix du château de Versailles217.
Claude prend de très
nombreux édits sur des sujets les plus divers, dont Suétone cite un
florilège, dont certains dérisoires, tel que l'autorisation des flatulences
au cours des banquets, un on-dit colporté au conditionnel par Suétone, mais
néanmoins abondamment citéA 110,87.
Plus sérieusement,
Claude traduit en plusieurs lois l’évolution des mœurs de son temps en faveur
de l’amélioration du sort des esclaves et l’émancipation des femmes219. Un décret resté célèbre traitait du statut des esclaves
malades ; en effet jusque-là les maîtres abandonnaient à la mort les
esclaves malades au temple d'Esculape dans l’île Tibérine et les récupéraient s'ils survivaient. Claude décide que
les esclaves guéris seront considérés comme affranchisA 111 et que les maîtres qui
choisiraient de tuer leurs esclaves plutôt que de prendre ce risque seraient
poursuivis pour meurtreA 100,220,221. Pour la première fois dans
l’Antiquité, la mise à mort d’un esclave malade par son maître est assimilée
à un crime222.
D’autres décrets à
retenir concernent le droit des femmes : Claude supprime, pour les
épouses, la tutelle d’un membre de leur famille d’origine, dispense qui
n’existait que pour les mères de plus de trois enfantsA
112. Un autre décret répare une injustice du
droit successoral en plaçant la mère mariée sine manu au nombre des
héritiers de son enfant, lorsqu’il décède sans avoir fait de testamentA 113,223.
Parallèlement à ces
décisions émancipatrices, Claude renforce les prérogatives du Pater familias, que ce soit sur
les biens de sa famille ou en renforçant plus généralement son autorité219.
Ravitaillement de
Rome[modifier | modifier le code]
Quadrans de Claude, petite monnaie montrant une
mesure de blé (modius),
objet des préoccupations impériales
Dès le début de son
règne marqué par une disette à Rome, Claude est injurié par la foule du forum
et bombardé de croûtons de pain. Il faut savoir qu’à Rome, quelque
200 000 citoyens pauvres reçoivent gratuitement une allocation en blé,
fournie par l’État romain, en grande partie importée des provinces, et
matériellement assurée par les soins de l’empereur. Claude décide aussitôt
des mesures d’encouragement pour faire arriver le blé à Rome, même pendant
l’hiver, saison des tempêtes et d’arrêt de la navigation : il promet de
prendre en charge les pertes causées par les naufrages, devenant ainsi
l’assureur des vaisseaux des négociants. Les armateurs de navires de commerce
obtiennent des privilèges juridiques, comme la citoyenneté et l'exemption des pénalités frappant les célibataires
et les couples sans enfants selon la loi
Papia-PoppeaA 114,224.
Claude redéfinit
aussi les responsabilités de l’approvisionnement : il confie les
opérations de distribution à la population à un procurateur dit ad Miniciam, du nom du portique de Rome où elle est effectuée225. L'administration portuaire d'Ostie et le transport du blé
jusqu’à Rome étaient sous la responsabilité du questeur, magistrat débutant et en
poste pour un an seulement. Claude lui substitue un procurateur qu’il nomme et
maintient selon ses compétencesA 115,226.
Enfin, Claude n’hésite pas à se déplacer lui-même pour surveiller les
arrivées de blé à OstieA 116.
Constructions
publiques[modifier | modifier le code]
Mis à part la
réfection du théâtre de Pompée et l’aménagement de barrières en marbre au Circus MaximusA 117, Claude lance
ou poursuit de grands chantiers d’aménagement destinés à améliorer
l’approvisionnement de Rome. Ces travaux dont le financement n’est possible
que grâce aux finances impériales vont durer des années227 et laisser des ouvrages
que Pline l'Ancien qualifie de « merveilles que rien ne
surpasse » (« invicta
miracula »)A 118.
Claude assure le
ravitaillement en eau de Rome en restaurant en 45 l’Aqua
Virgo, endommagé sous Caligula ; Il poursuit
la construction de deux aqueducs, l’Aqua Claudia, qui avait été commencé sous Caligula, et l’Aqua Anio Novus197. Ces deux ouvrages, longs
respectivement de soixante-neuf kilomètres et de quatre-vingt-sept
kilomètres, atteignent la Ville en 52, en se rejoignant à la Porta
Maggiore228. La restauration et la construction
de ces deux aqueducs coûtent 350 000 000 de sestercesA 119,229, plus que tout autre
ouvrage évergétique connu par l'épigraphie230, et s'étendent sur quatorze années231.
Sesterce de Néron, montrant le bassin du nouveau port d’Ostie construit
sous Claude.
Par ailleurs à Rome
il fait creuser un canal navigable sur le Tibre qui mène à Portus, son nouveau port, situé à trois kilomètres au nord d'Ostie. Ce port est bâti en
demi-cercle autour de deux brise-lames, un phare occupant sa boucheA 120.
Claude souhaite
aussi augmenter la surface arable en Italie. Il reprend le projet de Jules César d'assécher
le lac FucinA 121,
en le vidant par un canal de plus de cinq kilomètres dérivant jusqu’au Liris232. Le chantier de
creusement dure onze ans, sous la supervision de NarcisseA 122,233. Les travaux s’achèvent avec le percement des tunnels de Claude jusqu’à la
cuvette du lac, mais la vidange attendue est un échec : l’émissaire de
vidange est plus haut que le fond du lac et ne le vide pas complètement,
gâchant l’inauguration organisée par ClaudeA 123,234,N 5.
Pratiques
religieuses[modifier | modifier le code]
Claude se montre
conservateur de la religion officielle, et fait décréter que les pontifes
veillent à ce que ne se perde pas la connaissance des rites anciens conservés
par les haruspices étrusquesA 26. Il réhabilite d'anciennes
pratiques, comme faire réciter la formule des fétiaux lors des traités avec les rois étrangersA 64. Lui-même, en tant que pontifex maximus, s’applique à
conjurer les mauvais présages, en faisant annoncer des fêtes si la terre a
tremblé à Rome, ou en faisant réciter des prières propitiatoires qu’il dicte
au peuple depuis la tribune des Rostres si un oiseau de mauvais augure a été vu au CapitoleA 124. Toutefois, il évite les
excès de formalisme religieux, et met un frein à la répétition excessive des
célébrations en cas de défaut dans le déroulement des prescriptions
rituelles. Il décrète qu’une célébration qui s’est mal déroulée ne peut être
réitérée qu’une seule fois, ce qui met fin aux abus suscités par les
entrepreneurs de spectacles qui tirent profit de ces multiplications et même
les provoquentA 125.
Il refuse la requête
des Grecs d’Alexandrie qui souhaitent lui dédier un temple, en argumentant
que seuls les dieux peuvent choisir de nouveaux dieux. Il rétablit des jours
de fête tombés en désuétude et annule nombre de célébrations étrangères
instituées par son prédécesseur Caligula.
Claude se préoccupe
de la diffusion des cultes à mystères orientaux dans la Ville et recherche des équivalents
romains. Par exemple, il voulut implanter à Rome les Mystères d'ÉleusisA 64, associés
au culte de Déméter235.
Comme Auguste et
Tibère, Claude est plutôt hostile aux religions étrangères. Il interdit
le druidismeA 64. Il
expulse de Rome les astrologues et les Juifs, ceux-ci pour des troubles que
Suétone attribue « à l'instigation d'un certain Chrestus »A 64,235. Les autres auteurs antiques recoupent plus ou moins cette
disposition. Les Actes des Apôtres évoquent incidemment ce décret d’éloignementA 126 tandis que Flavius Josèphe ne le
mentionne pas. Dion Cassius en minimise la portée : « Les Juifs étant
de nouveau devenus trop nombreux pour qu'on pût, attendu leur multitude, les
expulser de Rome sans occasionner des troubles, il ne les chassa pas, mais il
leur défendit de s'assembler pour vivre selon les coutumes de leurs
pères. »A 125.
Les motivations et les tenants des actions de Claude vis-à-vis des Juifs
restent obscurs à l'heure actuelle. Il semble avoir agi essentiellement pour
maintenir l'ordre public à Rome, troublé par des heurts entre membres de la
communauté. En 41, il fait fermer les synagoguesA
127 ; en 49, il expulse plusieurs
personnalités juives. SuétoneA 100 laisse penser que ces incidents viennent des chrétiens236. En revanche, Levick estime
extravagante l'hypothèse selon laquelle Claude serait l'auteur du
« décret de César » qui punit les atteintes aux sépultures237,238.
Claude est opposé
aux conversions, quelle que soit la religion, y compris dans les régions où
il accorde aux habitants la liberté de croyance. Les résultats de tous ces
efforts ont été reconnus, et même Sénèque, qui pourtant méprise les vieilles
pratiques superstitieusesA 128,
défend Claude dans sa satire l’ApocoloquintoseA 129.
Les
spectacles, jeux du cirque et représentations théâtrales, tiennent une grande place
dans la vie publique à Rome, organisés lors des cérémonies religieuses ou des
fêtes, autant d’occasions de rencontre entre l’empereur et sa population239.
D’après Suétone et
Dion Cassius, Claude se passionne pour les jeux de
l’amphithéâtre. Ils en font un être cruel,
assoiffé de sang, jouissant des spectacles des gladiateurs et plus encore
indigne amateur des médiocres spectacles de midi, consacrés aux mises à mort
de condamnésA 130,A 131. La cruauté est un des vices
que les auteurs antiques soulignent pour forger un personnage de tyran240, mais les assertions de
Suétone reprises par Dion Cassius entrent en contradiction avec les écrits de
Sénèque. Celui-ci condamne clairement ces meurtres mis en scèneA 132. Or dans son Apocoloquintose qui charge
Claude de tous les défauts, Sénèque ne fait aucune allusion à une attirance
pour les spectacles sanglants, d’où le doute de Renucci sur cette cruauté
rapportée par Suétone : réalité ou ragot ?241.
Suétone est plus
crédible lorsqu’il dépeint l’attitude de Claude lors des spectacles qu’il
donne : il interpelle familièrement les spectateurs, fait circuler des
tablettes portant ses commentaires, lance des plaisanteries et encourage les
réactions du publicA 117,
entretenant ainsi sa popularité auprès de la foule romaine242.
Parmi les jeux que
Claude donne personnellement, deux sont exceptionnels par leur ampleur et
leur rareté : les jeux séculaires et la naumachie du lac Fucin.
Les jeux séculaires
de 47 marquent le 800e anniversaire de la fondation
de Rome. Comme Auguste en avait organisé aussi
en 17 av. J.-C., Suétone ironise sur ce caractère séculaire, et la
formule d’annonce de « jeux que nul n’a vus », puisque certains
spectateurs ont assisté aux précédentsA 117. Toutefois, André Piganiol souligne que les deux jeux ne sont pas comparables, car
Claude crée un nouveau type de célébration, les anniversaires de Rome,
différents des jeux d’Auguste, expiatoires des troubles d’un siècle achevé et
annonciateurs du siècle nouveau243. Lors d’une des cérémonies, les jeunes nobles accomplissent à
cheval des évolutions complexes, et les applaudissements de la foule les plus
nourris sont pour le jeune Domitius
Ahenobarbus, fils d’Agrippine
la Jeune, dernier descendant de Germanicus et
petit-neveu de Claude, au détriment de son fils BritannicusA 133, ce qui ne peut
qu’inquiéter l’impératrice Messaline244.
Une autre
représentation d’exception est organisée en 52, pour l’inauguration de la
dérivation du lac Fucin :
une naumachie,
une bataille navale opposant deux flottes et des milliers de condamnés, un
spectacle que seuls César et Auguste avaient montré auparavant. La narration
de Suétone contient la seule citation connue de la formule célèbre Morituri te salutant. Et toujours
selon Suétone, Claude se ridiculise en entrant dans une colère mémorable
lorsque les figurants refusent de combattre, croyant avoir été graciésA 117,245.
Claude et Lyon[modifier | modifier le code]
Fontaine érigée en l'honneur de Claude, en bas de
la montée de Choulans.
Des indices
épigraphiques ténus permettent d'attribuer à Claude quelques réalisations
monumentales dans sa ville natale, comme les thermes
de la rue des Farges (50 à 60 apr.
J.-C.). Au xviiie siècle, la découverte de tuyaux de plomb à son nom sur
la colline de Fourvière laisse penser qu'il est à l'origine de l'aqueduc du Gier, jusqu'à ce qu'une
autre inscription le fasse rattacher à Hadrien246 ; Claude a bien créé un aqueduc, celui de la Brévenne ou celui de l'Yzeron. Par ailleurs,
deux fontaines ont été édifiées sous son règne, celle du site du Verbe Incarné et celle
de Choulans247.
Vie personnelle de
l'empereur[modifier | modifier le code]
Buste de Claude portant la couronne civique, entre 41 et 54 apr. J.-C., musée archéologique national de Naples.
Les anecdotes
collectées par Suétone et Dion Cassius pour déprécier la vie privée de Claude
devenu empereur abondent, et changent d’échelle : ses excès de table
rassemblent jusqu’à six cents convivesA 134. Plus scandaleux encore, alléché par une odeur de cuisine,
Claude abandonne le tribunal où il siège pour s’inviter au repas de la
confrérie des SaliensA 135, se révélant ainsi l’esclave de ses appétits au détriment de
son rôle judiciaire86.
Messaline[modifier | modifier le code]
Les auteurs antiques
forgent pour la postérité l’image d’un empereur peureux, facilement manipulé
par ses affranchis et son épouseA 136,A 137,248. La réputation qu’ils donnent
à Messaline est encore pire. La satire de Juvénal décrivant Messaline quittant le palais impérial pour se
prostituer dans les bas-quartiers en fait la figure de la concupiscence
féminine incontrôlée et illimitéeA 138,249.
Outre les éliminations physiques dont les historiens rendent responsable sa
jalousie et son avidité, ils lui prêtent de multiples amants, qu’elle choisit
elle-même dans toutes les classes sociales. Les hommes qui refusent de se
soumettre à ses désirs sont contraints par la ruse ou la force 250. Claude est dépeint comme le
vieillard imbécile des comédies251, trompé à son insu, parfois même avec sa complicité
involontaire, lorsque Messaline le prie d’ordonner au mime Mnester de faire ce
qu’elle lui demanderaA 139.
Son dernier amant,
le sénateur Caius Silius,
est la cause de sa fin en 47. Résumé en quelques lignes par les abréviateurs
de Dion CassiusA 140,
mentionné par Suétone, cet épisode est longuement mis en scène par Tacite252, qui utilise son art
rhétorique pour mêler les éléments factuels avec des traits de comédie253 et des sous-entendus
moralisants et politiques254. Après les jeux séculaires de 47, Messaline s’éprend du
sénateur Caius Silius, de parents proches de Germanicus, qualifié par Tacite
de « plus beau des jeunes Romains », qu’elle oblige à se
séparer de son épouse. Toujours selon Tacite, Silius cède à Messaline, sûr
que son refus lui vaudrait la mort et espérant aussi de larges récompenses
pour son acceptation, ce qu’il obtient : sans discrétion, Messaline
fréquente assidûment la demeure de Silius et y transfère même du mobilier,
des esclaves et des affranchis en provenance de la maison impérialeA 141,255.
La liaison des
amants culmine par leur mariage officiel, une prise de risque que Tacite
qualifie de fabuleuseA 142,
tout en étant comme les autres historiens persuadé de son authenticité244. Tandis que Dion Cassius
affirme que Messaline eut le désir d’avoir plusieurs époux, Tacite attribue
l’idée de ce mariage à Silius, préférant le risque à l’attente, disposé à
maintenir les pouvoirs de Messaline et à adopter son fils Britannicus.
Profitant que Claude séjourne à Ostie pour superviser les arrivées de blé, Messaline demeure à
RomeA 116. Son union
avec Silius est célébrée dans les règles, selon une date annoncée d’avance,
avec un contrat préalablement signé devant témoins, cérémonie avec prise
des auspices,
sacrifice aux dieux et banquet nuptial256. Suétone est le seul à révéler une manipulation à la limite
du vraisemblable : Claude signe aussi le contrat de mariage, car on lui
fait croire à un mariage simulé, destiné à détourner un péril qui l’aurait
menacé d’après les présagesA 74. Pour Castorio, cet élément qu’ignorent Tacite et Dion
Cassius n’est qu’une rumeur sans fondement historique, participant à l’image
d’imbécillité de Claude257. Quoi qu’il en soit, les spécialistes du droit romain
considèrent que le mariage de Messaline, dûment célébré, a pour effet
la répudiation de
Claude258.
Au lieu de se rendre
maîtres de Rome, les mariés mènent dans leurs jardins une fête des vendanges
qui tourne à la bacchanale, épisode invraisemblable du récit de Tacite259. La riposte est organisée par
les affranchis Calliste, Narcisse et Pallas. Convaincus que ce mariage va faire de Silius le nouvel
empereur, ils redoutent de ne plus bénéficier de la même complaisance qu’avec
Claude. Autre raison, en faisant condamner à mort Polybe, un des leurs, Messaline a
rompu leurs liens de complicitéA 143,260.
Il leur faut donc éliminer Messaline en empêchant toute entrevue avec Claude,
qu’elle pourrait amadouer. Aux dires de Tacite, seul Narcisse agit, les deux
autres restent passifs, Pallas par lâcheté, Calliste par prudence261. Narcisse va à Ostie, fait
informer Claude du remariage de Messaline, et ramène à Rome son maître
paniqué. Ils se dirigent vers la caserne des prétoriens, mais, semble-t-il
par méfiance envers un des préfets du prétoire, Claude confie les pleins
pouvoirs militaires à Narcisse, pour un jour. Après quelques mots adressés
aux soldats sur son infortune, Claude rentre au palais et préside un tribunal
improvisé. Arrêté sur le forum, Caius Silius prie qu’on hâte sa mort.
D’autres anciens amants de Messaline sont exécutés, y compris Mnester, qui
proteste qu’il n’avait fait qu’obéir à l’ordre de Claude262. La répression frappe aussi
le préfet des vigiles et un chef d’école de gladiateurs, ce qui indiquerait
des complicités armées, quoique de faible valeur combative face aux
prétoriens263. Enfin,
Claude dîne copieusement ; bientôt gavé, il perd colère et lucidité, et
demande Messaline. Narcisse prend alors l’initiative d’envoyer des soldats
tuer Messaline dans les jardins qu’elle avait pris à Valerius AsiaticusA 142,263. Ensuite, le Sénat décide la damnatio
memoriae de Messaline, par la destruction de
ses statues et le martelage de son nom sur les inscriptions264.
Si Tacite appuie son
scénario sur la folle libido de Messaline et la passivité fataliste de
Silius, face à l’aveuglement et la faiblesse de Claude compensés par la
réactivité de son affranchi, une version longtemps acceptée265, certains historiens modernes
rejettent ces stéréotypes et réinterprètent le déroulement des faits. Ainsi
en 1934, Arnaldo Momigliano voit Caius Silius comme le meneur d’une révolution
sénatoriale266,267, complot accepté par
Messaline, qui se sent menacée par la montée de popularité du fils
d’Agrippine268. Une
révision originale a été proposée en 1956 par Jean Colin, qui refuse de voir
un complot ou un mariage réel noué entre Messaline et Silius. Comme le décrit
Tacite, tandis que Claude est à Ostie, ils célèbrent la fête des vendanges,
durant laquelle, selon Colin, Messaline suit un rituel d’initiation bachique,
similaire à une cérémonie de mariage. Narcisse aurait alors présenté à Claude
cette initiation comme un véritable mariage menaçant son pouvoir et obtenu
l’élimination de Messaline et de Silius269. Castorio remarque que cette thèse ingénieuse requiert un
Claude grossièrement dupé, caricature que les historiens n’admettent plus270. Mais force est de constater
que malgré plus de cinquante ans de recherches sur des écrits lacunaires et
biaisés, les historiens n’ont pu proposer une reconstitution admissible par
une majorité de leurs confrères271.
La disparition de
Messaline suscite de nouvelles ambitions matrimoniales dans la maison
impériale, chaque affranchi a sa candidate : Pallas soutient Agrippine la Jeune, dernière
enfant vivant de Germanicus, Calliste est pour Lollia Paulina, fille de consul et
sans enfant, enfin Narcisse propose un remariage avec Ælia Pætina, autrefois répudiée
par Claude mais irréprochableA 144. Claude penche pour Agrippine, mais épouser sa nièce est
assimilé à un inceste et interdit par la coutume romaine. Mais Claude obtient
sans difficulté du Sénat une nouvelle loi l’autorisant à épouser
Agrippine, « dans l’intérêt supérieur de l’État »A 16,272.
Aureus de Claude, effigie d'Agrippine AGRIPPINAE AUGUSTAE
Généalogie simplifiée du couple Claude-Agrippine, vers 49-54. En grisé,
personnes décédées à ces dates.
Sitôt impératrice,
Agrippine obtient des honneurs que n'avait pas reçus Messaline : elle
reçoit le titre d'Augusta et
des monnaies sont émises avec son portrait ainsi que d'autres montrant le
jeune Néron165.
Elle fait lever l’exil de Sénèque et lui confie l’éducation de son fils. Elle fait rompre
les fiançailles d’Octavie avec Lucius Silanus, en le faisant accuser d’inceste
avec sa propre sœur, puis fiance Néron à OctavieA
145. Enfin, elle élimine sa rivale Lollia Paulina
en l’accusant d’avoir consulté des mages sur le mariage de Claude. Ce dernier
la fait exiler par le Sénat pour ce projet dangereux, puis elle est
contrainte au suicideA 146,273.
Enfin en 50, prétextant les exemples d’Auguste et de Tibère qui avaient
préparé leur succession sur deux jeunes héritiers, Agrippine fait adopter son
fils par Claude, le jeune Domitius Ahenobarbus devient Claudius Néron, frère de Britannicus et son aîné de
trois ansA 147. En
53, Néron épouse Octavie et fait à seize ans sa première prestation au Sénat,
en prononçant un discours érudit en faveur de l’exemption d’impôts de Troie, cité ancêtre des Romains,
puis un autre en faveur des îles de Rhodes, pour leur accorder l’autonomie interneA 148,A
64. En 54, Agrippine renforce encore sa position
en faisant condamner la grand-mère maternelle de Britannicus Domitia Lepida qu’elle trouve
trop familière avec Néron, en l’accusant d’avoir pratiqué des envoutements et
créé des troubles en Calabre avec ses esclavesA
149,274.
Possessions de
Claude[modifier | modifier le code]
Claude hérite de
Caligula de nombreuses propriétés au sein et autour de Rome, dont de
nombreux horti (jardins)
regroupés dans trois quartiers de la capitale, au nord, à l'est et sur la
rive droite du Tibre. Au nord, sur et entre les pentes du Pincio et du Quirinal, se déploient les horti Sallustiani, très proches du
centre de Rome. À l'est, sur l'Esquilin, Claude possède plusieurs domaines dont les horti Maecenatis ; on y
trouve non loin les horti Maiani et Asiniani. Le long du Tibre se trouvent les horti Agrippinae275.
Claude prend
également possession du Domus Augustana situé au sud-ouest du Palatin, construit en plusieurs fois et aux contours mal connus. Le
centre de cet ensemble comprend la Maison d'Auguste proprement dite, un temple d'Apollon, un
quadriportique, deux bibliothèques et plusieurs éléments architecturaux très
mal connus : la maison de Tibère, un temple de Magna Mater, un Aedes caesarum et des Ludi palatini. Les constructions
ultérieures, notamment sous les Flaviens, ont très largement détruit les bâtiments précédents276.
Lorsqu'il hérite de
cet ensemble, Claude procède à deux actions symboliques pour, à travers ces
bâtiments, renforcer sa légitimité. Quand il est gratifié par le Sénat de
la couronne navale, il
l'expose sur le faîte de sa maison, aux côtés de la couronne civique reçue par
Auguste. Par ailleurs, en 49, il redéfinit le pomerium romuléen, notamment sur le Palatin, pour se référer comme Auguste
aux mythes fondateurs de Rome277.
Durant son règne,
Claude entreprend plusieurs modifications du palais impérial. Il fait
surmonter le cryptoportique central d'un étage, au sol imperméabilisé avec un jardin
et un bassin en marbre. Dans la Domus
Tiberium, il crée un triclinium d'été au décor
luxueux dans le IVe style
pompéien278. Selon des travaux récents279, les bains de Livie auraient été
entamés sous Claude280.
Décès[modifier | modifier le code]
D’après Suétone et
Tacite, dans les mois précédant sa mort, Claude regrette son mariage avec
Agrippine et l’adoption de Néron ; il se lamente ouvertement de ses
épouses « impudiques, mais non impunies » et envisage de
donner sa toge virile à Britannicus, quoiqu’il n’ait pas encore l’âgeA
150,A 151. Si Dion Cassius affirme que Claude veut éliminer Agrippine
et désigner Britannicus comme son successeurA 31, les autres auteurs sont moins clairs sur les intentions de
Claude281. Il a
soixante-quatre ans et sa santé s’est dégradée. D’après Suétone, il sent que
sa fin est proche, fait son testament et recommande aux sénateurs de prendre
soin de ses filsA 152,282.
Claude meurt le
matin du 13 octobre 54, après un festin terminé dans
l’ivresse et la somnolence, suivi d’un coma douloureux durant la nuit. Tous
les auteurs antiques qui parlent de la mort de Claude évoquent la thèse de
l’empoisonnement avec un plat de champignons. Tacite, Suétone et Dion Cassius
accusent Agrippine d’en être l’instigatrice, Flavius Josèphe fait état de
rumeurs apparues rapidementA 153. Sénèque, protégé d’Agrippine, fait bien sûr exception et
parle d’une mort naturelleA 154,283.
Mais quelques
détails sur les circonstances du décès varient. Suétone exploite diverses
sources, et constate que Claude meurt à Rome, lors du repas traditionnel
des sodales augustales,
ou bien pendant un banquet au PalaisA 155. L’effet du poison est décrit par Suétone selon les deux
versions qu’il a recueillies : soit une seule ingestion provoque
l’hébétude et la perte de parole, puis la mort après une longue agonie, soit
Claude connait un répit, rejette une partie de son repas en vomissant et par
une diarrhée, avant de recevoir une nouvelle dose empoisonnéeA 155. Si Dion Cassius rapporte un
empoisonnement en une seule tentative, Tacite ne retient que la seconde
version, avec l’usage d’une plume introduite par le médecin Xénophon dans le
gosier, prétendument pour aider Claude à vomir et enduite d’un poison violentA 156. Ce dernier détail est
douteux, car on ne connait pas de poison antique capable d’agir par contact
direct avec les muqueuses284.
La mort de Claude
est un épisode des plus discutés285. Certains auteurs modernes doutent de l'empoisonnement de
Claude et ont parlé de folie ou de vieillesse. Ferrero attribue sa mort à
une gastro-entérite286. Scramuzza rappelle que c’est un lieu commun de faire de
chaque empereur la victime d'un acte criminel, mais admet la thèse de
l’empoisonnement287.
Levick émet l’hypothèse d’une mort causée par les tensions engendrées par le
conflit de succession avec Agrippine mais conclut que le déroulement des
faits rend l'assassinat plus probable288. Médicalement, plusieurs détails fournis par les auteurs
antiques, l’incapacité d’élocution mais la persistance de la sensibilité à la
douleur, la diarrhée, l’état semi-comateux, sont cohérents avec des symptômes
d’empoisonnement284.
D'autres auteurs soulignent toutefois qu'il pourrait s'agir d'une
intoxication alimentaire ou d'un empoisonnement accidentel289, d'une crise de malaria290 ou d'un infarctus291. S’il reste difficile de se
prononcer avec certitude sur les causes du décès de Claude, Eugen Cizek relève une
anomalie significative dans la circulaire impériale annonçant l’avènement de
Néron : elle n’évoque que très brièvement la mort de Claude, ce qui est
contraire à tous les usages292.
Apothéose et
postérité[modifier | modifier le code]
Plan de la Rome antique, en rouge emplacement du Temple de Claude.
Le lendemain de la
mort de Claude, Agrippine consigne Britannicus dans ses appartements et
présente Néron aux prétoriens, ce dernier promet un donativum équivalent à celui qu'avait donné son père. Puis il
prononce un discours devant le Sénat, qui lui décerne les titres impériaux et décrète l'apothéose de ClaudeA 157,293.
Apothéose[modifier | modifier le code]
Claude est ainsi le
premier empereur divinisé après Auguste294. Cette divinisation est commémorée par un monnayage295. Agrippine fait édifier un
temple dédié à son culte, le Temple du Divin
Claude, sur une immense terrasse aménagée sur
le Caelius.
Néron abolit ce culte après la mort d'Agrippine et transforme ce temple
en nymphée dominant
la Domus aurea. Vespasien le restaure et
rétablit le culte du divin ClaudeA 158,A 159.
La divinisation de
Claude est célébrée dans plusieurs provinces, mais son culte ne dure pas,
sauf dans quelques cités qui lui doivent une faveur particulière, telle Asseria (en) en Dalmatie296.
Selon Levick, les
hommes de lettres ignorèrent complètement cette divinisation, en jouèrent ou
s'en moquèrent, tel Gallion, le frère de Sénèque, qui déclare que Claude est tiré au ciel
avec un crochet, comme les criminels qui sont jetés au Tibre296. Dion Cassius rapporte que
Néron, Agrippine et Gallion plaisantent par la suite sur la mort et
l'apothéose de Claude, déclarant que les champignons étaient bien un mets des
dieux, puisqu'il était devenu dieu grâce à euxA
160. Sénèque à son tour renchérit par une satire parodiant l'apothéose
de Claude, l'Apocoloquintose.
Ayant des raisons de
le haïr et précepteur de Néron, Sénèque mène la réaction contre la mémoire de Claude297. Il compose le discours
d'investiture au Sénat de Néron énumérant une liste d'échecs politiques
attribués à Claude, permettant de montrer aux sénateurs soucieux de leurs
prérogatives que Néron tient compte des fautes de son prédécesseur. Ce texte
a le même but que la première Bucolique, rédigée par Calpurnius
Siculus : annoncer un nouvel âge d'or où le
Sénat aurait pleinement sa place dans la conduite de l'État298. Sénèque, avec De Clementia participe
également à cette opération littéraire et politique299,300.
Dans l'Apocoloquintose,
il met en scène une série de condamnations successives que subit Claude et
qui sont autant de remises en cause de sa légitimité politique, de sa
politique d'octroi de la citoyenneté romaine et d'ouverture du Sénat aux élites provinciales301.
Postérité[modifier | modifier le code]
Buste de Vespasien, moulage en plâtre, Moscou, musée Pouchkine.
Successeur de
Néron, Vespasien voit
en Claude un prédécesseur de valeur. En effet, il a commencé sa carrière
politique avec Claude en 51 et se trouve comme lui en manque de légitimité et
proche du peuple302.
Lorsqu'il promulgue la Lex de imperio
Vespasiani, il le place aux côtés d'Auguste et de
Tibère pour légitimer ses actions. Ainsi, Claude est représenté avec Auguste
dans les monuments du Capitole de Vespasien de Brescia303. Son fils Titus, élevé aux côtés de
Britannicus, relève la mémoire de ce dernier, et par extension celle de
Claude. Comme son père, il reprend le culte de Claude et achève son temple
aux dépens de la Maison dorée de Néron. Vespasien et Titus mènent une politique
d'inspiration proche de celle de Claude, et renforcent une partie de la
législation claudienne : le prêt aux mineurs, les liaisons entre femmes
libres et esclaves, pour la démolition des bâtimentsA 161. Ils réparent également l’Aqua Claudia304,305.
Claude et les arts[modifier | modifier le code]
Durant son règne,
l'empereur dispose d'une diffusion de son image en proportion de son statut,
et donc d'une égale ampleur que ses prédécesseurs. En revanche, l'analyse
cette collection de portraits a longtemps souffert de sa réputation très
négative. Ce n'est qu'à la fin du xxe siècle que les
spécialistes ont entrepris de réévaluer la production artistique qui lui est
dédiée, à l'égal des autres empereurs romains.
Les portraits de
Claude dans l'antiquité[modifier | modifier le code]
Les descriptions
littéraires de l'empereur étant unanimement négatives, les historiens de
l'art ont longtemps négligé l'étude des portraits de Claude ; après le
travail pionnier de Meriwether Stuart en 1938306, il faut attendre les années 1980 pour que de nouveaux
travaux dépassent les idées préconçues. Il semble qu'encore en
2018, « l'importance des témoignages figurés, dont la richesse et
la variété sont surprenantes, semble toujours être sous-estimée ».
Ainsi, Claude est le dernier julio-claudien a ne pas avoir fait l'objet d'un
volume de la collection Das römische
Herrscherbild. Un volume est en préparation en
2018 sous la direction d'Anne-Kathrein Massner307.
Les monnaies sont la
source d'information majeure pour l'étude du portrait impérial ; elles
représentent une physionomie très caractérisée : calotte crânienne
volumineuse, cou puissant, oreilles décollées, paupières tombantes et lèvres
charnues. Ceci permet d'identifier par la suite Claude dans la statuaire307. Par ailleurs, la tête de
Claude est très régulièrement surmontée d'une corona
civica, indiquant que son avènement a évité une
guerre civile ; après Auguste, Claude est le plus régulièrement couronné
dans la statuaire et la glyptique de tous les empereurs julio-claudien308.
Un dernier type est créé à la
fin du règne dont la tête de série est l'effigie de Segusio. Il est représenté plus vieilli, avec une frange frontale
plus symétrique ; ce portrait se rapproche des premiers de Néron, et a
donc pu être créé en 50 lors de son adoption310.
Claude dans la
peinture moderne et contemporaine[modifier | modifier le code]
Un empereur romain, 41 apr. JC ou Claude proclamé empereur par Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1871 - Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.
Claude est un sujet
exploité de temps à autre dans la peinture classique, toujours en reprenant
sans distance les textes des auteurs antiques, et le représentant donc
largement à son désavantage, par exemple chez Lawrence
Alma-Tadema en 1871. Ultérieurement, le
sujet du grand prix de Rome de 1886 est le même extrait de Suétone narrant le passage de
Claude dissimulé derrière une tenture. Charles
Lebayle remporte ce prix311. La vie de Claude est
également source d'inspiration dans le tableau de 1870 de Lematte, La Mort de Messaline312.
Claude au cinéma et
à la télévision[modifier | modifier le code]
Son personnage est
interprété par l'acteur Derek Jacobi dans moi Claude
Empereur, une mini-série à succès de la BBC,
centrée autour de la vie de l'Empereur Claude, tirée des livres I Claudius et Claudius the God de Robert Graves 314,315que le cinéaste Josef von
Sternberg avait aussi tenté de porter à
l'écran en 1937 sous le titre I, Claudius.
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