enemy of Rome, in preference to Segestes, who was conspicuous for
"loyalty" to Rome. Germanicus advanced to support the latter, and
Arminius was enraged by the news that his wife, the daughter of
Segestes, was a prisoner. His call to arms, his declamations in the name
of liberty, roused the Cherusci, the people who had annihilated the
legions of Varus a few years before. A column commanded by Cæcina was
enticed by Arminius into a swampy position, where it was in extreme
danger, and a severe engagement took place. The scheme of Arminius was
to attack the Romans on the march; fortunately, the rasher counsels of
his uncle, Inguiomerus, prevailed; an attempt was made to storm the
camp, and the Romans were thus enabled to inflict a decisive defeat on
the foe.
It was at this time that the disastrous practice was instituted of
informers bringing charges of treason against prominent citizens on
grounds which Tiberius himself condemned as frivolous. The emperor began
to make a practice of attending trials, which indeed prevented corrupt
awards, but ruined freedom.
Now arose disturbances in the east. The Parthians expelled their king,
Vonones, a former favourite of Augustus. Armenia became involved, and
these things were the source of serious complications later. Tiberius
was already meditating the transfer of Germanicus to these regions. That
general, however, was planning a fresh German campaign from the North
Sea coast. A great fleet carried the army to the mouth of the Ems;
thence Germanicus marched to the Weser and crossed it. Germanicus was
gratified to find that his troops were eager for the impending fray. A
tremendous defeat was inflicted on the Cherusci, with little loss to the
Romans. Arminius, who had headed a charge which all but broke the Roman
line, escaped only with the utmost difficulty.
Nevertheless, the Germans rallied their forces, and a second furious
engagement took place, in which the foe fought again with desperate
valour, and were routed mainly through the superiority of the Roman
armour and discipline. The triumph was marred only by a disaster which
befel the legions which were withdrawn by sea. A terrific storm wrecked
almost the entire fleet, and it was with great difficulty that the few
survivors were rescued. The consequent revival of German hopes made it
necessary for two large armies to advance against the Marsi and the
Catti respectively, complete success again attending the Roman arms.
Jealousy of his nephew's popularity and success now caused Tiberius to
insist on his recall. At this time informers charged with treason a
young man of distinguished family, Libo Drusus, mainly on the ground of
his foolish consultation of astrologers, with the result that Drusus
committed suicide. This story will serve as one among many which
exemplify the prevalent demoralisation. In the same year occurred the
audacious insurrection of a slave who impersonated the dead Agrippa
Postumus; and also the deposition of the king of Cappadocia, whose
kingdom was annexed as a province of the empire.
A contest took place between the Suevi and the Cherusci, in which Rome
declined to intervene. Maroboduus, of the Suevi, was disliked because he
took the title of king, which was alien to the German ideas, being in
this respect contrasted with Arminius. The Cherusci had the better of
the encounter.
_II.--The Development of Despotism_
Germanicus on his recall was in danger, while in Rome, of being made the
head of a faction in antagonism to Drusus, the son of Tiberius. He was
dispatched, however, with extraordinary powers, to take control of the
East, where Piso, the governor of Syria, believed that he held his own
appointment precisely that he might be a thorn in the side of
Germanicus. The latter made a progress through Greece, settled affairs
in Armenia and Parthia, and continued his journey to Egypt.
Piso's machinations, encouraged by the reports which reached him of the
emperor's displeasure at the conduct of Germanicus, caused the gravest
friction. Finally, on the return from Egypt through Syria, Germanicus
became desperately ill. He declared his own belief that Piso and his
wife had poisoned him; and, on his death, the rumour met general
credence, though it was unsupported by evidence. Agrippina returned to
Rome, bent on vengeance, and the object of universal sympathy. Piso
attempted to make himself master of Syria, but failed to win over the
legions, and then resolved to return to Rome and defy his accusers.
About this time Arminius was killed in attempting to make himself king.
Shortly before, Tiberius had rejected with becoming dignity a rival
chief's offer to poison the national hero of German independence.
On the arrival in Italy of Agrippina with the ashes of Germanicus, the
popular and official expressions of grief and sympathy were almost
unprecedented. This public display was not at all encouraged by Tiberius
himself. Drusus was instructed to emphasize the fact that Piso must not
be held either guilty or innocent, till the case had been sifted.
Tiberius insisted that not he, but the senate, must be the judge; the
case must be decided on its merits, not out of consideration for his own
outraged feelings. Piso was charged with having corrupted the soldiery,
levied war on the province of Syria, and poisoned Germanicus. All except
the last charge were proved up to the hilt; for that alone there was no
evidence. Piso, however, despaired, fearing less the ebullitions of
popular wrath than the emotionless implacability of the emperor. He was
found dead in his room; but whether by his own act or that of Tiberius,
was generally doubted. The penalties imposed on his wife and son were
mitigated by the emperor himself.
A number of notorious scandals at this period emphasise the degradation
of morals and the disregard for the sanctity of the marriage tie in a
society where children were regarded as a burden, in spite of official
encouragement of the birth-rate. There was an instructive debate on a
proposal that magistrates appointed to provinces should not take their
wives with them.
Risings in Gaul of the Treveri and Aedui created much alarm in Rome; the
composure of Tiberius was justified by their decisive suppression.
In Africa, Blæms successfully suppressed, though he did not finally
curb, the brigand chief Tacfarinas, who had been building up a nomad
empire of his own. It was under Dolabella, the successor of Blæms, that
Tacfarinas was completely overthrown and slain.
Hitherto the rule of Tiberius had been, on the whole, prosperous. But
the ninth year marks the establishment of the ascendancy of Ælius
Sejanus over the mind of the emperor, whereby his sway was transformed
into a foul tyranny. Not of noble birth, Sejanus had neglected no means,
however base, to secure his own favour with Tiberius and with the
Prætorian Guard, of which he held the command. He was now determined to
get rid of Drusus, the son of Tiberius, as the most dangerous obstacle
to his ambitions. He accomplished his purpose by administering a poison,
of which the operation was unsuspected till the facts were revealed many
years later by an accomplice. Then the young sons of Germanicus became
the accepted representatives of the imperial line, for the infant sons
of Drusus died very shortly afterwards. Accordingly, Sejanus now
directed his attacks against the more powerful persons who might be
regarded as partisans of the house of Germanicus.
Despite the multiplications of prosecutions, it is to be noted that it
was still possible for a shrewd and tactful person, as exemplified by
the career of Marcus Lepidus, to uphold the principles of justice and
liberty without losing the favour of the emperor. Among other
prosecutions, that of Cremutius, whose crime was that of praising the
memory of Brutus and Cassius, demands attention, as the first of the
kind.
The ambitions of Sejanus received a check when he had the presumption to
request Tiberius to grant him the hand of the widow of Drusus in
marriage. In order the more surely to bring disgrace on the house of
Germanicus, he now implanted in the mind of Agrippina a conviction that
Tiberius intended to poison her. That such suspicions were mere
commonplaces of that terrible time is well illustrated by the story.
Incapable of hiding her feelings, the persistent gloom of her face and
voice, and her refusal of proffered dishes as she sat near Tiberius at
dinner, attracted his attention; to test her, he personally commended
and pressed on her some apples; this only intensified her suspicions,
and she gave them to the attendants untasted. Tiberius made no open
comment, but observed to his mother that it would hardly be surprising
should he contemplate harsh measures towards one who obviously took him
for a poisoner.
_III.--Morbid Tyrant and Dotard_
It was at this time that Tiberius withdrew himself from the capital, and
took up his residence at a country seat where hardly anyone had access
to him except Sejanus; whether at the favourite's suggestion or not is
uncertain. The retreat finally selected was the island of Capræ.
The monstrous lengths to which men of the highest rank were now prepared
to go to curry favour with Tiberius and Sejanus was exemplified in the
ruin of Sabinus, a loyal friend of the house of Germanicus. The
unfortunate man was tricked into speaking bitterly of Sejanus and
Tiberius. Three senators were actually hidden above the ceiling of the
room where he was entrapped into uttering unguarded phrases, and on this
evidence he was condemned.
The death of the aged Livia Augusta removed the last check on the
influence of Sejanus.
[The account of his two years of unqualified supremacy, and of his
sudden and utter overthrow has been lost, two books of the "Annals"
being missing here.]
From this time, the life of Tiberius at Capræ was one of morbid and
nameless debauchery. The condition of his mind may be inferred from the
opening words of one of his letters to the senate. "If I know what to
write, how to write it, what not to write, may the gods and goddesses
destroy me with a worse misery than the death I feel myself dying
daily." The end came when Macro, the prefect of the Prætorians, who, to
save his own life and secure the succession of Gaius Cæsar Caligula, the
surviving son of Germanicus, caused the old emperor to be smothered.
[The record of the next ten years--the reign of Caligula, and the first
years of Claudius--is lost. When the story is taken up again, the wife
of Claudius, the infamous Messalina, was at the zenith of her evil
career.]
While the doting pedant Claudius was adding new letters to the alphabet,
Messalina was parading with utter shamelessness her last and fatal
passion for Silius, and went so far as publicly to marry her paramour.
It was the freedman Narcissus who made the outrageous truth known to
Claudius, and practically terrorised him into striking. Half measures
were impossible; a swarm of Messalina's accomplices in vice were put to
death. To her, Claudius showed signs of relenting; but Narcissus gave
the orders for her death without his knowledge. When they told Claudius
that she was dead, he displayed no emotion, but went on with his dinner,
and apparently forgot the whole matter.
A new wife had to be provided; Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus,
niece of Claudius himself, and mother of the boy Domitius, who was to
become the emperor Nero, was the choice of the freedman Pallas, and
proved the successful candidate. Shortly after, her new husband adopted
Nero formally as his son. It was not long before she had assumed an air
of equality with her husband; and all men saw that she intended him to
be succeeded not by his own son Britannicus, but by hers, Nero.
Meanwhile, there had been a great revolt in Britain against the
proprætor Ostorius. First the Iceni took up arms, then the Brigantes;
then--a still more serious matter--the Silures, led by the most
brilliant of British warriors, Caractacus. Even his skill and courage,
however, were of no avail against the superior armament of the Roman
legions; his forces were broken up, and he himself, escaping to the
Brigantes, was by them betrayed to the Romans. The famous warrior was
carried to Rome, where by his dignified demeanour he won pardon and
liberty. In the Far East, Mithridates was overthrown by his nephew
Rhadamistus, and Parthia and Armenia remained in wild confusion. The
reign of Claudius was brought to an end by poison--the notorious Locusta
was employed by Agrippina for the purpose--and he was succeeded by Nero,
to whom his mother's artifices gave the priority over Britannicus.
_IV.--The Infamies of Nero_
At the outset the young emperor was guided by Seneca and Burrus; his
first speech--put into his mouth by Seneca, for he was no orator--was
full of promise. But he was encouraged in a passion for Acte, a
freed-woman, by way of counterpoise to the influence of his mother,
Agrippina. The latter, enraged at the dismissal of Pallas, threatened
her son with the legitimate claims of Britannicus, son of Claudius; Nero
had the boy poisoned. In terror now of his mother, he would have
murdered her, but was checked by Burrus. Nero's private excesses and
debaucheries developed, while the horrible system of delation
flourished, and prosecutions for treason abounded.
About this time the emperor's passion for Poppæa Sabina, the wife of
Otho, became the source of later disaster. Beautiful, brilliant, utterly
immoral, but complete mistress of her passions, she had married Nero's
boon companion. Otho was dispatched to Lusitania, and Poppæa remained at
Rome. Poppæa was bent on the imperial crown for herself, and urged Nero
against his mother. A mock reconciliation took place, but it was only
the preliminary to a treacherous plot for murdering the former empress.
The plot failed; her barge was sunk, but she escaped to shore. Nero,
however, with the shameful assent of Burrus and Seneca, dispatched
assassins to carry out the work, and Agrippina was slaughtered.
For a moment remorse seized Nero, but it was soon soothed; Burrus headed
the cringing congratulations of Roman society, to which Thrasea Pætus
was alone in refusing to be a party. The emperor forthwith began to
plunge into the wild extravagances on which his mother's life had been
some check. He took cover for his passion for chariot-driving and
singing by inducing men of noble birth to exhibit themselves in the
arena; high-born ladies acted in disreputable plays; the emperor himself
posed as a mime, and pretended to be a patron of poetry and philosophy.
The wildest licence prevailed, and there were those who ventured even to
defend it.
About this time the Roman governor in Britain, Suetonius, crossed the
Menai Strait and conquered the island of Anglesea. But outrages
committed against Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, stirred that tribe to
fierce revolt. Being joined by the Trinobantes, they fell upon the
Romans at Camulodunum and massacred them. Suetonius, returning hastily
from the west, found the Roman population in panic. The troops, however,
inspired by the general's resolution, won a decisive victory, in which
it is said that no fewer than 80,000 Britons, men and women, were
slaughtered.
Not long after, Burrus died--in common belief, if not in actual fact, of
poison; and Seneca found himself driven into retirement, while
Tigellinus became Nero's favourite and confidant. Nero then capped his
matricide by suborning the same scoundrel who had murdered Agrippina to
bring foul and false charges against his innocent wife, Octavia; who was
thus done to death when not yet twenty, that her husband might be free
to marry Poppæa. As a matter of course, the crime was duly celebrated by
a public thanksgiving.
The dispatch of an incompetent general into Asia resulted in a most
inglorious Parthian campaign. Nero, however, was more interested first
in extravagant rejoicings at the birth of a daughter to Poppæa, and then
in equally extravagant mourning over the infant's death. It was well
that Corbulo, marching from Syria, restored the Roman prestige in the
Far East.
These events were followed by the famous fire which devastated Rome;
whether or no it was actually Nero's own work, rumour declared that he
appeared on a private stage while the conflagration was raging, and
chanted appropriately of the fall of Troy. He planned rebuilding on a
magnificent scale, and sought popularity by throwing the blame of the
fire--and putting to the most exquisite tortures--a class hated for
their abominations, called Christians, from their first leader,
Christus, who had suffered the extreme penalty under Pontius Pilate,
procurator of Judæa, in the reign of Tiberius.
A very widespread conspiracy was now formed against Nero, in favour of
one Gaius Calpurnius Piso; Fænius Rufus, an officer of the Prætorians,
who had been subordinated to Tigellinus, being one of the leaders. The
plot, however, was betrayed by a freedman of one of the conspirators.
* * * * *
SALLUST
The Conspiracy of Catiline
The Roman historian Caius Crispus Sallust, who was born at
Amiternum in 86 B.C., and died in 34 B.C., lived throughout
the active career of Julius Cæsar, and died while Anthony and
Octavian were still rivals for the supreme power. It might be
supposed from his works that he was a person of eminent
virtue, but this was merely a literary pose. He was probably
driven into private life, in the first place, on account of
the scandals with which he was associated. He became a
partisan of Cæsar in the struggle with Pompey, and to this he
owed the pro-consulship of Numidia, on the proceeds of which
he retired into leisured ease. Sallust aspired with very
limited success to assume the mantle of Thucydides, and the
rôle of a philosophic historian. He displays considerable
political acumen on occasion, but his assumption of stern
impartiality is hardly less a pose than his pretense of
elevated morality. His "Conspiracy of Catiline"--the first of
his historical essays--was probably written, in part at least,
with the object of dissociating Cæsar from it; the lurid
colors in which he paints the conspirator are probably
exaggerated. But whether true or false, the picture presented
is a vivid one. This epitome is adapted specially from the
Latin text.
_I.--The Plotting_
I esteem the intellectual above the physical qualities of man; and the
task of the historian has attracted me because it taxes the writer's
abilities to the utmost Personal ambition had at first drawn me into
public life, but the political atmosphere, full of degradation and
corruption, was so uncongenial that I resolved to retire and devote
myself to the production of a series of historical studies, for which I
felt myself to be the better fitted by my freedom from the influences
which bias the political partisan. For the first of these studies I have
selected the conspiracy of Catiline.
Lucius Catilina [commonly called Catiline] was of high birth, richly
endowed both in mind and body, but of extreme depravity; with
extraordinary powers of endurance, reckless, crafty, and versatile, a
master in the arts of deception, at once grasping and lavish, unbridled
in his passions, ready of speech, but with little true insight Of
insatiable and inordinate ambitions, he was possessed, after Sulla's
supremacy, with a craving to grasp the control of the state, utterly
careless of the means, so the end were attained. Naturally headstrong,
he was urged forward by his want of money, the consciousness of his
crimes, and the degradation of morals in a society where luxury and
greed ruled side by side.
The wildest, the most reckless, the most prodigal, the most criminal,
were readily drawn into the circle of Catiline's associates; in such a
circle those who were not already utterly depraved very soon became so
under the sinister and seductive influence of their leader. This man,
who in the pursuit of his own vices had done his own son to death, did
not hesitate to encourage his pupils in every species of crime; and with
such allies, and the aid of the disbanded Sullan soldiery swarming in
Italy, he dreamed of subverting the Roman state while her armies, under
Gnæus Pompeius, were far away.
The first step was to secure his own election as consul. One plot of his
had already failed, because Catiline himself had attempted to move
prematurely; but the conspirators remained scatheless. Those who were
now with Catiline included members of the oldest families and of
equestrian rank. Crassus himself was suspected of complicity, owing to
his rivalry with Pompeius. The assembled conspirators were addressed by
Catiline in a speech of the most virulent character. He urged these
social outcasts to rise against a bloated plutocracy battening on the
ill-gotten wealth to which his audience had just as good a title. He
promised the cancellation of all debts, the proscription of the wealthy,
and the general application of the rule of "the spoils to the victors."
He had friends at the head of the armies in Spain and Mauritania, if
Gaius Antonius were the other successful candidate for the consulship,
his co-operation, too, could be secured. Such was the purport of his
speech; but I do not credit the popular fiction that the conspirators
were solemnly pledged in a bowl of mingled wine and blood.
Rumours of the plot, however, began to leak out through a certain
Fulvia, mistress of Quintus Curio, a man who had been expelled from the
senatorial body on account of his iniquities; and this probably caused
many of the nobility to support, for the consulship, Cicero, whom, as a
"new man," they would otherwise have religiously opposed. The result was
that Catiline's candidature failed, and Cicero was elected with Gaius
Antonius for his colleague.
At length Cicero, seeing that the ferment was everywhere increasing to
an extent with which the ordinary law could not cope, obtained from the
senate the exceptional powers for dealing with a national emergency
which they had constitutional authority to grant. Thus, when news came
that a Catilinarian, Gaius Manlius, had risen in Etruria at the head of
an armed force, prompt administrative measures were taken to dispatch
adequate military forces to various parts of the country. Catiline
himself had taken no overt action; he now presented himself in the
senate, was openly assailed by Cicero, responded with insults which were
interrupted by cries of indignation, and flung from the house with the
words "Since I am beset by enemies and driven out, the fire you have
kindled about me shall be crushed out by the ruin of yourselves."
Seeing that delay would be fatal, he started at once for the camp of
Manlius, leaving Cethegus and Lentulus to keep up the ferment in Rome.
To several persons of position he sent letters announcing that he was
retiring to Marseilles; but, with misplaced confidence, he sent one of a
different and extremely compromising tenor to Quintus Catullus, which
the recipient read to the senate. It was next reported that he had
assumed the consular attributes and joined Manlius; whereupon he was
proclaimed a public enemy, a general levy was decreed, Antonius was
appointed to take the field, while Cicero was to remain in the capital.
_II.--The Downfall_
Meanwhile, Lentulus at Rome, among his various plots, intrigued to
obtain the support of the Allobroges, a tribe of Gauls from whom there
was at the time an embassy in Rome. The envoys, however, took the advice
of Quintus Fabius Sanga, and while he kept Cicero supplied with
information, themselves pretended to be at one with the conspirators.
Risings were now taking place all over Italy, though they were
ill-concerted. At Rome, the plan was that when Catiline's army was at
Fæsulæ, the tribune Lucius Bestia should publicly accuse Cicero of
having caused the war; and this was to be the signal for an organised
massacre, while the city itself was to be fired at twelve points
simultaneously. The insurgents were then to march out and join Catiline
at Fæsulæ.
The Allobroges were now departing, carrying with them letters from
Lentulus to Catiline; but according to a concerted plan, they were
arrested. This provided Cicero with evidence which warranted the arrest
of Lentulus and other ringleaders in Rome; and its publication created a
popular revulsion--the lower classes were not averse from plunder, but
saw no benefit to themselves in a general conflagration of Rome.