Tiberius, in which he represented himself as the aggrieved party, and
accused Germanicus of debauchery and arrogance; he sought on his way an
interview with Drusus, who had returned to Illyria after his brother’s
funeral. Drusus received him coldly, and dismissed him with words so
politic that they were thought to have been suggested by a cooler head.
The day after he arrived in Rome, Fulcinius Trio, the prosecutor of
Scribonius Libo, took the first formal steps in a process against him.
The story of this famous trial is so narrated by Tacitus as to convey
the impression that there was a serious miscarriage of justice, and
that the oppressors of Germanicus were protected by the influence of
Livia and Tiberius; but, as usual, the narrative, wherever it depends
upon accessible documentary evidence, does not support such a view of
the case.
Accusers and accused alike pressed Tiberius to hear the case himself,
knowing “that he was impervious to the influence of rumour,” and
fearing the excitability of a large court. Tiberius, after hearing
the evidence, referred the whole case to the Senate. Five of the most
respected men in Rome refused to act as counsel for the defence.
Among the three who did eventually defend Piso was Marcus Lepidus,
whom we have already seen in possession of the full confidence of the
Emperor. On the day of the trial Tiberius opened the proceedings in
the Senate; he said that Piso had been a trusted officer and friend
of Augustus, that he had himself assigned him as an assistant to
Germanicus in the administration of the East with the authority of
the Senate. It was the duty of the court to decide without prejudice
whether he had exasperated the young man by insubordination and
opposition and rejoiced over his death, or had killed him with malice
and aforethought, “for if the subordinate officer exceeded the limits
of his office, if he refused to pay proper respect to his superior, and
rejoiced over his death, and my sorrow, I shall hate him, and shall
exclude him from my house, and punish his enmity as a private matter,
not with the power I hold as Princeps. But if it is discovered that a
crime in bringing about the death of any man requires punishment, then
do you confer upon the children of Germanicus and us his relatives our
proper consolation. And at the same time you must carefully consider
this point, whether Piso handled the armies in an insubordinate and
seditious fashion, whether he tampered disloyally with the affections
of the soldiers, whether he attempted to recover the province by force
of arms, or have the accusers exaggerated these charges? I may say that
I have good reason to be annoyed with their exercise of partisanship.
For was it proper to strip the body, to expose it to the eager scrutiny
of the eyes of the vulgar, and even to allow statements to spread among
foreigners that he had been poisoned, if this was still uncertain and
a subject of inquiry? I mourn for the loss of my son, and always shall
mourn, but I do not prevent the accused from advancing every fact by
which his innocence may be supported, or his guilt extenuated if there
was any provocation on the part of Germanicus; and I implore you not to
take accusations for proved facts, because the case touches me nearly
personally. I beg those who have been led by the ties of kindred or
faithful friendship to act as counsel for the defendant, to help him in
his danger as far as their eloquence and diligence allows; and I invite
the prosecution to similar efforts and similar firmness. In one point
only we raise Germanicus above the law, viz., in trying the case in the
Senate House rather than in the forum, before the Senate and not before
a jury. Let everything else be handled with a like moderation. I would
have no one pay regard to the tears of Drusus and my own sorrow, nor to
any fictitious charges made against us.”
Such a speech was doubtless disappointing to Agrippina, who had
already in her own mind condemned Piso and the amazonian Plancina
without benefit of clergy; she knew Germanicus had been poisoned, and
bewitched; she knew how it had all been done by means of a celebrated
poisoner named Martina, who had been fetched from the East to give
evidence, and had died mysteriously at Brundisium on the way. Had not
the poison been found after her death tied up in her hair? What further
evidence was wanting? And why did the woman die so conveniently for the
purposes of those who wished to shield the enemies of Germanicus? The
poor lady had troubles enough, left a widow with a family of six young
children, marked out for the enmity of a malignant and all powerful
grandmother-in-law, but her inclination to regard herself as the victim
of persistent ill-usage is not evidence; and though her contemporaries
would have had no difficulty in believing in the effects of witchcraft,
the case against Piso is rendered weak to us by the introduction of
this element; and the more so that the prosecution was not able to
prove the use of poison, or even to suggest a favourable opportunity
for its administration.
As the case proceeded it became quite clear that the charge of
poisoning could not be sustained, but that Piso had been guilty of
serious political offences. Meanwhile there was considerable agitation
among the people, to whom the sensational side of the trial alone
appealed, and who threatened violence if the murderer of Germanicus
escaped by the votes of the Senate. This at least we are told by
Tacitus, though here again it is more than probable that the public
excitement existed chiefly in the imagination of Agrippina, who always
saw herself playing the part of injured heroine to a sympathetic
audience of the Roman people. Riots were not dreaded at Rome since the
police of the city had been organized and the Prætorian guards placed
in barracks.
As the case became exclusively political, Plancina naturally dropped
out of it; “machinations of Livia,” shrieked Agrippina, and Tacitus has
repeated the shriek.
The case had an abrupt and tragic termination. Piso, seeing that the
hostile evidence steadily accumulated, and that Tiberius preserved an
absolutely impartial and judicial attitude, killed himself, leaving
a letter to Tiberius, from which the following extract has been
preserved: “Crushed by a conspiracy of my private enemies, and the
hatefulness of a false accusation, inasmuch as no opportunity is left
for the truth and the establishment of my innocence, I call heaven to
witness, Cæsar, that I have lived loyally to you, and dutifully to your
mother; and I implore you to take charge of my children, of whom Gnæus
Piso was certainly not concerned in my fortunes whatever may have been
their character, for he spent the whole time at Rome, and Marcus Piso
dissuaded me from returning to Syria. And I wish that I had rather
given way to the counsels of my young son than he to those of his aged
father. I beg the more earnestly that his innocence may not pay the
penalty of my perversity. I beg for the safety of my unhappy son in the
name of forty-five years of loyal duty, of a consulship shared with
yourself, of the confidence placed in me by Augustus, of the friendship
with yourself, and as a last request.” He made no mention of his
wife in this dying petition. Tiberius exempted Marcus Piso from any
complicity in the charges brought against his father, and also spoke
on behalf of Plancina. A two days’ inquiry was held into her conduct,
but to the disgust of Agrippina she was acquitted. Her escape was
attributed to the influence of Livia.
The Senate passed severe sentences upon the sons of Piso, which
Tiberius, as usual, considerably modified. Honours and rewards were
bestowed on the accusers, but Tiberius, in promising Fulcinius Trio
office later on, significantly hinted that he was in danger of spoiling
his eloquence by excessive violence. It had been in the power of
Tiberius to confiscate the property of Piso, but he bestowed it upon
his son Marcus. Tacitus comments in characteristic fashion--“Superior
to the temptation of money, as I have often recorded, and the more
readily appeased at that time through an uneasy conscience about the
acquittal of Plancina.”
There certainly does not seem to have been any miscarriage of justice,
for even if Piso was sincere in his protestations of innocence, and
really was innocent of the technical offence of waging civil war,
his case was never concluded, and he was never condemned. It pleased
Agrippina and her friends, and it pleased the sensation mongers of the
capital, to see in the case not a political trial, but a demand for
vengeance on the murderers of Germanicus. In this demand they were
disappointed, for Plancina, the supposed culprit, escaped altogether,
Piso died uncondemned by his own hand, and whatsoever punishment fell
upon his two sons was inflicted on them as the sons of a man who
had been disloyal to the State, not as the sons of the murderer of
Germanicus. It was therefore superfluous on the part of two Senators to
propose that altars should be erected to Vengeance, and of another that
thanks should be returned to certain members of the Imperial family
because Germanicus had been avenged.
There is, in fact, absolutely no evidence that Germanicus was murdered,
while there is abundant evidence that the relations between him and
Piso, both personal and political, were exceedingly unsatisfactory,
and that Piso was so injudicious as to endeavour to set aside his
authority. Piso was by many years the older man of the two, he had
had long experience of public affairs, had enjoyed the confidence of
Augustus, and acquiesced very unwillingly in the arrangements which put
Germanicus, a much younger man, over his head. It is quite possible
that he had private instructions from Tiberius to give Germanicus the
benefit of his experience in friendly fashion, and that he interpreted
these instructions wrongly, believing them to amount to a declaration
of his own independence of Germanicus, and he would be the more ready
to believe this because he was touchy on the subject of his own
dignity; but that he actually carried authority to thwart and annoy
Germanicus is as improbable as that he had instructions to poison him.
Tiberius was guilty of a mistake in not anticipating the friction that
would necessarily arise between an older man and a younger man when
the former was placed in subordination to somewhat indefinite powers
wielded by the latter. If the two men had been left to settle their
differences alone, there would probably have been little trouble,
for Germanicus began with courtesy and forbearance, but the ladies
insisted on taking an active part in the quarrel. Agrippina saw Livia
written large all over Plancina, with whom she had doubtless enjoyed
several preliminary skirmishes at Rome; and Plancina met her on her own
field and fought her with her own weapons, for, reprehensible though
Plancina’s military performances appeared in the eyes of a pattern
Roman matron, Agrippina had herself set the fashion in Germany. The
atmosphere of the East was a particularly unwholesome one for two
ladies thus mutually breathing out threatenings and slaughters, and
listening to tales depreciatory of one another. The East swarmed with
sorcerers and necromancers, and supple intriguers of all kinds used to
the internecine feuds of the ladies who lived in the palaces of their
princes.
The most unfortunate result of the death of Germanicus was that it left
Agrippina an embittered and vindictive woman. Even her husband had
occasionally deprecated the violence of her temper. Time did nothing to
cure her grievances, indeed the legend of her many sorrows seemed to
grow steadily as the events receded into the distance, and she handed
her quarrel on to her children with its vitality undiminished.
One possible solution of the part played by Piso, and of the difficulty
of reconciling it with his last protestation of innocence, is that
Plancina was actually in the confidence of Livia, from whom she held
such a commission as Livia could give her to make arrangements
desired by her patroness. The Oriental princes had learned to rely
on secret influence rather than on open negotiations with Tiberius
and the Senate; the stern impartiality of the Emperor drove them to
subterranean manœuvres, and Livia was by no means disinclined to let
it be understood that her influence was paramount. Thus while Piso
as Governor of Syria was the properly constituted representative of
Tiberius, his wife was the accredited plenipotentiary of the power
behind the throne. The charges against Plancina were really charges
against Livia, and the case which was hushed up was the case which
would have exposed the unauthorized political intrigues of the Empress
Dowager. Tiberius could either allow his mother’s interference with
State affairs to be a subject of public inquiry, or he could allow
Plancina to be tried on the frivolous charge of poisoning with the
certainty that she would escape conviction. He preferred the less
heroic course, with the result that both he and his mother were
credited with having been concerned in a criminal conspiracy against a
near relative.
The tradition repeated by Tacitus, that Piso was in possession of
documents which would have established his innocence by demonstrating
the complicity of Tiberius and Livia, and that he refrained from
producing them on being assured of his safety by Sejanus, is not
incompatible with this view of the case. Tiberius would certainly not
have been involved, but instructions given by Livia to Plancina may
very well have existed, and have led to those reversals of the policy
of Germanicus which produced the ultimate quarrel. On this assumption
the suicide of Piso becomes intelligible, he could not defend his grave
political misconduct without exposing the still graver misconduct of
the Empress Dowager, and when he saw that no other means of escape was
open to him, he took a course which, to the Romans, did not seem to be
devoid of heroism. Tiberius may have been weak in not dismissing his
mother to an island, but he was certainly not responsible for the death
of Piso, or concerned in a plot to poison Germanicus.
XVI
Tiberius and the Senate
Drusus, the son of Tiberius, died in A.D. 23, under circumstances which
it will be more convenient to consider at a later period. From this
event Tacitus dates the perversion of Tiberius, forgetting that he has
already ascribed to him every unamiable quality except avarice. After
enumerating the various legions, and recording their distribution,
Tacitus says: “I hope I am not wrong in believing that it is relevant
to review the other departments of State as well, to say how they were
managed up to that time, since this year marked the beginning of a
change for the worse in the Emperor’s administration. Now first, public
business and the most important concerns of private men were dealt with
before the Senate, and the chief men were allowed to make speeches,
and he checked them himself, where they slipped into flattery; and he
used to confer office by taking into consideration nobility of descent,
brilliance in the field, distinguished service at home, so that it was
agreed that there were no men with higher claims. Consuls and Prætors
enjoyed their proper dignity, the lesser magistrates also were in
the full exercise of their powers, and the laws, with the exception
of the “Lex Majestatis,” were well administered. Moreover, the corn
supply and tribute, and the rest of the public revenues, were managed
by associations of Roman knights. Cæsar entrusted the management of his
own affairs to the most distinguished men, to some who were unknown,
on hearing of their reputation; and when once he had adopted a man he
retained him indefinitely, for most of his officers grew old in the
same departments. The commonalty certainly suffered from a dear market,
but the Prince was not responsible for that; indeed, he met the failure
of crops, or the difficulties of navigation, as far as expense and care
could help him. And he took measures that the Provinces should not be
disturbed by fresh burdens, and that they should be able to endure
the old ones exempt from the avarice or cruelty of officials. There
was no such thing as personal outrages or confiscations of property.
The estates of Cæsar were few in Italy, his establishments of slaves
were modest, his household confined to a few freedmen; and if ever he
was at variance with a private person, he resorted to the ordinary
processes of law, the ordinary courts. All this he kept up until things
were changed by the death of Drusus, not indeed graciously, but with a
repellent manner, so that he was generally an object of terror.”
These words, except for the last sentence, differ but little from those
employed by Paterculus in enumerating the blessings enjoyed by the
Roman people under the sway of Tiberius, though Paterculus does not
limit the good administration of the Emperor to the period which ended
with the death of Drusus.
It is indeed difficult, when we read the record of the actual
transactions of the Senate, to form any other opinion than that
advanced by Tacitus in the foregoing summary; even in the case of the
“Lex Majestatis” it is the Senate, not Tiberius, who show a tendency to
abuse the powers which it conferred, and the rare occasions on which
the Emperor himself allows an accusation under this law to be pressed
are those on which the strictest republican virtue would have demanded
its application, viz., when the misconduct of a provincial governor
had impaired the dignity of the State. It is true that this extension
of the operation of the “Lex Majestatis” had not been familiar to
the Republic, and that the provincials had been held to be protected
sufficiently by the laws against extortion, but it might reasonably
be held that a Roman magistrate disgraced his country no less by
maladministration in the Provinces than by cowardice in the field, or a
disgraceful treaty. In fact, this probably was the real grievance which
caused the Senatorial Annalists, whose diaries were read by Tacitus,
to fill their memoirs with bitter animadversions on the abuse of the
“Lex Majestatis,” and the professional advocates who were a terror to
delinquent Senators. Incapable or corrupt governors, who might have
escaped punishment on some technical plea, if they had been accused
formally of extortion, were now confronted with a fuller examination
into their conduct under the vaguer charge of having impaired the
dignity of the State. Tiberius constituted himself the guardian of the
dignity of the State; it was his duty to do so. In upholding the purity
of the administration, he was upholding the Empire, but he was also
declaring an emphatic negative to the theory that the Roman Senate was
at liberty to deal as it pleased with its Provinces. The restoration of
the Senate, begun in some degree by Augustus and continued by Tiberius,
was attended by this inconvenience, that it revived the pretensions of
the survivors of the Oligarchy, and though the majority of the Senate
were distinguished rather by an inclination to hand over all their
responsibilities to the Emperor than by an uncompromising attitude
towards his government, there were a minority who were disgusted
because fuller advantage was not taken of the opportunities afforded,
and because the liberal policy of the Emperor brought them little
nearer to the cherished abuses of the old oligarchical government.
When we reflect that the first six books of the _Annals of Tacitus_
cover a period of twenty-three years, and that he had access to the
Senatorial archives no less than to private memoirs, we are astonished
at the meagreness of his information. If we remove from these books
all that refers to the campaigns in Germany, Thrace, and Africa, all
that is concerned with the death of Germanicus, all that has to do with
the personal history of the Imperial family, singularly little remains
to tell us how the Senate administered the Provinces which had been
left to its care, and the two great questions in which statesmen are
profoundly interested, the questions of Revenue and Defence, are hardly
touched upon.
For this there are two reasons, apart from the fact that Tacitus was an
incompetent historian; one is that Tacitus avowedly interested himself
only in recording events which seemed to him striking illustrations of
good or bad behaviour, history to him being merely a primer of morals
and a collection of examples; the other is that very little business
actually was transacted before the Senate.
We may take as an example the case of Cappadocia. This country was
annexed by Germanicus, its native rulers were deposed, and it passed
from the status of an allied kingdom to that of a province. It might be
anticipated that we should have a record of discussions in the Senate
as to the terms upon which this new Province was to be added to the
Empire, as to whether it was to be Imperial or Senatorial, as to its
probable cost and revenue; but we have nothing of the kind, we have not
even the innuendo of a grievance based on the fact that Tiberius fixed
its tribute at half the usual amount, and treated it as an Imperial
Province from the outset. Similarly the Government of Achaia passed
into the hands of the Emperor at the request of the Province itself,
without any debate in the Senate, so far as we are informed by Tacitus.
Africa was a Senatorial Province; the moment that trouble between the
Roman inhabitants and a native prince declared itself, the Senate
practically threw the whole responsibility on Tiberius by asking him
to nominate a Governor. With all its pretensions, and in spite of all
the encouragement given to it by Tiberius to assume the position of an
advisory council to the Emperor, if not of a representative assembly of
the Empire, the Senate reverted more and more to its old position of a
domestic council representing the best families at Rome and attending
to little beyond their interests.
It was fortunate for the Empire that Tiberius failed in his attempt
to restore the Senate, for no tyranny can be worse than that of the
direct government of dependencies by an irresponsible debating society,
divided into parties more or less organized, which intrigue abroad
to further their interests at home, and the Senate itself showed a
sounder political insight than the Emperor in refusing to assume
responsibilities for which it was eminently unfit.
If, however, the greater political questions are passed over by
Tacitus, some of the minor subjects with which the Senate dealt are
not uninteresting; it retained the position of guardian of the public
morals, or at the least of the morals of those families of whom it was
composed or whose members were employed in the government of the city
and Empire. Adultery under the Julian laws passed by Augustus was not
a sin but a crime, and we accordingly have some cases in which Roman
ladies of high rank are arraigned before the Senate along with their
paramours.
The number of these cases is not great, and in comparison with similar
cases in our own divorce courts remarkably small, from which we may
conclude either that the Senate was a lenient censor of morals, or
that the standard of morality was high; it is further possible that the
Senate was only called upon to intervene when the family of the culprit
had failed in its duty.