1. Fortune then made a fool of Nero, because of his own credulity and the promises of Caesellius Bassus, a man of Punic origin who was mentally unbalanced. Bassus interpreted a dream he had had while asleep at night as presenting him with a sure prospect, whereupon he sailed to Rome and bought himself an audience with the emperor. He then disclosed to Nero that there had been discovered on his land a cavern of enormous depth containing a large quantity of gold, not struck as coin, but in a crude mass as used in antiquity. Indeed, there were massive ingots lying about and, elsewhere in the cavern, standing columns of gold, he said, all hidden over a long period of time to increase the prosperity of the present. He added that, on his hypothesis, it was the Phoenician Dido who had concealed these riches after fleeing from Tyre and founding Carthage. Her aim was to avoid overindulgence in her new population from excessive wealth, or to see to it that the Numidian kings, who were hostile for other reasons, would not be incited to war through lust for gold.
2. Nero paid insufficient attention to the reliability of the informant or the plausibility of the business itself, and he did not send men through whom he could verify the truth of the report, either. He actually exaggerated the information, and sent people to bring back the plunder he assumed was waiting for him. They were given triremes and a hand-picked crew of oarsmen to improve their speed. And during those days there was no other topic of conversation, the ordinary people gullibly accepting it, and thinking people having very different comments. As it happened, the Quinquennial Games* were being celebrated for the second time, and this incident became the prime topic taken up the orators for eulogizing the emperor. Not only were the ordinary crops being now produced by the earth, they said, and gold mixed with other metals; now she was fruitful with a new kind of fertility, and the gods were sending unsolicited riches. And they produced other servile compositions of supreme eloquence, and no less sycophancy, confident of Nero’s ready belief.
3. Meanwhile Nero’s extravagance increased as a result of this futile hope, and his older resources were being consumed in the belief that others were being offered for many years of squandering. Indeed, he was already distributing largesse from this source, as well, and his anticipation of riches was one of the reasons for shortages in the exchequer. Bassus had actually dug up his own land and the broad fields around it, proclaiming that here or there was the location of the promised cavern, and he was attended not only by soldiers but by a whole population of peasants enlisted to carry out the work. Finally he came out of his delusion, declaring in bewilderment that his dreams had never proved false before, and this was the first time he had been fooled by them; and he avoided humiliation and fear by suicide. Some have recorded that he was imprisoned and subsequently released, his property being seized as compensation for the royal treasure.
4. Meanwhile, as the five-year games approached, the Senate, wishing to avoid a scandal, offered the emperor victory in singing, and added the crown for eloquence, in order to keep hidden a scandalous stage performance. Nero, however, kept saying that he had no need of the influence or authority of the Senate: he was as good as his competitors, and would win the praise he deserved through the impartial decision of the judges. He began by reciting a poem* on stage. Then the crowd insisted that he ‘put on show his entire repertoire’ (these were their very words), and he entered the theatre again.* This time he followed all the rules of lyre-playing—not sitting when he tired, wiping away the sweat only with the garment he was wearing, and keeping from view any emissions from his mouth or nose. Finally, bending his knee and with a respectful wave of his hand to the crowd, he awaited the verdict of the judges with feigned anxiety. And the city plebs, used to encouraging the body movements even of actors, thundered its applause, in time and with orchestrated clapping. One might have thought them delighted, and perhaps they were delighted, with no concern for the public disgrace.
5. Not so those from the distant municipalities and from an Italy still strict and clinging to the old morality, and those on official delegations or private business from far-off provinces, where they had no experience of degeneracy. These could not endure the spectacle, and neither were they up to their degrading task. Their hands unpractised, they became tired, thus disorienting those experienced in the role, and they received frequent blows from the soldiers standing amongst the blocks of seats to make sure that not an instant be lost to discordant cheering or heavy silence. It was well known that several knights were trodden under foot as they struggled through the narrow passageways and the crowds bearing down on them, and that others fell victim to a fatal disease as they kept to their seats day and night. For there was fear of a more serious fate if they missed the show, since there were people present to take note of names and faces—many openly, more in secret—and of the enthusiasm and displeasure shown by those in attendance. The result was, for the lowly, punishment inflicted immediately; and, in the case of the illustrious, hatred hidden momentarily but satisfied later. People said that Vespasian* was berated by the freedman Phoebus for dozing with his eyes closed, and was only with difficulty protected by the pleas of decent people. Later, they say, he avoided his oncoming doom thanks to his greater destiny.
6. After the end of the games Poppaea died, victim of a chance outburst of anger in her husband, from whom she received a kick during pregnancy. Though some authorities record it—more from animosity than belief—I would not give credit to poison. Nero wanted children, and was captivated by love for his wife. Her body was not cremated, the normal Roman practice.* It was embalmed, after the fashion of foreign royalty, by being filled with aromatic spices, and then taken into the Mausoleum of the Julii.* There was, however, a state funeral,* and Nero himself, on the Rostra, eulogized Poppaea for her beauty, for having been the mother of a now-deified child, and for other gifts of fortune which he represented as virtues.
7. Poppaea’s death brought sadness in public, but joy to those with a memory of the past, because of her promiscuity and ruthlessness. Nero added the finishing touches by a fresh display of spite when he forbade Gaius Cassius to attend the funeral—the first sign of trouble to come. That trouble was not long delayed, with Silanus also included in his case. There had been no crime, apart from the preeminence of the two, Cassius for his ancestral riches and austere character, and Silanus for his distinguished pedigree and youthful modesty. And so, in a speech that he sent to the Senate, Nero said that both should be removed from public life, and he reproached Cassius with having also honoured the bust of Gaius Cassius* amongst the images of his ancestors, inscribing on it ‘To the leader of the cause’. Cassius’ aim, he said, had been to sow the seeds of civil war and encourage treason against the house of the Caesars. And, he added, so as not to rely only on the memory of a hated name to spread disaffection, Cassius had recruited Lucius Silanus, a young nobleman of headstrong disposition, whom he could flaunt as a supporter of revolution.
8. Nero then brought against Silanus himself the same charges as he had against his uncle Torquatus: he was already distributing imperial responsibilities and assigning to freedmen the oversight of accounts, petitions, and correspondence. The charges were both trifling and false—fear had made Silanus more circumspect, and the destruction of his uncle had terrified him into taking precautions. After that so-called ‘informers’ were brought in to level false accusations against Lepida (wife of Cassius and aunt of Silanus), charging her with incest with her brother’s son and holding ghastly religious rites. The senators Volcacius Tertullinus and Marcellus Cornelius and the Roman knight Calpurnius Fabatus* were dragged in as accomplices. These eluded immediate condemnation by appealing to the emperor and later, when Nero was preoccupied with crimes of the utmost gravity, they slipped by him as being too unimportant.
9. Sentences of exile were then passed on Cassius and Silanus by decree of the Senate; and Nero was to fix the sentence for Lepida. Cassius was deported to the island of Sardinia, where his old age was expected to finish the job. Silanus was taken off to Ostia on the assumption that he would be shipped to Naxos, but later he was kept confined to the Apulian municipality called Barium. There, as he prudently tolerated his thoroughly undeserved lot, he was apprehended by a centurion sent to kill him. The centurion urged him to open his veins, but Silanus replied that, while he had, indeed, decided on death, he would not let the killer off his glorious assignment. Though Silanus was unarmed, the centurion could see that he was very strong and more angry than fearful, and so he ordered his soldiers to overpower him. Silanus did not fail to struggle and strike out at him as strongly as he could with his bare hands, until he was brought down by the centurion, his wounds all on the front, as though in battle.
10. No less ready to face death were Lucius Vetus,* his mother-in-law Sextia, and his daughter Pollitta. They were hated by the emperor; he felt that, simply by living, they were a reproach to him for the killing of Rubellius Plautus, Lucius Vetus’ son-in-law. But the first opportunity for Nero to reveal his ruthlessness was provided by Vetus’ freedman Fortunatus who, after defrauding his patron, turned to accusing him. Fortunatus also enlisted the aid of Claudius Demianus, who had been imprisoned for criminal activity by Vetus when he was proconsul of Asia, but then released by Nero as a reward for turning informer. When the accused learned of this, and realized that he and his freedman were in a struggle on equal terms,* he withdrew to his country estate at Formiae.
At Formiae, some soldiers secretly kept watch on Vetus. Present with him was his daughter who, quite apart from the impending danger, had long been tormented with grief—ever since she had set eyes on the men who came to assassinate her husband Plautus. She had put her arms around his bloody neck, and still retained his bloodstained clothing—a widow unkempt and in constant sorrow, taking no nourishment but what would stave off death. Then, at her father’s urging, she went to Neapolis. Refused access to Nero, she kept watch on his exits, and then cried out to him, begging him to hear an innocent man and not surrender to a freedman his former colleague in the consulship. She would use at one time the plaintive cries of a woman, but sometimes aggressive shouts that belied her sex, until the emperor made it clear that he was insensible to pleas and reproaches alike.
11. Pollitta therefore reported to her father that he should abandon hope and accept the inevitable, and at the same time news came that a trial in the Senate and a grim sentence were in the offing. And there was no lack of people advising Vetus to name Nero as a principal heir,* and in this way look after his grandchildren’s interests with respect to the remainder. This option he rejected so as not to sully a life lived more or less in freedom by an act of servility at its end, and he distributed all his available money amongst his slaves. He also told them all to take away for themselves any portable chattels; only three couches were to be kept back for the final moments.
Then they cut their arteries, in the same bedroom and with the same weapon. They were hurriedly carried to the baths, each covered with a single article of clothing, for decency’s sake. Father looked at daughter, grandmother at granddaughter, and Pollitta looked at them both; and the three made rival prayers—praying that their halting breath be brought to a speedy end, each wanting to leave the others alive, and yet on the point of death. Fortune preserved the rightful order. The elder two expired first, and the young Pollitta after that. They were charged after their burial, and the verdict was that they receive the traditional punishment. Nero interposed his veto, allowing them death without supervision. Such were the insults heaped upon them when the killing was already done.
12. Because he had been on intimate terms with Faenius Rufus and had some passing acquaintance with Vetus, the Roman knight Publius Gallus found himself refused fire and water. His freedman was also his accuser, and as payment for his service the man was granted a seat in the theatre amongst the couriers of the tribunes.* The months following April (also called Neroneus) were renamed, Maius now being Claudius and Junius being Germanicus.* The man who had made this proposal, Cornelius Orfitus, declared that the change of nomenclature for the month Junius arose because the two Torquatuses, who had been executed for their crimes, had now made ‘Junius’ an inauspicious name.
13. This year, defiled by so many crimes, was further marked by the gods with storms and diseases. Campania was devastated by a hurricane that tore apart farms, orchards, and crops everywhere, and brought its destructive force to areas close to the city; and in the city mortals of every sort were ravaged by a virulent pestilence, though there was no noxious atmosphere in evidence. Homes were filling up with dead bodies, streets with funerals. Neither sex, and no age, was out of danger. Slaves and freeborn plebeians alike were snuffed out suddenly, amidst the lamentation of wives and children, whose bedside care and mourning often led to their cremation on the same pyre. The deaths of knights and senators, just as common though they were, drew fewer tears—they were apparently forestalling the emperor’s brutality by sharing the common lot of humanity.
That same year there were troop-levies throughout Narbonese Gaul, Africa, and Asia for the purpose of complementing the legions in Illyricum, from which men were receiving discharge on the basis of age or illness. To the disaster in Lugdunum* the emperor brought relief with a grant of four million sesterces to replace what the city had lost. That was the amount that the people of Lugdunum had earlier offered to assist with our city’s misfortunes.
14. By the consulship of Gaius Suetonius and Luccius Telesinus, Antistius Sosianus had learned of the honour paid to informers, and how ready the emperor was to kill. Sosianus was the man I have already mentioned* as having been punished with exile for his scurrilous poetry against Nero. He was a restless character who was not slow to seize opportunities. There was in exile in the same place one Pammenes, who was famous in the Chaldean art, through which he had a large network of acquaintances, and Sosianus played on the fact that their fortunes were similar in order to gain his friendship. He felt it was not for nothing that messengers were constantly coming to consult Pammenes, and at the same time he discovered that the man was being furnished annually with money by Publius Anteius. Sosianus was also not unaware that Nero hated Anteius because of his affection for Agrippina, and that his wealth would be a particularly effective goad to the emperor’s cupidity, which had been the cause of death for many.
Sosianus accordingly intercepted a letter sent by Anteius, and also stole some documents hidden in Pammenes’ private papers relating to the day of Anteius’ birth and his future. At the same time he came upon what Pammenes had written down about Ostorius Scapula’s birth and life. He then wrote to the emperor saying that, if he could be granted relief from his exile for a short time, he would bring him some important information that would promote his security. Anteius and Ostorius, he added, were a threat to the empire, and were examining their own destinies as well as the emperor’s.
With that, Liburnian galleys were dispatched and Sosianus was quickly brought back. When his information was made known, Anteius and Ostorius were regarded as convicted rather than accused men, to the point that nobody would witness Anteius’ will.* Then Tigellinus gave his authorization, having first warned Anteius not to dally in making his final testament. Anteius took poison but, enraged at its slowness, he accelerated his death by cutting his veins.
15. Ostorius at that time was on a distant estate on the Ligurian border. A centurion was sent there to kill him quickly. The reason for the haste was that Ostorius had a great reputation as a soldier, and had earned the civic crown in Britain; and also that he had a massive physique and was adept with weapons. All this had made Nero afraid of an attack from him, for the emperor lived in fear, and was even more terrified after the recently discovered conspiracy. And so, after closing off escape-routes from the villa, the centurion revealed the emperor’s orders to Ostorius, who turned on himself the courage he had often displayed against the enemy. He cut his veins, but the blood flowed too slowly. He therefore employed the hand of a slave, but only to the extent of having him firmly hold out a dagger. He then drew the man’s right hand towards him, and met the dagger with his throat.
16. Even if I were writing about foreign wars, and deaths incurred in the service of the state that were so closely similar in their circumstances, I myself would have been overcome with tedium, and I would be anticipating ennui on the part of others. For they would have been repelled by the sad continuum of deaths, honourable though they might be, of our citizens. In this case,* the servile acceptance of death, and the spilling of so much blood within the country, fatigue the mind and paralyse it with despondency. And the one indulgence I ask of those who will come to know of these events is for my not showing abhorrence for those who perished so tamely. It was the wrath of heaven visited on the Roman state, and one cannot simply mention it and pass on, as one may in the defeat of armies or the capture of cities. And let this concession be made to the posthumous fame of illustrious men: as in their funerals they are kept apart from the common burial, so too in the historical record of their end let them be granted, and let them retain, their own memorial.
17. In fact, within a matter of days Annaeus Mela, Cerialis Anicius, Rufrius Crispinus, and Titus Petronius all fell one after the other. Mela and Crispinus were Roman knights of senatorial status. Crispinus had once been prefect of the praetorian guard* and had been presented with consular insignia,* though recently he had been banished to Sardinia on a charge of conspiracy. He committed suicide on receiving word of his death sentence. Mela, who had the same parents as Gallio and Seneca, had eschewed the quest for political office from an eccentric ambition to gain power equal to that of ex-consuls while remaining a Roman knight. At the same time he believed a shorter way to the acquisition of wealth to be through procuratorships linked with the administration of the emperor’s business interests. He was also Annaeus Lucanus’ father, which greatly aided his distinction. After Lucanus’ killing, Mela was zealous in calling in the debts* owing to his estate, and thus earned a denunciation from Fabius Romanus, one of Lucanus’ close friends. A charge that father and son were both accomplices in the plot was fabricated, and a letter from Lucanus was forged.* Nero examined it and had it brought to Mela, whose wealth he coveted. Mela took what was at the time the easiest route to death and opened his veins, having already written his will, in which he left a large sum of money to Tigellinus and his son-in-law Cossutianus Capito, so that he could have the rest remain intact. There was an addition made to the will—a statement that Mela was dying when there were no good reasons for his punishment, whereas Rufrius Crispinus and Anicius Cerialis were enjoying their lives despite their hostility to the emperor. This was believed to be a forgery because, in the case of Crispinus, he had already been put to death, and, in that of Cerialis, because it provided a rationale for his death. Not long afterwards Cerialis committed suicide, exciting less pity than the others because people remembered that it was by him that the conspiracy had been divulged to Gaius Caesar.*
18. In Petronius’ case, a brief background sketch is necessary. His days were spent sleeping, his nights on the duties and delights of life. While others had been brought fame by industry, in his instance it was by idleness; and yet he was not considered a glutton and a spendthrift, like most who squander their fortunes, but a man of educated extravagance. The more outrageous his words and actions, which had a distinctive sort of nonchalance about them, the more acceptable they became as a demonstration of his sincerity. As proconsul of Bithynia, however, and subsequently as consul, he showed himself to be a man of energy who was competent in business. Then, sliding back into his vices, or through imitating vices, he was taken into Nero’s small band of cronies as his ‘arbiter of good taste’;* in his jaded state, Nero considered nothing delightful or agreeable unless it had Petronius’ approval. Hence Tigellinus’ envy, directed against a rival who outclassed him in the science of pleasure. Tigellinus therefore went to work on the emperor’s ruthlessness, to which all his other passions took second place, accusing Petronius of friendship with Scaevinus. He also bribed one of Petronius’ slaves to inform on him, removed any means of defence and imprisoned most of his household staff.
19. As it happened, Nero had set off for Campania during the days in question, and Petronius, who had gone as far as Cumae, was detained there; and he did not let fear or hope further delay him. He was, however, in no rush to end his life. Having cut his veins, he bandaged them and opened them again, as he felt inclined, in the meantime chatting with his friends, but not on serious matters or topics that would win him glory for his resolve. He listened in turn to their words—nothing on the immortality of the soul or the tenets of philosophers, but light poetry and playful verses. To some of his slaves he presented gifts, to others a whipping. He started dinner and let himself drop off to sleep so that his death, though imposed, might look natural. Even in his will he did not, like most who perished, flatter Nero, Tigellinus, or any other of the powerful. Instead, he itemized in writing the emperor’s depravities, naming the male prostitutes and women involved, and describing all their novel sexual acts, and sent it to Nero under seal. He then broke his signet ring to prevent its later use for manufacturing danger.
20. Nero now wondered how his exotic nocturnal pastimes were becoming known, and then Silia came into his mind. A woman of some note through her marriage to a senator, she had been involved with all Nero’s sexual activities, and had also been very friendly with Petronius. She was driven into exile on the grounds that she had not kept secret what she had seen and had done to her—a personal grudge on Nero’s part. The ex-praetor Minucius Thermus, however, Nero surrendered to the hatred of Tigellinus. A freedman of Thermus had come with some incriminating information about Tigellinus, for which the man himself paid with the agonies of torture, and his patron with an undeserved death.
21. After butchering so many distinguished men, Nero finally conceived a deep desire to exterminate virtue itself by killing Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus. He had long nursed a grudge against both, and there were additional motives for his resentment of Thrasea: he had left the Senate when the matter of Agrippina was under discussion, as I have noted,* and at the Juvenalian Games his services had not been conspicuous. That particular offence went deeper because at Patavium, his birthplace, Thrasea had actually sung in tragic costume at the Cetastian Games established by the Trojan Antenor. Furthermore, on the day that the praetor Antistius was being sentenced to death for the lampoons he composed against Nero, he successfully proposed a lighter penalty; and, after deliberately missing the meeting when divine honours were decreed to Poppaea,* he had missed her funeral. Capito Cossutianus* would not allow these things to be forgotten. He was of a criminal disposition, anyway, but he also resented Thrasea because it was to his influence that he owed an earlier conviction. That was when Thrasea gave assistance to the Cilician delegation that was indicting Capito for extortion.
22. In fact, Capito made the following accusations against him, as well. At the beginning of the year Thrasea would avoid the customary oath.* Though vested with a quindecimviral priesthood he did not attend the formal prayer-offerings.* He had never offered sacrifice on behalf of the emperor’s safety or his heavenly voice. He had not entered the Curia in three years, though at one time he had attended diligently* and tirelessly, conspicuously championing or opposing even quite ordinary senatorial resolutions. And most recently, when people were racing to put a stop to Silanus and Vetus, he had preferred to spend that time on the private affairs of his clients. This was already dissidence and partisanship, said Capito, and it was outright war if many dared do the same thing.
‘Once our state, with its love of discord, used to talk about Gaius Caesar and Marcus Cato*—and now it talks of you and Thrasea, Nero! And he has followers—or, more correctly, his retinue—who, while not yet adopting his perverse opinions, do ape his bearing and looks. They are stiff and gloomy,* their way of reproaching your love of fun. This man alone has no concern for your safety, no respect for your art. He is contemptuous of his emperor’s successes. Are your grief and pain not enough for him? Not accepting Poppaea’s divinity shows the same disposition as failing to swear allegiance to the enactments of the deified Augustus and Julius.* He disdains religion, ignores the law. The daily record of the Roman people is the more attentively read throughout the provinces and throughout the army—so people can learn what Thrasea has refused to do!
‘Either let us switch to his doctrine, if it is better, or else let those wanting revolution be deprived of their leader and prime motivator. That was the sect that produced the likes of Tubero and Favonius,* names unbeloved even by the republic of old. They parade the flag of freedom to overturn the empire; but if they overthrow it they will attack freedom itself. You have wasted your time removing Cassius if you allow the rivals of the Brutuses to grow and flourish.* Finally, write no memo yourself about Thrasea; let the Senate be our umpire.’
Nero stimulated Cossutianus’ already fierce temper, and also brought on side Marcellus Eprius and his trenchant eloquence.
23. As for the indictment of Barea Soranus,* the Roman knight Ostorius Sabinus had already laid a personal claim to it on the basis of Soranus’ proconsulship of Asia. During his mandate, Soranus had increased the emperor’s resentment by his fairness and industry, and also because he had carefully cleared the harbour of Ephesus,* and omitted to punish the state of Pergamum for forcefully preventing Nero’s freedman Acratus from making off with statues and art works. However, the charges laid were friendship with Plautus and courting popularity to induce his province to revolt. The date chosen for Soranus’ condemnation was that on which Tiridates* was coming to accept the throne of Armenia. This was in order to shade a crime at home by turning talk to foreign affairs—or so that Nero could flaunt his imperial greatness by a king-like* act of putting illustrious men to death.
24. The whole city poured out to welcome the emperor and see the king, but Thrasea was barred from the gathering. He was not despondent and, in fact, he wrote a petition to Nero asking to be informed of the accusations against him, and declaring that he would clear himself if he were given notification of the charges and an opportunity to refute them. Nero quickly accepted the petition, hoping that a fearful Thrasea had written something that might promote the emperor’s renown, and discredit his own reputation. When this turned out not to be the case, it was Nero’s turn to become frightened—at the prospect of the innocent man’s facial expression, spirit, and independence—and he had the Senate convened.
25. Then, surrounded by his closest friends, Thrasea deliberated whether he should attempt or decline to defend himself. Varying suggestions were put forward. Those feeling he should enter the Curia said they were confident about his firmness of purpose—he would say nothing that would not increase his brilliant reputation. It was the feckless and cowardly who shrouded their last moments in secrecy, they told him. He should let the people see a man ready to face death, and let the Senate hear words greater than a man’s, and almost divine. It could be that even Nero would be moved by the wonder of it; and if he persisted with his brutality, at least the record of an honourable end would be set apart among posterity from the cowardice of those who died in silence.
26. There were, on the other hand, those who thought he should wait at home. They said the same thing about Thrasea himself, but believed that he would face mockery and humiliation, and that he should turn his ears away from abuse and insults. It was not only Cossutianus and Eprius who were ready for heinous acts, they explained; there were others, too, whose inhumanity might lead them to raise their hands in violence, and even good men might follow from fear. Better, they said, to keep such infamous misconduct out of the Senate, to which he had always lent distinction, and leave unknown what the senators would have decided had they seen Thrasea on trial. To imagine that Nero would be overtaken by shame for his actions was to entertain futile hopes; much more real was the fear that he would vent his wrath on Thrasea’s wife, daughter, and other relatives. So he should go to his end still pure and unsullied, attaining the glory of those men in whose steps and learning he had directed his life.
Present at the meeting was a hot-headed young man named Rusticus Arulenus* who, hungry for praise, offered to veto the senatorial resolution (he was a tribune of the plebs). Thrasea curbed his enthusiasm, telling him not to embark on a futile* plan that would be of no help to the accused and deadly to its author. His own days were numbered, he said, and he should not desert a pattern of life he had assiduously maintained over so many years—Arulenus, by contrast, was starting his official career, and his future was not compromised. He should weigh up far ahead what course, in times like these, he should follow in his political life. But Thrasea kept to himself his thoughts on whether he should enter the Senate.
27. The next day, two praetorian cohorts, under arms, occupied the temple of Venus Genetrix. A body of civilians, their swords not concealed,* had taken up a position blocking the approach to the Senate, and at various points throughout the forums and basilicas were detachments of soldiers. Under the threatening gaze of these men the senators entered the Curia,* and a speech of the emperor was heard from the lips of his quaestor.* With no one mentioned by name, he criticized the senators for dereliction of their official duties and for drawing Roman knights into indifference by their example. Was it surprising that no one came from distant provinces, he asked, when many former holders of the consulship and priesthoods gave their attention instead to embellishing their gardens? This weapon the accusers seized.
28. Cossutianus took the lead, and then with greater vehemence Marcellus declared that the highest interests of state were at stake, that the mercy of their leader was being taxed by the stubbornness of his inferiors. The senators had been too tolerant up to that time, he said, allowing people to get away with making fools of them. There was the dissident Thrasea, and his son-in-law Helvidius Priscus,* victim of the same madness; and along with them Paconius Agrippinus,* who had inherited his father’s hatred of emperors, and Curtius Montanus,* ever scribbling his detestable poems. In the Senate he missed the presence of an ex-consul, he said, in the taking of vows he missed a priest, and in taking the oath of allegiance he missed a citizen. But perhaps Thrasea was rejecting the institutions and ceremonial rites of their ancestors, and openly taking on the part of traitor and public enemy! In short, let him come and state his opinion on what corrections or modifications he would like to see made—this man who was ever playing the senator and protecting those who disparaged the emperor! They would more easily bear his voice when he criticized specific items than they could his silence now as he condemned everything! Was he dissatisfied with worldwide peace,* or with victories won without loss to our armies? He was a man saddened by the prosperity of the state, one who regarded forums, theatres, and temples as deserts, and who kept threatening to exile himself—and they should not fulfil his perverted ambition for him! He had no regard for these senatorial decrees, the magistrates, and the city of Rome. Let him detach his life from this city which he had long ago ceased to cherish and now does not even look at!
29. As Marcellus made these and other such remarks, with his customary grim and menacing look, there was fire in his voice, in his face, and in his eyes. But there was not in the Senate the familiar despondency that had now become normal from the frequent perils; instead there was a new and deeper dread at the sight of the soldiers’ hands on their weapons. At the same time the venerable image of Thrasea himself loomed up in their minds, and there were some who felt compassion for Helvidius, too, who would pay the penalty for a guiltless relationship. What charge had been brought against Agrippinus but the sad fate of his father?* For he, too, equally innocent, had fallen before Tiberius’ brutality. And in Montanus’ case, he was a young man of integrity, not really an author of slanderous verse, and he was being driven into exile for having shown talent.
30. Meanwhile Ostorius Sabinus, the accuser of Soranus, came into the Senate. He opened his address by adverting to Soranus’ friendship with Rubellius Plautus and to his proconsulship of Asia, which, he claimed, Soranus had accommodated to his own glory-seeking— by promoting sedition in the various communities!— rather than the common good. These were old allegations. But there was a new one, too, which tied Soranus’ daughter to her father’s predicament, namely that she had given generous amounts of money to magicians. This had actually taken place, thanks to the filial piety of Servilia (which was the girl’s name). Through love for her father, and the indiscretion of her years, she had made a consultation, but only on the question of the safety of her family, on whether Nero could be appeased, and whether the senatorial inquiry would have no terrible outcome.
Servilia was therefore called into the Senate, and the two stood facing each other before the consuls’ tribunal*—the aged father and, opposite him, a daughter not yet twenty years old, widowed and forlorn, since her husband Annius Pollio had recently been driven into exile. And she did not even look at her father, whose dangers she seemed to have aggravated.
31. Her accuser then asked whether she had sold her wedding gifts, and taken the necklace from her neck to put on sale, to raise money for the performance of magical ceremonies. At first she threw herself on the ground, and for a long time wept in silence. Then, grasping the altar steps and the altar,* she said: ‘I have appealed to no impious gods and laid no curses. In my unhappy prayers I have asked for nothing other than that you, Caesar, and you, senators, save the life of this excellent father. Yes, I gave my jewels, my clothes, and the insignia of my rank, as I would have given my blood and my life had they asked for them. It is up to those men—unknown to me before this—to tell you what name they go by, and what arts they practise. I made no mention of the emperor except as one of the gods. But my poor father is unaware of all this, and if it is a crime I alone committed it.’
32. She was still speaking when Soranus interrupted, proclaiming that she had not gone to his province with him, could not have been an acquaintance of Plautus because of her age, and was not connected with the charges against her husband. She was guilty only of too much filial affection, and they should separate her case from his. As for himself, he would suffer any fate, no matter what. With that he sped to the arms of his daughter, who was running to him, but the lictors came between the two and stopped them.
Next it was the turn of the witnesses, and the pity that the savage accusation had excited was equalled by the anger aroused by Publius Egnatius’* testimony. He was a client of Soranus, now bribed to crush his friend. He affected the magisterial gravity of the Stoic sect,* and he was practised in putting on the outer appearance of integrity in bearing and expression, but at heart he was treacherous and cunning, keeping hidden his greed and lechery. These traits were laid bare by the money, and Egnatius provided an object lesson that one should be just as wary of those who, while putting on a show of good character, are false and perfidious in their friendship, as of those wrapped in crime and stained with infamy.
33. The same day, however, also produced the honourable example of Cassius Asclepiodotus,* who was a very prominent man in Bithynia because of his great riches. He had honoured Soranus with a loyal devotion in his prosperous days, and did not desert him in his decline. And so Asclepiodotus was entirely stripped of his fortune and driven into exile, such being the indifference of the gods to examples of good and evil.
Thrasea, Soranus, and Servilia were allowed to choose their manner of death. Helvidius and Paconius were banished from Italy. Montanus was pardoned as a concession to his father, on condition that he not continue in public life. The accusers Eprius and Cossutianus were each granted five million sesterces,* and Ostorius twelve hundred thousand, plus the insignia of a quaestor.*
34. Thrasea was in his gardens when, as evening approached, the consul’s quaestor was sent to him. He had gathered together a large crowd of illustrious men and women, and was focusing his attention mostly on Demetrius,* a professor of the Cynic philosophical school. With him, as could be judged from the earnestness of his expression, and from the more audible parts of their conversation, he was examining the nature of the soul and the separation of the spirit and the body. Then one of his close friends, Domitius Caecilianus, arrived and told him of the Senate’s decision. Thrasea therefore urged all present, who were weeping and protesting, to leave quickly, and not incur danger themselves by association with a man doomed to die. Arria’s* aim was to accompany her husband to his end, after the example of her mother Arria, but Thrasea advised her to hold on to her life and not remove the only support enjoyed by the daughter they shared.
35. He then went to the colonnade, where the quaestor found him almost joyful because he had learned that his son-in-law Helvidius had merely been barred from Italy. He accepted the decree of the Senate, and took Helvidius and Demetrius into his bedroom. He offered the veins of both arms and, letting the blood flow freely, sprinkled it on the ground. He then called the quaestor over and said ‘We are making a libation to Jupiter the Liberator. Look, young man!* I pray the gods avert the omen, but you have been born into a time when it is helpful to toughen the mind with examples of firmness.’ Then, as his slow death brought agonizing pains, turning to Demetrius …
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