The Works of Cornelius Tacitus; with an essay on his life and genius, notes, supplements, &c, by Arthur Murphy ... A new edition, with the author's last corrections

Front matter

THE WORKS OF CORNELIUS TACITUS ; WITH AN ESSAY OX HIS LIFE AND GENIUS, Xotcg, &uppUmrnt0, Sa. BY A R TH U R M UR PHY, E S Q. I'tæcipuiim munus nnnalium rror, ne virtutes sileantur, utquc pravis diclis factisque ex postcritate et infamia metus sit. Tacitus, Annalcs, iii. s. ti.. COMPLETE IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: Printed by W. Green fy T. Chaplin, Crane-Court, Fleet-Street, JFOR J- BAMS, MILITARY CHRONICLE OFFICK, ESSEX-STREET, STRAXJ); AMU TO BE HAD OF THE BoOB.- I. L1ERS. 1813. I TO THE RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE. SIR, — You will be surprised to see your name at the head of this ad dress ; but I flatter myself that the liberty which I take in violation of all preliminary forms, will not require an apology. As soon as I had finished a long* and laborious work, with the ambition of adding to English Lite rature (what seemed to be much wanted) a Translation of a great His torian, it was natural that 1 should look round for a person of genius and learning, from whose candour I can promise myself a just, but mild, de cision.

This, Sir, was the practice in ancient times, when the Republic of Letters was considered as an honourable community, and the several members addressed their works to one another with a spirit of freedom and integrity, till the manners underwent a change, and, Adulation diffusing its baneful influence, Dedication became another word for servile Flattery. It is not my intention to conform to the modern practice ; but, though I know what a small, if any, portion of ancient genius has fallen to my lot, I claim the privilege of imitating the disinterested manners of a liberal age. I beg leave to dedicate my labours to the person whose talents I have long admired ; to the man whom I saw many years ago coming forth from the school of Quintilian, impressed with the great principle of that consummate master, ne futurum quidem oratorem, nisi bonum virum.

In the part which you have acted on the great stage of public business, the effect of that principle has been seen and acknow ledged ; but in no instancewith such distinguished lustre as when we saw DEDICATION. IV you, on a late occasion, with a patriot spirit, standing forth the champion of Truth, of your Country, and the British Constitution. Per obstantes catervas Explicuit sua victor arma. The regicides of France had the vanity to offer their new lights and wild metaphysics to a people who understood and cherished Civil Liberty from the invasion of Julius Cæsar to the present hour ; but your penetrating eye pervaded the whole, and, in one book, demonstrated, that so far from being objects of imitation, the New Politicians of France were no better than Architects of Ruin. The Friends of the People in that country have been for years employed in proving, by all their acts and decrees, the truth of your reasoning ; they have been, I may say, writing Notes on your Cook, and the Commentary has been fatally too often written in blood.

Book 1. The Annals

of Consul, and wth the tribunitian sb) power, which he pro- „-. 1 T 1 ■ 1 ll _ A ' fessed to assume for the protection of the people. In a little time, when he had allured to his interest the soldiery by a profusion of largesses, the people by distributions of corn, and the minds of men in general by the sweets of peace, his views grew more aspiring. By degrees, and almost imperceptibly, he drew into his own hands the authority of the senate, the functions of the magistrates, and the administration of the laws. To these encroachments no opposition was made. The true republican had perished, either in the field of battle, or by the rigour of proscriptions : of the remaining nobility, the leading men were raised to wealth and honours, in proportion to the alacrity with which they courted the yoke ; and all who in the distraction of the times had risen to affluence, preferred immediate ease and safety to the danger of contending for ancient freedom.

The provinces acquiesced under the new establishment, weary of the mixed authority of the senate and people ; a mode of government long distracted by contentions among the great ; and in the end rendered intolerable by the avarice of public magistrates ; while the laws afforded a feeble re medy, disturbed by violence, defeated by intrigue, and undermined by bribery and corruption. III. In this state of affairs, Augustus selected Claudius Marcel lus and Marcus Agrippa, to prop and strengthen his administration. The former, who was his sister's son sa), and still a 3Touth, he raised to the dignity of pontiff and ædile : on the latter, by his birth obscure, but eminent for military talents, and the companion of all his victories, he conferred the honour of two successive consulships ; and in a short time after, upon the untimely death sb) of Marcellus, chose him for his son-in-law.

Tiberius Nero and. Claudius Drusus, the sons of his wife Livia, were adorned with the title of Imperator sc), though the succession in the house of Augustus was at the time well secured by other branches of the house of Cæsar. He had already adopted into the imperial family Caius and Lucius, the two sons of Agrippa; and to see them, even before they had put on the manly gown, considered as princes of the Roman youth, and marked out as future consuls, was his ardent desire : though, for political reasons, he chose to disguise his sentiments. To obtain those honours for his family was the wish of his heart; while, under a shew of coy reluctance, he seemed to reject them. Agrippa departed this life ; and in a short time after his two sons were cut off ; Lucius Cæsar sd) on his road to join the army in Spain ; and Caius on his return from Armenia, where he had received a wound that impaired his health. OF TACITUS.

BOOK 1.

35 Whether they died by their own premature fate, or the machinations of their step-mother Livia, is to this day problematical. Drusus had paid his debt to nature, leaving Tiberius the only surviving son-in-law of the emperor. The current of court favour was now directed that way. He was adopted by Augustus, de clared his colleague in the government, his associate in the tribunitian power, and shewn as the rising sun to the army ; not, as before, by the secret arts of Livia, but with her open and avowed direction. Augustus was now in the decline of life, and Livia had gained unbounded influence over his affections. By her con trivance Agrippa Posthumus se), the only surviving grandson of the emperor, was banishecbto the isle of Planasia sf). In praise of this young man much cannot be said : he was a stranger to the libe ral arts, uncouth, unformed, and stupidly valuing himself on his bodily strength ; yet free from vice, or the imputation of a crime.

At this time Germanicus, the immediate descendant of Drusus, was appointed to the command of eight legions on the Rhine. By the emperor's direction Tiberius adopted him as his son, though he had then issue of his own sg) growing up to manhood. The policy, no doubt, was to guard the succession with additional se curities. Augustus, in that juncture, had no war upon his hands, that in Germany excepted ; which was carried on, not with a view to extension of empire, or any solid advantage, but solely to expiate the disgrace incurred by the loss of Varus sh) and his legions. A perfect calm prevailed at Rome : the magistrates retained their ancient names ; the younger part of the community were born since the battle of Actium si), and the old during the the civil wars: how many were then living, who had seen the constitution of their country ?

IV. The government thus overthrown, nothing remained of an cient manners, or ancient spirit. Of independence, or the equal condition sa) of Roman citizens, no trace was left. All ranks submitted to the will of the prince, little solicitous about the present hour ; while Augustus, in the vigour of health, maintained at once his own dignity, the honour of his house, and the public tranquillity. In process of time, when, worn with age, and fail ing under bodily infirmities, he seemed to approach the last act, a new scene presented itself to the hopes of men. Some amused themselves with ideas of ancient liberty, many dreaded the hor rors of a civil war, and others wished for public commotion ; the greater part discussed, with a variety of opinions, the character of the new masters at that moment impending over the siate, *' Agrippa was rude and savage ; disgrace added to his natural fe- BOOX J. THE ANNALS 36 rocity ; and, in point of age and experience, he was by no means equal to the weigtt of empire.

Tiberius was matured by years ; he had gained reputation in war > but the pride of the Claudian sb) family was inveterate in his nature, and his inbred cruelty, however suppressed with art, announced itself in various shapes. Trained up in the imperial house, in the very bosom of despotism, he had been inured from his youth to the pomp and pride of con sulships and triumphs. During the years which he passed in a seeming retreat, but real exile, in the isle of Rhodes fcj, he me ditated nothing so much as plans of future vengeance, clandestine pleasures, and the arts of dissimulation." To these reflections the public added their dread of a mother raging with all the impo tence of female ambition : a whole people, they said, were to be enslaved by a woman, and two young men sdj, who in the begin ning would hang heavy on the state, and in the end distract and rend it to pieces by their own dissensions, V. While these and other observations of a similar nature em ployed the public mind, the health Of Augustus declined apace.

The wickedness of his wife was not supposed to remain inactive. A rumour prevailed, that Augustus had gone a few months before, in a private manner, with a select party, and Fabius Maximus, his confidential friend, to the island of Planasia, on a visit to Agrippa. The meeting was said to be of the tenderest nature: tears were shed by both, and a scene of mutual affection followed. From that interview hopes were conceived, that the young prince Avould be once more restored to the favour and protection of his grandfather. The secret soon transpired : Fabius communicated the whole to his wife Marcia, and by her it was conveyed to Livia. Augustus knew that he had been betrayed. Maximus died soon after, perhaps, by his own hand: but of that nothing can be said with certainty. At his funeral Marcia was heard, in the vehemence of distress and sorrow, to accuse herself of being accessary to the death of her husband.

However that may be, Tiberius had scarcely set foot in Illyricum, when he received dispatches from his mother, requiring his immediate presence. He arri red at Nola : but whether Augustus was still living, or had breath -d his last, must be left in doubt. By Livia's order the palace and all the avenues were closely guarded : favourable accounts were issued from time to time ; and with that artifice mankind was amused, till all proper measures were concerted. At length the same report that announced the death of Augustus, proclaimed Tiberius in possession of the supreme power.

BOOK 1. OF TACITUS.

37 VI. The first exploit of the new reign was the murder of Agrippa Posthumus. A centurion of undaunted resolution attacked him by surprise. Though unprovided with arms, the young man did not easily yield : he fell after a stout resistance. Of this event Tiberius made no report to the senate, content with hinting a pretended order of his deceased father, by which the centurion, charged with the custody of Agrippa's person, was commanded to dispatch him, as soon as the emperor breathed his last. Augustus, it is true, had arraigned the character and conduct of the young man in terms of asperity ; he had even banished him by a decree of the senate: but it is equally true, that he never imbrued his hands in the blood of his kindred ; nor is it probable that, for the security of a step son, he would have doomed to death a descendant from himself.

The stronger presumption is, that Tiberius and Livia, the former impelled by his dread of a rival, and the latter by the malice of a step-mother, were accomplices in the murder. When the as sassin, in the military phrase, reported to Tiberius, that what he had given in orders, was duly executed, the reply of the new emperor was, that he had given no such orders, and for what was done the centurion must answer before the senate. A disavowal so very extraordinary gave the alarm to sa) Sal lustius Crispus, a minister then in favour, and trusted with the secrets of the court. The warrant of the execution had passed through his hands. He dreaded a public examination ; well aware that, whether he disclosed the truth, or attempted to disguise it, his own danger would, in either case, be precisely the same.

To ward off the blow, he remonstrated to Livia, that the secret coun sels of the imperial family, the conduct of ministers, and the actions of the centurions, ought to be veiled from the public eye. By referring too much to the senate, the prince would weaken his own authority : that men should be accountable to the sove reign only, was a branch of the imperial prerogative ; and if Tiberius departed from it, he ceased to reign. VII. At Rome, in the mean time, all things tended to a stftte of abject servitude, Consuls, senators, and Roman knights, contended with emulation, who should be the most willing slaves. The higher each persons' rank, the more he struggled for the foremost place in bondage. All appeared with a studied countenance. An air of gaiety might dishonour the memory of Augustus, and sadness would ill befit the opening of a new reign.

A motley farce was acted ; and grief and joy, distress and flattery, succeeding by turns, were curiously mixed and blended. The ©ath of sa) fidelity to Tiberius was taken first by the two consuls,

BOOK 1

„ THE ANNALS 38 Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Apuleius, and by them administered to Seius Strabo and Caius sb) Turranius ; the former, præfect of the prætorian bands ; the latter, controller of the corn and pub lic stores. Their example was followed by the senate, the army, and the mass of the people. To make every thing move from the consuls, was the policy of Tiberius. He affected the appearance of republican principles, as if the constitution still subsisted, and he himself had formed no design to distroy it. The very proclamation, by which he convened the senate, professed no other authority than that of the the tribunitian power conferred upon him by Augustus. The proclamation itself was short, and penned in modest terms ; im porting, " that the business of the meeting was, to decree funeral honours to his deceased father : as to himself, he could not leave the body ; that office of piety was the only function that he presumed to exercise."

This was, indeed, the language of modera tion ; but Augustus was no sooner dead, than he assumed the su preme authority: in his character of imperator, he took upon him the whole military command ; he gave the word to the prætorian sentinels were stationed round the palace; the soldiers appeared under arms ; the magnificence of a court was seen in all its forms ; guards attended him to the forum ; guards conducted him to the senate-house; all things announced the sd) sovereign. In his dispatches to the army, he was already the successor of Au gustus : he spoke the style and language of a recognized emperor, without reserve, and in the tone of power, equivocal only when he addressed the senate. The fact was, Tiberius dreaded Germanicus. A commander in chief, who had so many legions under his direction, who had formed connections with the allies of Rome, and was besides the idol of the people, might choose to seize the government, rather than linger in expectation.

For this reason the fathers were to be managed. There was at the bottom another motive : if, in ap pearance, he owed his elevation, not to the intrigues of an ambitious mother, or tbe adoption of a superannuated emperor, but to the voice of the people, it would redound more to his glory. The opportunity was' also fair, to pry into the temper and disposi tions of the leading senators. The event shewed that his indecision was policy in disguise. He noted the words of men, he watched their looks; warped every circumstance into a crime; and, hoarding all in his memory, gathered rancour for a future clay. VIII. At the first meeting of the senate, the funeral of Augus tus was the only subject of debate. The emperor's will was-

BOOK I. OF TACITUS.

39 brought forward by the (a) vestal virgins. Tiberius and Livia were declared his heirs. The latter was adopted into the Julian family, with the additional title of Augusta. His grand child ren and their issue were next in succession ; in the third degree he named the nobles of Rome ; not indeed from motives of per sonal regard, for the greater part had been for a long time obnoxious ; but a bequest so generous and magnificent might gain the applause of future ages. In the rest of his legacies the will was in the style of a Roman citizen : if we except the clauses, where by he gave to the Roman people four hundred thousand great sesterces sb), to the inferior commonalty sive and thirty thousand, to each prætorian soldier one thousand small sesterces, and to every common man belonging to the legions three hundred, he affected neither pomp nor grandeur.

The will being read, the funeral ho nours were taken into consideration. The chief propositions were, that the procession should pass through the triumphal gate ; this was moved by Asinius Gallus : that the titles of all the laivs of Augustus, aud the names of the conquered nations, should be carried before the body, was the motion of Lucius Arruntius. Va lerius Messala was of opinion, that the oath of fidelity to Tiberius should be renewed every year ; and being thereupon interrogated by the prince, whether that motion was made with his privity ? I made it, said Messala, upon my own suggestion ; in matters of public concern, however it may give umbrage, the conviction of my own heart shall be the only rule of my conduct. The age had left no other mode of flattery. The senate with one voice insisted, that the body should be borne to the funeral pile upon their own shoulders.

Tiberius assented with seeming condescension, but real arrogance. The Field of Mars was the place appointed for the ceremony. A proclamation was issued, warning the populace to restrain their zeal, and not require that the last duties should be performed in the Forum, as had been done with tumult and disor der at the funeral of Julius Cæsar. On the day appointed for the ceremony, the soldiers were drawn up under arms ; a circumstance that served only to provoke the ridicule of all who remembered the day, or heard of it from their fathers, when Cæsar the dictator was put to death. In that early period of slavery, and in the first emotions of joy for liberty in vain recovered, the blow for freedom seemed a murder to some, and to others a glorious sacrifice. But in the present juncture, when a prince worn out with age, who had grown grey in power, and left a long train of heirs, was to receive the last funeral obsequies, at such a time to call forth the military, in order to secure a quiet Interment, was a vain parade, as ridiculous as it was unnecessary.

BOOK I. THE ANNALS IX.

Augustus now became the subject of public discussion. Frivolous circumstances engaged the attention of the greater num ber. They observed that the anniversary of his accession to the imperial dignity, was the day of his death. He died at Nola, in the same house, and in the same chamber, where Octavius his fa ther breathed his last. They called to mind, in wonder and amaze, the number of his sa) consulships, equal to those of Va lerius Corvinus and Carius Marius put together. The tribunitian power continued in his hands during a series of seven and thirty years ; he was saluted Imperator no less then one and twenty times ; and other titles of distinction were either invented or re vived, to adorn his name. Reflections of a different kind were made by thinking men. They rejudged the life of the emperor, and pronounced with freedom.

By his apologists it was argued, V that filial piety to his adopted father, the distraction of the times, and the ruin of the laws, made the part he took in the civil war an act of necessity ; and civil wars can neither be undertaken nor conducted on principles of honour and strict justice. To revenge the death of Julius Cæsar, was the primary motive. To obtain that end, he made concessions to Antony, and he temporized with Le pidus : but when the latter grew grey in sloth, and the former fell a victim to his voluptuous passions, the commonwealth, convulsed by party divisions, had no resource but the government of one. There was, however, no monarchy, no dictator : content with the unassuming title of Prince of the Senate, he established peace, and settled the constitution. The ocean and far distant rivers sb) marked his boundaries of the empire.

The legions, the provinces, and the fleets of Rome acted in concert, with all the strength of system. Justice was duly administered at home ; the allies were treated with moderation ; and magnificent structures rose to adorn the capital. Violent measures were rarely adopted, and never but for the good of the whole." X. To this it was answered, " Filial piety, and the distraction of the times, were nothing but a colour to varnish over the lust of dominion. It was the ambition of Augustus that gained the veterans by a profusion of largesses ; it was ambition that raised an army, when he was yet a young man, and in a private station. By bribery and corruption he seduced to himself the forces of the consuls. To the friends of Pompey's party he wore a mask, affecting republican principles : he deceived the senate ; and by an extorted decree possessed himself of the fasces, and the prætorian authority.

How long did the consuls Hirtius and Pansa sa) sur vive that event ? They were both cut off. Did they fall by the POOR. I. OF TACITUS. 41 hand of the enemy ? Who can be certain that Pansa did not die by poison infused into his wound, and Hirtius by the treachery of his own soldiers ? If that was their fate, is it clear that Augustus was not an actor in that scene of iniquity ? That he put himself at the head of both their armies, is a fact well known. Having extorted the consulship sb) from a reluctant senate, he threw off the mask, and turned against the commonwealth the arms which had been entrusted to him in the cause of liberty against Mark Antony sc). What shall be said of the fury of proscriptions? He seized the lands of Roman citizens sd), and divided them among his creatures. These were acts of violence, to this hour unjus tified even by those who advised the measure.

To atone for the. death of a father, Brutus and Cassius fell a sa crifice: so far, perhaps, may be allowed; but whether that deadly feud, when the good of the commonwealth required it, might not have been, to his immortal honour, appeased in silence, may still be made a question. Be it as it may, the younger Pompey was ruined by an insidious peace, and Lepidus was undone by treachery, Mark Antony relied upon the treaties of Tarentum se) and Brun dusium : he went further ; he married the sister of Augustus ; and, in consequence of that insidious alliance, lost his life. Peace, it is true, was soon after established : but what kind of peace? The slaughter of Lollius sf) and Varus stained it iu Germany ; and the massacre of the Varros sg), the Egnatii, and the Julii, piade Rome a theatre of blood."

From the public conduct of Augustus, a transition was made to his domestic character, " Livia was taken by force from Tibe rius Nero, her lawful husband ; she was then advanced in her pregnancy: whether in that condition she was under a legal disability to contract a second marriage, was indeed referred to the pontifical college ; but that very reference was a mockery, that turned all religion to a jest. His two favourites, Quintus Tedius (h) and Vedius Pollio, were distinguished by nothing but riot and de bauchery. To crown the whole, Livia ruled him with unbounded sway ; to the commonwealth a fatal empress, and to the Cæsarian family a pernicious step-mot'her. The honours due to the gods were no longer sacred : Augustus si) claimed equal worship. Temples-were built, and statues were erected, to him : a mortal man was adored, and priests and pontiffs were appointed to pay him impious homage.

In calling- Tiberius to the succession, he neither acted from motives of private affection, nor of regard for the public welfare. He knew the arrogance and innate cruelty of the man, aud from the contrast hoped to derive new lusture on VOL. I NO. 1. F

BOOK I

, 42 himself." That he knew the inward frame and cast of Tiberius, appears from a fact that happened a few years before. The business of granting to that prince a renewal of the tribunitian power, was depending in the senate. Augustus, in his speech upon that occasion, made honourable mention of him ; but, at the same time, threw out oblique reflections on his conduct, his deport ment, and his manners. With affected tenderness he seemed willing to palliate all defects; but the malice of the apology wounded the deeper. XI. The rites of sepulture being performed, a temple and religious worship were decreed to the memory of Augustus. The senate now turned their supplications to Tiberius. A direct answer could not be drawn from him. " He talked of the magnitude and the weight of empire ; he mistrusted his own abilities : the comprehensive mind of Augustus was, indeed, equal to the charge ; but for himself, called as he had been by that emperor to a share in the administration, he knew by experience, that, to direct the affairs of a great nation, was to be in a state of painful pre-eminence, exposed to danger, and subject to the vicissitudes of fortune.

In a city so well provided with men of illustrious character, was it advisable to confide the whole to a single ruler ? The several departments of public business would be better silled by a coalition of the best and ablest citizens." In this strain Tiberius delivered himself, with dignity of sentiment, it is true, but nothing from the heart. A profound master of dissimulation, he had from nature, or the force of habit, the art of being dark and unintelligible. Even upon occasions when duplicity was useless, he spoke in short and broken hints, the sense suspended, mysterious, and indecisive. Intending at present to conceal his sentiments sa), he was of course more involved than ever. The senators, dreading nothingso much as the crime of knowing his character, broke out in a strain of supplication ; they melted into tears ; they poured forth entreaties ; with uplifted hands they looked to the gods ; they turned to the statue of Augustus, and at times fell prostrate at the knees of Tiberius.

Thus surrounded he called for a state-paper, and ordered it to be read sb). It set forth an estimate of the empire and its resources, the number of citizens, the allies of Rome, an account of the naval strength, the names of the conquered kingdoms and provinces ; the subsidies, tributes, and the amount of the revenue, with the necessary dis bursements of government, and the demands for secret service. The whole was in the hand-writing of Augustus. It concluded with his advice, never to aim a.t an extension of empire :*n impor- BOOK \. OF TACITUS. 43 tant rule of policy : but was it the result of wisdom ? or did he view With a malignant eye the fame that might accrue to his successor? XII. The senate still continuing, with prostrate servility, to press their suit, Tiberius let fall an expression, intimating that, though unequal to the whole, he was willing to undertake any part that might be committed to his care.

Inform us, Cæsar, said Asinius Gallus sa), what part do you chuse ? Disconcerted by so unexpected a question, Tiberius paused for a moment ; but soon collecting himself, " To chuse," he said, " or to decline any any part, would ill become the man who wished to be dispensed with altogether." Gallus saw displeasure working in his counte nence. With quickness and presence of mind he made answer, " The question was not put with intent to divide what in its na ture is united and indivisible. I appealed to your own feelings. I wished to draw from you a confession, that the commonwealth, being one body politic, requires one mind to direct it." To this he added a panegyric on the character of Augustus; he expatiated on the victories obtained by Tiberius, and the civil employments which he had silled, with honour to himself, during a series of years.