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Wednesday, July 28, 2010 - 1:55 PM
The same punishment was adjudged to Catus Firmius, a Senator, for
having (it was alleged) assailed his sister with a
false charge of treason.
Catus, as I have related, had drawn Libo into a snare
and then destroyed
him by an information. Tiberius remembering this
service, while he alleged
other reasons, deprecated a sentence of exile, but did
not oppose his expulsion
from the Senate.
Much what I have related and shall have to
relate, may perhaps,
I am aware, seem petty trifles to record. But no one
must compare my annals
with the writings of those who have described Rome in
old days. They told
of great wars, of the storming of cities, of the
defeat and capture of
kings, or whenever they turned by preference to home
affairs, they related,
with a free scope for digression, the strifes of
consuls with tribunes,
land and corn-laws, and the struggles between the
commons and the aristocracy.
My labours are circumscribed and inglorious; peace
wholly unbroken or but
slightly disturbed, dismal misery in the capital, an
emperor careless about
the enlargement of the empire, such is my theme. Still
it will not be useless
to study those at first sight trifling events out of
which the movements
of vast changes often take their rise.
All nations and cities are ruled by the
people, the nobility, or
by one man. A constitution, formed by selection out of
these elements,
it is easy to commend but not to produce; or, if it is
produced, it cannot
be lasting. Formerly, when the people had power or
when the patricians
were in the ascendant, the popular temper and the
methods of controlling
it, had to be studied, and those who knew most
accurately the spirit of
the Senate and aristocracy, had the credit of
understanding the age and
of being wise men. So now, after a revolution, when
Rome is nothing but
the realm of a single despot, there must be good in
carefully noting and
recording this period, for it is but few who have the
foresight to distinguish
right from wrong or what is sound from what is
hurtful, while most men
learn wisdom from the fortunes of others. Still,
though this is instructive,
it gives very little pleasure. Descriptions of
countries, the various incidents
of battles, glorious deaths of great generals, enchain
and refresh a reader's
mind. I have to present in succession the merciless
biddings of a tyrant,
incessant prosecutions, faithless friendships, the
ruin of innocence, the
same causes issuing in the same results, and I am
everywhere confronted
by a wearisome monotony in my subject matter. Then,
again, an ancient historian
has but few disparagers, and no one cares whether you
praise more heartily
the armies of Carthage or Rome. But of many who
endured punishment or disgrace
under Tiberius, the descendants yet survive; or even
though the families
themselves may be now extinct, you will find those
who, from a resemblance
of character, imagine that the evil deeds of others
are a reproach to themselves.
Again, even honour and virtue make enemies,
condemning, as they do, their
opposites by too close a contrast. But I return to my
work.
In the year of the consulship of Cornelius
Cossus and Asinius Agrippa,
Cremutius Cordus was arraigned on a new charge, now
for the first time
heard. He had published a history in which he had
praised Marcus Brutus
and called Caius Cassius the last of the Romans. His
accusers were Satrius
Secundus and Pinarius Natta, creatures of Sejanus.
This was enough to ruin
the accused; and then too the emperor listened with an
angry frown to his
defence, which Cremutius, resolved to give up his
life, began
thus:-
"It is my words, Senators, which are
condemned, so innocent am
I of any guilty act; yet these do not touch the
emperor or the emperor's
mother, who are alone comprehended under the law of
treason. I am said
to have praised Brutus and Cassius, whose careers many
have described and
no one mentioned without eulogy. Titus Livius,
pre-eminently famous for
eloquence and truthfulness, extolled Cneius Pompeius
in such a panegyric
that Augustus called him Pompeianus, and yet this was
no obstacle to their
friendship. Scipio, Afranius, this very Cassius, this
same Brutus, he nowhere
describes as brigands and traitors, terms now applied
to them, but repeatedly
as illustrious men. Asinius Pollio's writings too hand
down a glorious
memory of them, and Messala Corvinus used to speak
with pride of Cassius
as his general. Yet both these men prospered to the
end with wealth and
preferment. Again, that book of Marcus Cicero, in
which he lauded Cato
to the skies, how else was it answered by Caesar the
dictator, than by
a written oration in reply, as if he was pleading in
court? The letters
Antonius, the harangues of Brutus contain reproaches
against Augustus,
false indeed, but urged with powerful sarcasm; the
poems which we read
of Bibaculus and Catullus are crammed with invectives
on the Caesars. Yet
the Divine Julius, the Divine Augustus themselves bore
all this and let
it pass, whether in forbearance or in wisdom I cannot
easily say. Assuredly
what is despised is soon forgotten; when you resent a
thing, you seem to
recognise it."
"Of the Greeks I say nothing; with them not
only liberty, but even
license went unpunished, or if a person aimed at
chastising, he retaliated
on satire by satire. It has, however, always been
perfectly open to us
without any one to censure, to speak freely of those
whom death has withdrawn
alike from the partialities of hatred or esteem. Are
Cassius and Brutus
now in arms on the fields of Philippi, and am I with
them rousing the people
by harangues to stir up civil war? Did they not fall
more than seventy
years ago, and as they are known to us by statues
which even the conqueror
did not destroy, so too is not some portion of their
memory preserved for
us by historians? To every man posterity gives his due
honour, and, if
a fatal sentence hangs over me, there will be those
who will remember me
as well as Cassius and Brutus."
He then left the Senate and ended his life by
starvation. His books,
so the Senators decreed, were to be burnt by the
aediles; but some copies
were left which were concealed and afterwards
published. And so one is
all the more inclined to laugh at the stupidity of men
who suppose that
the despotism of the present can actually efface the
remembrances of the
next generation. On the contrary, the persecution of
genius fosters its
influence; foreign tyrants, and all who have imitated
their oppression,
have merely procured infamy for themselves and glory
for their
victims.
That year was such a continuous succession of
prosecutions that
on the days of the Latin festival when Drusus, as
city-prefect, had ascended
his tribunal for the inauguration of his office,
Calpurnius Salvianus appeared
before him against Sextus Marius. This the emperor
openly censured, and
it caused the banishment of Salvianus. Next, the
people of Cyzicus were
accused of publicly neglecting the established worship
of the Divine Augustus,
and also of acts of violence to Roman citizens. They
were deprived of the
franchise which they had earned during the war with
Mithridates, when their
city was besieged, and when they repulsed the king as
much by their own
bravery as by the aid of Lucullus. Then followed the
acquittal of Fonteius
Capito, the late proconsul of Asia, on proof that
charges brought against
him by Vibius Serenus were fictitious. Still this did
not injure Serenus,
to whom public hatred was actually a protection.
Indeed any conspicuously
restless informer was, so to say, inviolable; only the
insignificant and
undistinguished were punished.
About the same time Further Spain sent a
deputation to the Senate,
with a request to be allowed, after the example of
Asia, to erect a temple
to Tiberius and his mother. On this occasion, the
emperor, who had generally
a strong contempt for honours, and now thought it
right to reply to the
rumour which reproached him with having yielded to
vanity, delivered the
following speech:-
"I am aware, Senators, that many deplore my
want of firmness in
not having opposed a similar recent petition from the
cities of Asia. I
will therefore both explain the grounds of my previous
silence and my intentions
for the future. Inasmuch as the Divine Augustus did
not forbid the founding
of a temple at Pergamos to himself and to the city of
Rome, I who respect
as law all his actions and sayings, have the more
readily followed a precedent
once approved, seeing that with the worship of myself
was linked an expression
of reverence towards the Senate. But though it may be
pardonable to have
allowed this once, it would be a vain and arrogant
thing to receive the
sacred honour of images representing the divine
throughout all the provinces,
and the homage paid to Augustus will disappear if it
is vulgarised by indiscriminate
flattery.
"For myself, Senators, I am mortal and limited
to the functions
of humanity, content if I can adequately fill the
highest place; of this
I solemnly assure you, and would have posterity
remember it. They will
more than sufficiently honour my memory by believing
me to have been worthy
of my ancestry, watchful over your interests,
courageous in danger, fearless
of enmity, when the State required it. These
sentiments of your hearts
are my temples, these my most glorious and abiding
monuments. Those built
of stone are despised as mere tombs, if the judgment
of posterity passes
into hatred. And therefore this is my prayer to our
allies, our citizens,
and to heaven itself; to the last, that, to my life's
close, it grant me
a tranquil mind, which can discern alike human and
divine claims; to the
first, that, when I die, they honour my career and the
reputation of my
name with praise and kindly remembrance."
Henceforth Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire even in private
conversations persisted in
showing contempt for such homage to himself. Some
attributed this to modesty;
many to self-distrust; a few to a mean spirit. "The
noblest men," it was
said, "have the loftiest aspirations, and so Hercules
and Bacchus among
the Greeks and Quirinus among us were enrolled in the
number of the gods.
Augustus, did better, seeing that he had aspired. All
other things princes
have as a matter of course; one thing they ought
insatiably to pursue,
that their memory may be glorious. For to despise fame
is to despise
merit."
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