How Clavdivs Tiberius Nero Emperour of Rome was poysoned by Caius Caligula, The yeare of Christ, 39.

What bootes it hawty hartes depend so muche

On high estate: auayles it ought thinke yee?

The gold is tryde when it is brought to tuche:

So tryall telles what worldly tryomphes bee.

When glory shines, no daungers deepe wee see,

Till wee at last finde true the prouerbe olde:

Not all that shynes is pure and perfect golde.

While valiaunt men so burne with hoat desire

Of royall rule, and thyrst so sore for seate,

No springes of Pernasse mount can quench the fire,

Nor Boreas blaste alay the hawty heate.

On high renowne so much theyr braynes they beate,

And toyle so much for fading flickering fame,

On earth for ay to leaue behinde a name.

But if they would marke Fortune’s double face,

And how shee turnes about the totering wheele:

How shee doth chaunge her minde and turne her grace,

How blinde of sight shee is, how light of heele:

They would not rew the fatall falles they feele,

They would not after blame her blindnesse so,

But looke before, and leape her lightnesse froe.

Euen all well neare doe proake for price and proy,[903]

And[904] prayse Dame Fortune first if they speede well:

But if thereby fall after some anoy,

They curse her then, as hatefull hagge of hell:

If Fortune firme had stoode, they had not fell.

They banne her then, and yet themselues were curst,

Which tooke her bayte so freely at the furst.

For while her idle impes doe bath in blisse,

They count her giftes and pleasures all good hap,

But if at last shee frowne (as custome is)

And let them slip agayne beside her lap,

They then confesse her baytes did boad some trap:

As I haue prou’d, what Fortune giues to men,

For pleasure eache, shee bringes displeasures ten.

Augustus great that good Octauius hight,

The Emprour which in peace did rule so long,

In whose good raigne was borne the Lord of light

Nam’d Iesus Christ, in powre and workes so strong,

Whom in my dayes the Iewes opprest with wrong,

Of which good Christ anone I haue to tell:

But of Augustus first, and after how I fell.[905]

This noble Emprour did my mother wed,

Which Liuia hight, a fayre and noble dame,

His daughter Iulia I likewise did bed,

And put away my wife of better fame,

Agrippa, great with child, the more my blame:

I was through this and th’ Emprisse Liuia’s skill,

Adopted Emprour by Augustus will.

When hee was dead, then I Tiberius raynde,

Adopted thus, and for my noble acts,

I was (perdy) to warre[906] and peace well traynde,

Th’Illyrians must confesse my famous facts,

In three yeares space my powre their pride subacts:

On them and Germaynes triompht neare and farre,

Saue Punike fight the greatest Romayne warre.

Now (for it was my hap a victoure soe

To Rome returne a yeare before his end)

Throughout the world the fame of mee did goe,

The Romaynes all to fauour mee did bend.

To them Augustus did my warres commend,

Adopted mee, and (as I sayd) for this,

The Romaynes bold and hee enbraued mee with blisse.[907]

10.

So when I had obtayned my desire,

Who then but Cæsar I did rule alone,

By nature proude presuming to aspire,

Desembling that which afterwarde was knowne:

For when the fathers minde to me was showne,

Of their electing mine Emperiall place,

I seemde to stay, refusing it a space.

11.

And thus to proue my friendes before I did,

And eke to heare what euery one would say,

Which was the cause why some I after rid,

The best perdy[908] I made as foes away,

By slaughter so I thought my throne to stay,

But farre besides that I purposde it fell,[909]

As time doth trye the fruite of thinges full well.

12.

Another griefe conceau’d I will recyte,

Which made me with the Senate discontent:

From Iudæa did[910] Pontius Pilate write

His letters how the Iewes, to malice bent,

Had put to death one Christ full innocent,

The sonne of God, of might, of power no lesse,

Which rose from death, as Christians all confesse.

Thus wise he wrote:

Pontius Pilate to his Lorde Claudius wisheth health.

This letter is in Flores historiarum, but you may not thinke that I doe set it downe thereby to affirme that he wrate it. For I am perswaded he would not write so well, and yet it appears by Orosius and others that Claudius would haue made Christ to haue bene taken in Rome for a God, and that the Senate and he fell so at variance about the same matter.

Of late it chaunst, which I haue proued well,

The Iewes through wrath by cruell doome haue lost

Themselues, and all their offspring that ensue.

For when their fathers promise had that God

Would send to them from heauen his holy one,

That might deseruingly be namde their King,

And [promist] by a virgine him to th’earth to sende,

The same (I pronoste here) when th’Hebrewes[911] God was come,

And they him saw restore the blind to sight,

To cleanse the leapers, cure the palsies eke,

To cast diuelles[912] out of men, and rayse the dead,

Commaund the windes, on sea with dry feete walke,

And many maruayles great beside to doe,

When all the Iewish people called[913] him the sonne of God,

The Chiefe Priestes enuying him deliuered him to mee,[914]

And bringing many forged fained faultes

Namde him a wisarde, and against[915] their lawes to doe:

And I beleeud it so to be, and whipt him[916] for the cause,

[Deliuering him to them to vse as they thought best.]

They crucifide him, buried him, [set keepers at] his tombe,

Yet he, while as my souldiers kept his graue,[917]

The third day rose againe, and came to life.

But so their hatreds bent, they[918] bribde the souldiers all,

And bad them say, that his disciples stale his corps away.[919]

The souldiers yet, when they the money [taken] had,

Could not the trueth keepe silent of the facte:

For both they witnessed that he was risen againe,

And of the Iewes, that [they so taken money had.

I therefore here so write to you, lest any othervvise

Some lye do bring, or thinke vve should beleeue of Iewes the lyes.[920]]

13.

These letters read, I did thereon conferre,

Both with the fathers graue in high degree,

And with the nobles of [the] Senate were,

That Christ in Rome as God might counted bee,

To which they onely did not disagree,

(Because the letters came not first to them)

But by edicte [from Rome] did banish[921] Christen men.

14.

To th’ accusers of them threaten[922] death I did,

Although Seianus from my party fell

The Senate which the Christians sought to rid,

By me were after seru’d in order well:

For as Christ’s Godhead they would Rome expell,

And would not serue the God of meekenesse sent,

To pot apace their hawty heads were pent.

15.

I banisht some, and some to death I put,

And foure and twenty fathers graue I chose,

From shoulders eke most of their heades I cut,

And left likewise aliue but twaine of those:

Seianus I did slay, of Drusus deadly foes:

I Germanique adopted late, with poyson slewe,[923]

His sonnes likewise my poysons force well knewe.

16.

The men that did Iehouae’s sonne refuse,

The King of Iewes, the Lorde of life and health,

Were gouern’de thus: Tiberius thus did vse

The men that were the Gods in common wealth,

Forsaking so their heauenly sauing health:

The Emprour I, which shoulde their liues defende,

Sought all the meanes to bring their liues to ende.

17.

Yet to religion I was nothing bent,

Dissembled things that least I fauour’d still,

I neuer vsde to speake the thinges I meant,

But bare in minde the wayes to worke men ill:

I seem’de to some to beare them great good will,

And those I tooke away as time did serue,

Inconstant vnto each yet seeming seeld to swerue.

18.

To dronkennesse and ryote, sports and ease,

And pleasure all I gaue my studie then,

Nought more then subtile shiftings did me please,

With bloudshed, craftie, vndermining men:

My Courte was like a Lyon’s lurking den,

The Iesters namde mee Caldius Biberius Mero,

In stead of this my name, Claudius Tiberius Nero.

19.

I will no more my life describe this time,

For why, my factes at last deserude defame,

Infected with so many a fulsome crime,

As may not here repeated be for shame:

I haue no cause the Lady blinde to blame,

But blame my selfe I must, abusing place,[924]

Which might full well haue vsde the giftes of grace.

20.

Three things in fine I tell that wrought my fall,

First vile dissembling both with God and man,

For bloudshed then, which hauocke made of all,

Bloud cryes to him that well reuenge it can,

For filthie life I much offended than,

Wherefore aliue thus poysoned with these three,

Caligula did find the fourth to bane vp mee.[925]

21.

To Princes this I say, and worthie Peeres,

I wish them wisely wey that heare me shall,

And poyse my first exploytes with later yeeres,

And well consider one thing in my fall,

Abuse of power abaseth Princes all:

In throne on earth, [as Ioue, the Prince he sits,

As Ioue to iudge aright, he plyes his wits.

If not, then Ioue whose Justice he omits,

With thunderbolt from sacred seate him hits.][926]