[-17-] Such was the state of affairs at this time, and there was not a soul that could deny that he would be glad to feast on the emperor's flesh. Now the next year, when Gnæus Domitius and Camillus Scribonianus became consuls, a very laughable thing happened. It had now long been the custom for the members of the senate on the first of the year to take the oath not man by man, but for one (as I have stated)[10] to take the oath for them and the rest to express their acquiescence. This time, however, they did not do so, but of their own motion, without any compulsion, they were separately and individually pledged, as though this would make them any more regardful of their oath. Previously for many years the emperor had allowed matters to go on without a single person's swearing allegiance to his acts of government: this I have mentioned. [11]—At this time also there occurred something else still more laughable.
[-18-] They voted that he should select as many of their number as he liked and should employ twenty of them,—whomsoever the lot should designate,—as guards with daggers as often as he entered the senate-chamber. Of course, as the exterior of the building was watched by the soldiers and no private citizen could come inside, their resolution that a guard be given him amounted to a precaution against no one but themselves, thus indicating that they were hostile. Naturally Tiberius expressed his obligations to them and thanked them for their good intentions, but he rejected their offer as being too much out of the ordinary. He was not so simple as to give swords to the very men whom he hated and by whom he was hated. Yet, as a result of this very measure he began to grow suspicious of them,—for every act in contravention of sincerity which one undertakes for the purpose of flattery breeds suspicion,—and bidding a long adieu to their decrees he began to honor the Pretorians both by addresses and with money, in spite of his knowledge that they had been on the side of Sejanus, so that he might find them more disposed to be employed against the senators. On occasion, to be sure, he in turn commended the latter, when they voted that funds from the public treasury be bestowed on the guardsmen. He kept alternately deceiving the one party by his talk and winning over the other party by his acts in a most effective way. For instance, Junius Gallic had moved that a spectacle be provided in the meeting place of the knights for those of the body-guard who had finished their term of service: Tiberius did not merely banish him when the man was brought up on this very charge of giving an impression that he was persuading the soldiers to show good-will to the government rather than to the emperor; no, but when he found that Junius was setting sail for Lesbos he deprived him of a safe and comfortable existence there and delivered him to the custody of the magistrates, as he had once done with Gallus. And in order to assure the two classes still more fully how he felt toward both of them he not long after asked the senate that Macro and some military tribunes be deemed sufficient to conduct him to the senate-chamber. He had no need of those persons, for he had no idea of ever entering the city again, but what he wanted was to display his hatred of the senators and show the latter the friendliness of the soldiers. The senators actually granted this request. However, they attached to the decree a clause that the escort should be searched on entering to make sure that no one had a dagger hidden beneath his arm.—This resolution was passed in the following year.
[-19-] At this time he spared among some others who had been intimate with Sejanus Lucius Cæsianus,[12] a prætor, and Marcus Terentius, a knight. He overlooked the behavior of the former, who at the Floralia to ridicule Tiberius had had everything up to midnight done by baldheaded men (because the emperor himself was also baldheaded) and had furnished light to those leaving the theatre by the hands of five thousand boys with shaven pates. Tiberius was so far from becoming angry at him that he pretended not to have heard about it at all, though all baldheaded persons were from then on called Caesiani, after this man. Terentius he spared because when on trial for his friendship with Sejanus he not only did not deny it but affirmed that he had worked for him and paid court to him to the greatest possible extent for the reason that the minister was so highly honored by Tiberius himself. "Consequently," he said, "if the emperor did rightly in having such a friend, neither have I done any wrong: and if my sovereign, who knows all things accurately, erred, what wonder is it that I shared his deception? Our duty is to cherish all whom he honors without concerning ourselves overmuch about the kind of men they are, but making one thing determine our friendship for them,—the fact that they please the emperor." The senate for these reasons acquitted him and in addition rebuked his accusers. Tiberius concurred with them. When Piso, the praefectus urbi, died, he honored him with a public funeral,—a distinction granted also to others. In his place he chose Lucius Lamia, whom he had long ago put in charge of Syria[13] and was keeping at Rome. He took similar action, too, in the case of many others, really caring nothing at all for them, but making an outward show of honoring them.—Meantime Vitrasius Pollio, governor of Egypt died, and he entrusted the province for a time to one Hiberus, a Cæsarian.
[A.D. 33 (a. u. 786)]
[-20-] Now of the consuls Domitius held office the whole year through,—for he was husband of Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus,—but the rest adapted themselves to the whims of Tiberius. Some he elevated for a longer time and some for a shorter: some he stopped before the end of their appointed term and others he allowed to hold office beyond the limits designated. Not infrequently he would appoint a man for an entire year and then depose him, setting up another and still another in his place. Sometimes, after choosing certain substitutes for third place, he would then have others become consuls before them in the place of still others. These irregularities in the case of the consuls occurred through practically his entire reign. Of the candidates for the other offices he selected as many as he wished and sent their names to the senate, recommending some to that body,—and these were chosen, by acclamation,—but making others depend upon their own claims or the assent of the senate or the decision of the lot. After that, in order to follow out ancient precedent, such as belonged to the people and the plebs went before one of these two bodies and were announced: this is the same practice that is followed at present, intended to produce at least an appearance of valid election. In case there was ever a deficiency of candidates or they became involved in irreconcilable strife, a smaller number was chosen.—The following year, in which Servius Galba (that later became emperor) and Lucius Cornelius held the consular title, fifteen prætors held office. This went on for many years, so that sometimes sixteen and sometimes one or two less were chosen.
[-21-] The next move of Tiberius was to approach the capital and sojourn in its environs; he did not, however, go within the walls, although he was but thirty stades distant, so that he bestowed in marriage the remaining daughters of Germanicus and also Julia, the daughter of Drusus. Hence the city did not make a festival of their marriages, but everything went on as usual: the senators met and decided judicial cases. For Tiberius made an important point of their assembling as often as he would have convened them, and insisted on their not arriving later or departing earlier than the time fixed. He sent to the consuls many injunctions on this head and once ordered certain statements to be read aloud by them. He behaved in the same way in regard to certain other matters (just as if he could not write directly to the senate!). To that body he sent in not only the documents given him by the informers but also the confessions under torture which Macro obtained, so that nothing was left in the hands of the senators save the vote of condemnation. About this time, however, a certain Vibullius Agrippa, a knight, swallowed poison from a ring and died in the senate-house itself, and Nerva, who could no longer endure the emperor's society, starved himself to death, his chief reason for doing so being that Tiberius had reaffirmed the laws on contracts, enacted by Cæsar, which were sure to result in great loss of confidence and upheaval; and although his chief repeatedly urged him to utter some word,[14] he refused to answer. These events seemed to make some impression on the emperor and he modified the situation, so far as it pertained to loans, by giving two thousand five hundred myriads to the public treasury under the arrangement that this money could be lent out by the senatorial party without interest for three years to such as desired it. He further commanded that the most notorious of those who had steadily acted as accusers should be put to death on one day. And when a man who belonged to the centurions wished to lodge information against some one, he forbade that any person who had served in the army should do so, although he allowed the privilege to knights and senators.
[-22-] There is no denying that he received praise for his behavior in these matters, and most of all because he would not accept a number of honors that were voted to him for it. But the sensual orgies which he carried on shamelessly with the individuals of highest rank, male and female alike, caused ill to be spoken of him. For example, there was the case of his friend Sextus Marius. Imperial favor had made this man so rich and so powerful that when he was once at odds with a neighbor he invited him to dine for two successive days. On the first he razed his guest's dwelling entirely to the ground and on the next he rebuilt it on a larger scale and in more elaborate style. The victim of his treatment declared his ignorance of the perpetrators, whereupon Marius admitted being responsible for both occurrences and added significantly: "This shows you that I have both the knowledge and the power to repel attacks and also to requite a kindness." This friend, then, who had sent his daughter, a strikingly beautiful girl, to a place of refuge to prevent her being outraged by Tiberius, was charged with having criminal relations with her and for that reason destroyed both his daughter and himself. All this covered the emperor with disgrace, and his connection with the death of Drusus and Agrippina gave him a reputation for cruelty. Men had been thinking all along that the whole of the previous action against these two was due to Sejanus, and had been hoping that now their lives would be spared; so, when they learned that they had been actually murdered, they were exceedingly grieved, partly for the reasons mentioned and partly because, so far from depositing their bones in the imperial tomb, Tiberius ordered their remains to be hidden so carefully in the earth that they might never be found. In addition to Agrippina, Munatia Plancina was slain. Previous to this time, though he hated her (not on account of Germanicus but for another reason), he yet allowed her to live to prevent Agrippina from rejoicing at her death.
[-23-] Besides doing this he appointed Gaius quaestor, though not of first rank, promising him, however, that he would advance him to the other office five years earlier than was customary. At the same time he requested the senate not to make the young man conceited by numerous or extraordinary honors, for fear the latter might go astray in one way or another. He had, indeed, a descendant in the person of Tiberius, but him he disregarded both on account of age (he was a mere child as yet) and on account of the prevailing suspicion that this boy was not the son of Drusus. He therefore clove to Gaius as the most eligible candidate for sole ruler, especially as he felt sure that Tiberius would live but a short time and would be murdered by that very man. There was no detail of the character of Gaius of which he was in ignorance; indeed, he once remarked to his successor, who was quarreling with Tiberius: "You will kill him, and others will kill you." The emperor knew of no one else that suited him so entirely, and at the same time he was well aware that the man would be a thorough knave; yet the story obtains that he was glad to give him the empire in order that his own crimes might find concealment in the enormity of Gaius's offences and that the largest and the noblest portion of what was left of the senate might perish after him. At all events he is said to have often uttered the ancient saying:
"When I am dead, let fire o'erwhelm the earth."[15]
Often, also, he declared Priam fortunate, because that king involved his country and his throne in his own utter ruin. These records about him are given a semblance of reality by what took place in those days. Such a multitude of the senators and of others lost their lives that out of the officials chosen by lot the ex-prætors held the governorship of the provinces for three years and the ex-consuls for six, owing to the lack of persons to succeed them. And what name could one properly give to the elected magistrates, whom from the first he allowed to hold office for an unusually long time?