The procrastination which happened this year in the public affairs, I should not mention, but that the different opinions of Cneius Piso and Asinius Gallus about it, are worth knowing. Their dispute was occasioned by a declaration of Tiberius; "that he was about to be absent," and it was the motion of Piso, "that for that very reason, the prosecution of public business was the rather to be continued; since, as in the Prince's absence, the Senate and equestrian order might administer their several parts, the same would redound to the honour of the Commonwealth." This was a declaration for liberty, and in it Piso had prevented Gallus, who now in opposition said, "that nothing sufficiently illustrious, nor suiting the dignity of the Roman People, could be transacted but under the immediate eye of the Emperor, and therefore the conflux of suitors and affairs from Italy and the provinces must by all means be reserved for his presence." Tiberius heard and was silent, while the debate was managed on both sides with mighty vehemence; but the adjournment was carried.
A debate too arose between Gallus and the Emperor: for Gallus moved "that the magistrates should be henceforth elected but once every five years; that the legates of the legions, who had never exercised the Praetorships, should be appointed Praetors; and that the Prince should nominate twelve candidates every year." It was not doubted but this motion had a deeper aim, and that by it the secret springs and reserves of imperial power were invaded. But Tiberius, as if he rather apprehended the augmentation of his power, argued "that it was a heavy task upon his moderation, to choose so many magistrates, and to postpone so many candidates. That disgusts from disappointments were hardly avoided in yearly elections; though, for their solacement, fresh hopes remained of approaching success in the next; now how great must be the hatred, how lasting the resentment of such whose pretensions were to be rejected beyond five years? and whence could it be foreseen that, in so long a tract of time, the same men would continue to have the same dispositions, the same alliances and fortunes? even an annual designation to power made men imperious; how imperious would it make them, if they bore the honour for five years! besides, it would multiply every single magistrate into five, and utterly subvert the laws which had prescribed a proper space for exercising the diligence of the candidates, and for soliciting as well as enjoying preferments."
By this speech, in appearance popular, he still retained the spirit and force of the sovereignty. He likewise sustained by gratuities, the dignity of some necessitous Senators: hence it was the more wondered, that he received with haughtiness and repulse the petition of Marcus Hortalus, a young man of signal quality and manifestly poor. He was the grandson of Hortensius the Orator; and had been encouraged by the deified Augustus, with a bounty of a thousand great sestertia, {Footnote: £8333.} to marry for posterity; purely to prevent the extinction of a family most illustrious and renowned. The Senate were sitting in the palace, and Hortalus having set his four children before the door, fixed his eyes, now upon the statue of Hortensius, placed amongst the orators; then upon that of Augustus; and instead of speaking to the question, began on this wise: "Conscript Fathers, you see there the number and infancy of my children; not mine by my own choice, but in compliance with the advice of the Prince: such too was the splendour of my ancestors, that it merited to be perpetuated in their race; but for my own particular, who, marred by the revolution of the times, could not raise wealth, nor engage popular favour, nor cultivate the hereditary fortune of our house, the fortune of Eloquence: I deemed it sufficient if, in my slender circumstances, I lived no disgrace to myself, no burden to others. Commanded by the Emperor, I took a wife; behold the offspring of so many Consuls; behold the descendants of so many Dictators! nor is this remembrance invidiously made, but made to move mercy. In the progress of your reign, Caesar, these children may arrive at the honours in your gift; defend them in the meantime from want: they are the great-grandsons of Hortensius; they are the foster sons of Augustus."
The inclination of the Senate was favourable; an incitement this to Tiberius the more eagerly to thwart Hortalus. These were in effect his words: "If all that are poor recur hither for a provision of money to their children, the public will certainly fail, and yet particulars never be satiated. Our ancestors, when they permitted a departure from the question, to propose somewhat more important to the State, did not therefore permit it, that we might here transact domestic matters, and augment our private rents: an employment invidious both in the Senate and the Prince; since, whether they grant or deny the petitioned bounties, either the people or the petitioners will ever be offended. But these, in truth, are not petitions; they are demands made against order, and made by surprise: while you are assembled upon other affairs, he stands up and urges your pity, by the number and infancy of his children; with the same violence, he charges the attack to me, and as it were bursts open the exchequer; but if by popular bounties we exhaust it, by rapine and oppression we must supply it. The deified Augustus gave you money, Hortalus; but without solicitation he gave it, and on no condition that it should always be given: otherwise diligence will languish; sloth will prevail; and men having no hopes in resources of their own, no anxiety for themselves, but all securely relying on foreign relief, will become private sluggards and public burdens." These and the like reasonings of Tiberius were differently received; with approbation by those whose way it is to extol, without distinction, all the doings of Princes, worthy and unworthy; by most, however, with silence, or low and discontented murmurs. Tiberius perceived it, and having paused a little, said "his answer was particularly to Hortalus; but if the Senate thought fit, he would give his sons two hundred great sestertia each." {Footnote: £1666.} For this all the Senators presented their thanks; only Hortalus said nothing; perhaps through present awe, or perhaps possessed, even in poverty, with the grandeur of his ancient nobility. Nor did Tiberius ever show further pity, though the house of Hortensius was fallen into shameful distress.
At the end of the year, a triumphal arch was raised near the Temple of Saturn; a monument this for the recovery of the Varian Eagles, under the conduct of Germanicus, under the auspices of Tiberius. A temple was dedicated to Happy Fortune near the Tiber, in the gardens bequeathed to the Roman People by Caesar, the Dictator. A chapel was consecrated to the Julian family, and statues to the deified Augustus, in the suburbs called Bovillae. In the consulship of Caius Celius and Lucius Pomponius, the six-and-twentieth of May, Germanicus Caesar triumphed over the Cheruscans, the Cattans, the Angrivarians, and the other nations as far as the Elbe. In the triumph were carried all the spoils and captives, with the representations of mountains, of rivers, and of battles; so that his conquests, because he was restrained from completing them, were taken for complete. His own graceful person, and his chariot filled with his five children, heightened the show and the delight of the beholders; yet they were checked with secret fears, as they remembered "that popular favour had proved malignant to his father Drusus; that his uncle Marcellus was snatched, in his youth, from the burning affections of the populace; and that ever short-lived and unfortunate were the favourites of the Roman People."
Tiberius distributed to the people, in the name of Germanicus, three hundred sesterces a man, {Footnote: £2, 10s.} and named himself his colleague in the Consulship. Nor even thus did he gain the opinion of tenderness and sincerity: in effect, on pretence of investing the young Prince with fresh preferment and honours, he resolved to alienate him from Rome; and, to accomplish it, craftily framed an occasion, or snatched such an one as chance presented. Archelaus had enjoyed the kingdom of Cappadocia now fifty years; a Prince under the deep displeasure of Tiberius, because, in his retirement at Rhodes, the King had paid him no sort of court or distinction: an omission this which proceeded from no disdain, but from the warnings given him by the confidents of Augustus; for that the young Caius Caesar, the presumptive heir to the sovereignty, then lived, and was sent to compose and administer the affairs of the East; hence the friendship of Tiberius was reckoned then dangerous. But when, by the utter fall of the family of the Caesars, he had gained the Empire, he enticed Archelaus to Rome, by means of letters from his mother, who, without dissembling her son's resentment, offered the King his mercy, provided he came and in person implored it. He, who was either ignorant of the snare, or dreaded violence if he appeared to perceive it, hastened to the city, where he was received by Tiberius with great sternness and wrath, and soon after accused as a criminal in the Senate. The crimes alleged against him were mere fictions; yet, as equal treatment is unusual to kings, and to be treated like malefactors intolerable; Archelaus, who was broken with grief as well as age, by choice or fate ended his life; his kingdom was reduced into a province, and by its revenues Tiberius declared the tax of a hundredth penny would be abated, and reduced it for the future to the two hundredth. At the same time died Antiochus, king of Comagena, as also Philopator, king of Cilicia; and great combustions shook these nations; whilst of the people many desired Roman government, and many were addicted to domestic monarchy. The provinces, too, of Syria and Judea, as they were oppressed with impositions, prayed an abatement of tribute.
These affairs, and such as I have above related concerning Armenia, Tiberius represented to the Fathers, and "that the commotions of the East could only be settled by the wisdom and abilities of Germanicus; for himself, his age now declined, and that of Drusus was not yet sufficiently ripe." The provinces beyond the sea were thence decreed to Germanicus, with authority superior to all those who obtained provinces by lot, or the nomination of the Prince; but Tiberius had already taken care to remove from the government of Syria Creticus Silanus, one united to Germanicus in domestic alliance, by having to Nero, the eldest son of Germanicus, betrothed his daughter. In his room he had preferred Cneius Piso, a man of violent temper, incapable of subjection, and heir to all the ferocity and haughtiness of his father Piso; the same who, in the civil war, assisted the reviving party against Caesar in Africa with vehement efforts; and then followed Brutus and Cassius, but had at last leave to come home, yet disdained to sue for any public offices; nay, was even courted by Augustus to accept the Consulship. His son, besides his hereditary pride and impetuosity, was elevated with the nobility and wealth of Plancina his wife; scarce yielded he to Tiberius, and, as men far beneath him, despised the sons of Tiberius; neither did he doubt but he was set over Syria on purpose to thwart the measures and defeat all the views of Germanicus. Some even believed that he had to this purpose secret orders from Tiberius, as it was certain that Livia directed Plancina to exert the spirit of the sex, and by constant emulation and indignities persecute Agrippina. For the whole court was rent, and their affections secretly divided between Drusus and Germanicus. Tiberius was partial to Drusus, as his own son by generation; others loved Germanicus; the more for the aversion of his uncle, and for being by his mother of more illustrious descent; as Marc Anthony was his grandfather, and Augustus his great-uncle. On the other side, Pomponius Atticus, a Roman knight, by being the great-grandfather of Drusus, seemed thence to have derived a stain upon the images of the Claudian house; besides, Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus, did in the fruitfulness of her body and the reputation of her virtue far excel Livia, the wife of Drusus. Yet the two brothers lived in amiable dearness and concord, no wise shaken or estranged by the reigning contention amongst their separate friends and adherents.
Drusus was soon after sent into Illyricum in order to inure him to war, and gain him the affections of the army; besides, Tiberius thought that the youth, who loved wantoning in the luxuries of Rome, would be reformed in the camp, and that his own security would be enlarged when both his sons were at the head of the legions. But the pretence of sending him was the protection of the Suevians, who were then imploring assistance against the powers of the Cheruscans. For these nations, who since the departure of the Romans saw themselves no longer threatened with terrors from abroad, and were then particularly engaged in a national competition for glory, had relapsed, as usual, into their old intestine feuds, and turned their arms upon each other. The two people were equally powerful, and their two leaders equally brave; but differently esteemed, as the title of king upon Maroboduus had drawn the hate and aversion of his countrymen; whilst Arminius, as a champion warring for the defence of liberty, was the universal object of popular affection.
Hence not only the Cheruscans and their confederates, they who had been the ancient soldiery of Arminius, took arms; but to him too revolted the Semnones and Langobards, both Suevian nations, and even subjects of Maroboduus; and by their accession he would have exceeded in puissance, but Inguiomerus with his band of followers deserted to Maroboduus; for no other cause than disdain, that an old man and an uncle like himself should obey Arminius, a young man, his nephew. Both armies were drawn out, with equal hopes; nor disjointed, like the old German battles, into scattered parties for loose and random attacks; for by long war with us they had learnt to follow their ensigns, to strengthen their main body with parties of reserves, and to observe the orders of their generals. Arminius was now on horseback viewing all the ranks: as he rode through them he magnified their past feats; "their liberty recovered; the slaughtered legions; the spoils of arms wrested from the Romans; monuments of victory still retained in some of their hands." Upon Maroboduus he fell with contumelious names, as "a fugitive, one of no abilities in war; a coward who had sought defence from the gloomy coverts of the Hercynian woods, and then by gifts and solicitations courted the alliance of Rome; a betrayer of his country, and a lifeguard-man of Caesar's, worthy to be exterminated with no less hostile vengeance than in the slaughter of Quinctilius Varus they had shown. Let them only remember so many battles bravely fought; the events of which, particularly the utter expulsion of the Romans, were sufficient proofs with whom remained the glory of the war."
Neither did Maroboduus fail to boast himself and depreciate the foe. "In the person of Inguiomerus," he said (holding him by the hand), "rested the whole renown of the Cheruscans; and from his counsels began all their exploits that ended in success. Arminius, a man of a frantic spirit, and a novice in affairs, assumed to himself the glory of another, for having by treachery surprised three legions, which expected no foe, and their leader, who feared no fraud; a base surprise, revenged since on Germany with heavy slaughters, and on Arminius himself with domestic infamy, while his wife and his son still bore the bonds of captivity. For himself, when attacked formerly by Tiberius at the head of twelve legions, he had preserved unstained the glory of Germany, and on equal terms ended the war. Nor did he repent of the treaty, since it was still in their hands to wage anew equal war with the Romans, or save blood and maintain peace." The armies, besides the incitements from these speeches, were animated by national stimulations of their own. The Cheruscans fought for their ancient renown; the Langobards for their recent liberty; and the Suevians and their king, on the contrary, were struggling for the augmentation of their monarchy. Never did armies make a fiercer onset; never had onset a more ambiguous event; for both the right wings were routed, and hence a fresh encounter was certainly expected, till Maroboduus drew off his army and encamped upon the hills; a manifest sign this that he was humbled. Frequent desertions too leaving him at last naked of forces, he retired to the Marcomannians, and thence sent ambassadors to Tiberius to implore succours. They were answered, "That he had no right to invoke aid of the Roman arms against the Cheruscans, since to the Romans, while they were warring with the same foe, he had never administered any assistance." Drusus was, however, sent away, as I have said, with the character of a negotiator of peace.