Germanicus was intent upon seeing other wonders: the chief were; the effigies of Memnon, a colossus of stone, yielding when struck by the solar rays, a vocal sound; the Pyramids rising, like mountains, amongst rolling and almost impassable waves of sand; monuments these of the emulation and opulency of Egyptian kings; the artificial lake, a receptacle of the overflowing Nile; and elsewhere abysses of such immense depth, that those, who tried, could never fathom. Thence he proceeded to Elephantina and Syene, two islands, formerly frontiers of the Roman empire, which is now widened to the Red Sea.
Whilst Germanicus spent this summer in several provinces, Drusus was sowing feuds amongst the Germans, and thence reaped no light renown; and, as the power of Maroboduus was already broken, he engaged them to persist and complete his ruin. Amongst the Gotones was a young man of quality, his name Catualda, a fugitive long since from the violence of Maroboduus, but now in his distress, resolved on revenge: hence with a stout band, he entered the borders of the Marcomannians, and corrupting their chiefs into his alliance, stormed the regal palace, and the castle situate near it. In the pillage were found the ancient stores of prey accumulated by the Suevians; as also many victuallers and traders from our provinces; men who were drawn hither from their several homes, first by privilege of traffic, then retained by a passion to multiply gain, and at last, through utter oblivion of their own country, fixed, like natives, in a hostile soil.
To Maroboduus on every side forsaken, no other refuge remained but the mercy of Caesar: he therefore passed the Danube where it washes the province of Norica, and wrote to Tiberius; not however in the language of a fugitive or supplicant, but with a spirit suitable to his late grandeur, "that many nations invited him to them, as a king once so glorious; but he preferred to all the friendship of Rome." The Emperor answered, "that in Italy he should have a safe and honourable retreat, and, when his affairs required his presence, the same security to return." But to the Senate he declared, "that never had Philip of Macedon been so terrible to the Athenians; nor Pyrrhus, nor Antiochus to the Roman people." The speech is extant: in it he magnifies "the greatness of the man, the fierceness and bravery of the nations his subjects; the alarming nearness of such an enemy to Italy, and his own artful measures to destroy him." Maroboduus was kept at Ravenna, for a check and terror to the Suevians; as if, when at any time they grew turbulent, he were there in readiness to recover their subjection: yet in eighteen years he left not Italy, but grew old in exile there; his renown too became eminently diminished; such was the price he paid for an over-passionate love of life. The same fate had Catualda, and no other sanctuary; he was soon after expulsed by the forces of the Hermundurans led by Vibilius, and being received under the Roman protection, was conveyed to Forum Julium, a colony in Narbon Gaul. The barbarians their followers, lest, had they been mixed with the provinces, they might have disturbed their present quiet, were placed beyond the Danube, between the rivers Marus and Cusus, and for their king had assigned them Vannius, by nation a Quadian.
As soon as it was known at Rome, that Artaxias was by Germanicus given to the Armenians for their king, the fathers decreed to him and Drusus the lesser triumph: triumphal arches were likewise erected, on each side of the Temple of Mars the Avenger, supporting the statues of these two Caesars; and for Tiberius, he was more joyful to have established peace by policy, than if by battles and victories he had ended the war.
Germanicus returning from Egypt, learned that all his orders left with the legions, and the eastern cities, were either entirely abolished, or contrary regulations established: a ground this for his severe reproaches and insults upon Piso. Nor less keen were the efforts and machinations of Piso against Germanicus; yet Piso afterwards determined to leave Syria, but was detained by the following illness of Germanicus: again when he heard of his recovery, and perceived that vows were paid for his restoration; the Lictors, by his command, broke the solemnity, drove away the victims already at the altars; overturned the apparatus of the sacrifice; and scattered the people of Antioch employed in celebrating the festival. He then departed to Seleucia, waiting the event of the malady which had again assaulted Germanicus. His own persuasion too, that poison was given him by Piso, heightened the cruel vehemence of the disease: indeed, upon the floors and walls were found fragments of human bodies, the spoils of the grave; with charms and incantations; and the name of Germanicus graved on sheets of lead; carcasses half burnt, besmeared with gore; and other witchcrafts, by which souls are thought doomed to the infernal gods: besides there were certain persons, charged as creatures of Piso, purposely sent and employed to watch the progress and efforts of the disease.
These things filled Germanicus with apprehensions great as his resentment: "If his doors," he said, "were besieged, if under the eyes of his enemies he must render up his spirit, what was to be expected to his unhappy wife, what to his infant children?" The progress of poison was thought too slow; Piso was impatient, and urging with eagerness to command alone the legions, to possess alone the province: but Germanicus was not sunk to such lowness and impotence, that the price of his murder should remain with the murderer: and by a letter to Piso, he renounced his friendship: some add, that he commanded him to depart the province. Nor did Piso tarry longer, but took ship; yet checked her sailing in order to return with the more quickness, should the death of Germanicus the while leave the government of Syria vacant.
Germanicus, after a small revival, drooping again; when his end approached, spoke on this wise to his attending friends: "Were I to yield to the destiny of nature; just, even then, were my complaints against the Gods, for hurrying me from my parents, my children, and my country, by a hasty death, in the prime of life: now shortened in my course by the malignity of Piso, and his wife, to your breasts I commit my last prayers: tell my father, tell my brother, with what violent persecutions afflicted, with what mortal snares circumvented, I end a most miserable life by death of all others the worst. All they whose hopes in my fortune, all they whose kindred blood, and even they whose envy, possessed them with impressions about me whilst living, shall bewail me dead; that once great in glory, and surviving so many wars, I fell at last by the dark devices of a woman. To you will be place left to complain in the Senate, and place to invoke the aid and vengeance of the laws. To commemorate the dead with slothful wailings, is not the principal office of friends: they are to remember his dying wishes, to fulfil his last desires. Even strangers will lament Germanicus: you are my friends: if you loved me rather than my fortune, you will vindicate your friendship: show the people of Rome my wife, her who is the grand-daughter of Augustus, and enumerate to them our six children. Their compassion will surely attend you who accuse; and the accused, if they pretend clandestine warrants of iniquity, will not be believed; if believed, not pardoned." His friends, as a pledge of their fidelity, touching the hand of the dying prince, swore that they would forego their lives sooner than their revenge. Then turning to his wife, he besought her "that in tenderness to his memory, in tenderness to their common children, she would banish her haughty spirit, yield to her hostile fortune, nor, upon her return to Rome, by an impotent competition for ruling, irritate those who were masters of rule." So much openly, and more in secret; whence he was believed to have warned her of guile and danger from Tiberius. Soon after he expired, to the heavy sorrow of the province, and of all the neighbouring countries; insomuch that remote nations and foreign kings were mourners: such had been his complacency to our confederates; such his humanity to his enemies! Alike venerable he was, whether you saw him or heard him; and without ever departing from the grave port and dignity of his sublime rank, he yet lived destitute of arrogance and untouched by envy.
The funeral, which was performed without exterior pomp or a procession of images, drew its solemnity from the loud praises and amiable memory of his virtues. There were those who from his loveliness, his age, his manner of dying, and even from the proximity of places where both departed, compared him in the circumstances of his fate, to Great Alexander: "Each of a graceful person, each of illustrious descent; in years neither much exceeding thirty; both victims to the malice and machinations of their own people, in the midst of foreign nations: but Germanicus gentle towards his friends; his pleasures moderate; confined to one wife; all his children by one bed; nor less a warrior, though not so rash, and however hindered from a final reduction of Germany, broken by him in so many victories, and ready for the yoke: so that had he been sole arbiter of things, had he acted with the sovereignty and title of royalty, he had easier overtaken him in the glory of conquests, as he surpassed him in clemency, in moderation, and in other virtues." His body, before its commitment to the pile, was exhibited naked in the Forum of Antioch, the place where the pile was erected: whether it bore the marks of poison, remained undecided: for, people as they were divided in their affections, as they pitied Germanicus, and presumed the guilt of Piso, or were partial to him, gave opposite accounts.
It was next debated amongst the legates of the legions and the other senators there, to whom should be committed the administration of Syria: and after the faint effort of others, it was long disputed between Vibius Marsus and Cneius Sentius: Marsus at last yielded to Sentius, the older man and the more vehement competitor. By him one Martina, infamous in that province for practices in poisoning, and a close confidant of Plancina, was sent to Rome, at the suit of Vitellius, Veranius, and others, who were preparing criminal articles against Piso and Plancina, as against persons evidently guilty.
Agrippina, though overwhelmed with sorrow, and her body indisposed, yet impatient of all delays to her revenge, embarked with the ashes of Germanicus, and her children; attended with universal commiseration, "that a lady, in quality a princess, wont to be beheld in her late splendid wedlock with applauses and adorations, was now seen bearing in her bosom her husband's funeral urn, uncertain of vengeance for him and fearful for herself; unfortunate in her fruitfulness, and from so many children obnoxious to so many blows of fortune." Piso the while was overtaken at the Isle of Coös by a message, "that Germanicus was deceased," and received it intemperately, slew victims and repaired with thanksgiving to the temples: and yet, however immoderate and undisguised was his joy, more arrogant and insulting proved that of Plancina, who immediately threw off her mourning, which for the death of a sister she wore, and assumed a dress adapted to gaiety and gladness.