No More Learning

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.