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Pollio's daughter was preferred;
for nothing else but that her mother had ever continued in the same
wedlock: for Agrippa, by a divorce, had impaired the credit of his
house: upon her who was postponed, Tiberius, in consolation, bestowed
for her fortune a thousand great sestertia. [Footnote: £8300. ]

As the people murmured at the severe dearth of corn, he settled grain
at a price certain to the buyer, and undertook to pay fourteenpence a
measure to the seller: neither yet would he accept the name of _Father
of his Country_, a title offered him before, and for these bounties, now
again; nay, he sharply rebuked such as styled these provisions of his,
_divine occupations_, and him, _Lord_: hence freedom of speech became
cramped and insecure, under such a Prince; one who dreaded liberty, and
abhorred flattery.

I find in the writers of those times, some of them Senators, that in
the Senate were read letters from Adgandestrius, prince of the Cattans,
undertaking to despatch Arminius, if in order to it poison were sent
him; and an answer returned, "that not by frauds and blows in the dark,
but armed and in the face of the sun, the Roman People took vengeance
on their foes. " In this Tiberius gained equal glory with our ancient
captains, who rejected and disclosed a plot to poison King Pyrrhus.
Arminius however, who upon the departure of the Romans and expulsion
of Maroboduus, aimed at royalty, became thence engaged in a struggle
against the liberty of his country; and, in defence of their liberty,
his countrymen took arms against him: so that, while with various
fortune he contended with them, he fell by the treachery of his own
kindred: the deliverer of Germany without doubt he was; one who
assailed the Roman power, not like other kings and leaders, in its first
elements, but in its highest pride and elevation; one sometimes beaten
in battle, but never conquered in war: thirty-seven years he lived;
twelve he commanded; and, amongst these barbarous nations, his memory is
still celebrated in their songs; but his name unknown in the annals of
the Greeks, who only admire their own national exploits and renown; nor
even amongst the Romans does this great captain bear much distinction,
while, overlooking instances of modern prowess and glory, we only
delight to magnify men and feats of old.




BOOK III

A. D. 20-22.


Agrippina, notwithstanding the roughness of winter, pursuing without
intermission her boisterous voyage, put in at the Island Corcyra,
[Footnote: Corfu. ] situate over against the coasts of Calabria. Here
to settle her spirit, she spent a few days, violent in her grief, and
a stranger to patience. Her arrival being the while divulged, all the
particular friends to her family, mostly men of the sword, many who had
served under Germanicus, and even many strangers from the neighbouring
towns, some in officiousness towards the Emperor, more for company,
crowded to the city of Brundusium, the readiest port in her way and the
safest landing. As soon as the fleet appeared in the deep, instantly
were filled, not the port alone and adjacent shores, but the walls
and roofs, and as far as the eye could go; filled with the sorrowing
multitude. They were consulting one from one, how they should receive
her landing, "whether with universal silence, or with some note of
acclamation.
" Nor was it manifest which they would do, when the fleet
stood slowly in, not as usual with joyful sailors and cheerful oars, but
all things impressed with the face of sadness. After she descended from
the ship, accompanied with her two infants, carrying in her bosom the
melancholy urn, with her eyes cast steadily down; equal and universal
were the groans of the beholders: nor could you distinguish relations
from strangers, nor the wailings of men from those of women, unless
that the new-comers, who were recent in their sallies of grief, exceeded
Agrippina's attendants, wearied out with long lamentations.

Tiberius had despatched two Praetorian cohorts, with directions, that
the magistrates of Calabria, Apulia and Campania, should pay their last
offices to the memory of his son: upon the shoulders therefore of the
Tribunes and Centurions his ashes were borne; before went the ensigns
rough and unadorned, with the fasces reversed. As they passed through
the colonies, the populace were in black, the knights in purple; and
each place, according to its wealth, burnt precious raiment, perfumes
and whatever else is used in funeral solemnities: even they whose cities
lay remote attended: to the Gods of the dead they slew victims, they
erected altars, and with tears and united lamentations, testified
their common sorrow. Drusus came as far as Terracina, with Claudius the
brother of Germanicus, and those of his children who had been left at
Rome. The Consuls Marcus Valerius and Marcus Aurelius (just then entered
upon their office), the Senate, and great part of the people, filled the
road; a scattered procession, each walking and weeping his own way: in
this mourning, flattery had no share; for all knew how real was the joy,
how hollow the grief, of Tiberius for the death of Germanicus.

Tiberius and Livia avoided appearing abroad: public lamentation they
thought below their grandeur; or perhaps they apprehended that their
countenances, examined by all eyes, might show deceitful hearts. That
Antonia, mother to the deceased, bore any part in the funeral, I do not
find either in the historians or in the city journals: though, besides
Agrippina, and Drusus, and Claudius, his other relations are likewise
there recorded by name: whether by sickness she was prevented; or
whether her soul vanquished by sorrow, could not bear the representation
of such a mighty calamity. I would rather believe her constrained
by Tiberius and Livia, who left not the palace; and affecting equal
affliction with her, would have it seem that, by the example of the
mother, the grandmother too and uncle were detained.

The day his remains were reposited in the tomb of Augustus, various
were the symptoms of public grief; now the vastness of silence; now the
uproar of lamentation; the city in every quarter full of processions;
the field of Mars on a blaze of torches: here the soldiers under arms,
the magistrates without the insignia, the people by their tribes, all
cried in concert that "the Commonwealth was fallen, and henceforth
there was no remain of hope;" so openly and boldly that you would have
believed they had forgot, who bore sway. But nothing pierced Tiberius
more than the ardent affections of the people towards Agrippina, while
such titles they gave her as "the ornament of her country, the only
blood of Augustus, the single instance of ancient virtue;" and, while
applying to heaven, they implored "the continuance of her issue, that
they might survive the persecuting and malignant. "

There were those who missed the pomp of a public funeral, and compared
with this the superior honours and magnificence bestowed by Augustus on
that of Drusus the father of Germanicus; "that he himself had travelled,
in the sharpness of winter, as far as Pavia, and thence, continuing by
the corpse, had with it entered the city; round his head were placed
the images of the Claudii and Julii; he was mourned in the Forum; his
encomium pronounced in the Rostras; all sorts of honours, such as were
the inventions of our ancestors, or the improvements of their posterity,
were heaped upon him. But to Germanicus were denied the ordinary
solemnities, and such as were due to every distinguished Roman. In a
foreign country indeed, his corpse because of the long journey, was
burnt without pomp; but afterwards, it was but just to have supplied
the scantiness of the first ceremony by the solemnity of the last: his
brother met him but one day's journey; his uncle not even at the gate.
Where were those generous observations of the ancients; the effigies of
the dead borne on a bed, hymns composed in memory of their virtue, with
the oblations of praise and tears? Where at least were the ceremonies
and even outside of sorrow?