No More Learning

Four legions kept in subjection all the mighty range
of country, extending from the next limits of Syria, as far as the
Euphrates, and bordering upon the Iberians, Albanians, and other
Principalities, who by our might are protected against Foreign Powers.
Thrace was held by Rhoemetalces, and the sons of Cotys; and both banks
of the Danube by four legions; two in Pannonia, two in Moesia. In
Dalmatia likewise were placed two; who, by the situation of the country,
were at hand to support the former, and had not far to march into
Italy, were any sudden succours required there: though Rome too had her
peculiar soldiery; three city cohorts, and nine Praetorian, enlisted
chiefly out of Etruria and Umbria, or from the ancient Latium and the
old Roman colonies. In the several Provinces, besides, were disposed,
according to their situation and necessity, the fleets of the several
confederates, with their squadrons and battalions; a number of forces
not much different from all the rest: but the particular detail would be
uncertain; since, according to the exigency of times, they often shifted
stations, with numbers sometimes enlarged, sometimes reduced.

It will, I believe, fall in properly here to review also the other parts
of the Administration, and by what measures it was hitherto conducted,
till with the beginning of this year the Government of Tiberius began to
wax worse. First then, all public, and every private business of moment,
was determined by the Senate: to the great men he allowed liberty of
debate: those who in their debates lapsed into flattery, he checked:
in conferring preferments, he was guided by merit, by ancient nobility,
renown in war abroad, by civil accomplishments at home; insomuch that it
was manifest, his choice could not have been better. There remained to
the Consuls, there remained to the Praetors the useful marks of their
dignities; to inferior magistrates the independent exercise of their
charges; and the laws, where the power of the Prince was not concerned,
were in proper force. The tributes, duties, and all public receipts,
were directed by companies of Roman knights: the management of his own
revenue he committed only to those of the most noted qualifications;
mostly known by himself, and to some known by reputation alone: and when
once taken, they were continued, without all restriction of term;
since most grew old in the same employments. The populace were indeed
aggrieved by the dearth of provisions; but without any fault of the
Prince: nay, he spared no possible expense nor pains to remedy the
effects of barrenness in the earth, and of wrecks at sea. He provided
that the Provinces should not be oppressed with new impositions; and
that no extortion, or violence should be committed by the magistrates
in raising the old: there were no infamous corporal punishments, no
confiscations of goods.

The Emperor's possessions through Italy, were thin; the behaviour of
his slaves modest; the freedmen who managed his house, few; and in his
disputes with particulars, the courts were open and the law equal. All
which restraints he observed, not, in truth, in the ways of complaisance
and popularity; but always stern, and for the most part terrible; yet
still he retained them, till by the death of Drusus they were abandoned:
for, while he lived they continued; because Sejanus, while he was but
laying the foundations of his power, studied to recommend himself
by good counsels. He then had besides, an avenger to dread, one who
disguised not his enmity, but was frequent in his complaints; "that
when the son was in his prime, another was called, as coadjutor, to the
Government; nay, how little was wanting to his being declared colleague
in the Empire? That the first advances to sovereignty are steep and
perilous; but, once you are entered, parties and instruments are
ready to espouse you. Already a camp for the guards was formed, by the
pleasure and authority of the captain: into whose hands the soldiers
were delivered: in the theatre of Pompey his statue was beheld: in
his grandchildren would be mixed the blood of the Drusi with that of
Sejanus.
After all this what remained but to supplicate his modesty to
rest contented. " Nor was it rarely that he uttered these disgusts,
nor to a few; besides, his wife being debauched, all his secrets were
betrayed.

Sejanus therefore judging it time to despatch, chose such a poison as by
operating gradually, might preserve the appearances of a casual disease.
This was administered to Drusus by Lygdus the eunuch, as, eight years
after, was learnt. Now during all the days of his illness, Tiberius
disclosed no symptoms of anguish (perhaps from ostentation of a firmness
of spirit) nay, when he had expired, and while he was yet unburied, he
entered the Senate; and finding the Consuls placed upon a common seat,
as a testimony of their grief; he admonished them of their dignity and
station: and as the Senators burst into tears, he smothered his rising
sighs, and, by a speech uttered without hesitation, animated them. "He,
in truth, was not ignorant," he said, "that he might be censured,
for having thus in the first throbs of sorrow, beheld the face of the
Senate; when most of those who feel the fresh pangs of mourning, can
scarce endure the soothings of their kindred, scarce behold the day:
neither were such to be condemned of weakness: but for himself, he
had more powerful consolations; such as arose from embracing the
Commonwealth, and pursuing her welfare. " He then lamented "the extreme
age of his mother, the tender years of his grandsons, his own days in
declension;" and desired that, "as the only alleviation of the present
evils, the children of Germanicus might be introduced. " The Consuls
therefore went for them, and having with kind words fortified their
young minds, presented them to the Emperor. He took them by the hand
and said, "Conscript Fathers, these infants, bereft of their father, I
committed to their uncle; and besought him that, though he had issue
of his own, he would rear and nourish them no otherwise than as the
immediate offspring of his blood; that he would appropriate them as
stays to himself and posterity. Drusus being snatched from us, to you I
address the same prayers; and in the presence of the Gods, in the face
of your country, I adjure you, receive into your protection, take under
your tuition the great-grandchildren of Augustus; children, descended
from ancestors the most glorious in the State: towards them fulfil your
own, fulfil my duty. To you, Nero; to you, Drusus, these Senators are in
the stead of a father; and such is the situation of your birth, that on
the Commonwealth must light all the good and evil which befalls you. "

All this was heard with much weeping, and followed with propitious
prayers and vows: and had he only gone thus far, and in his speech
observed a medium, he had left the souls of his hearers full of sympathy
and applause. But, by renewing an old project, always chimerical and so
often ridiculed, about "restoring the Republic, reinstating it again
in the Consuls, or whoever else would undertake the administration;"
he forfeited his faith even in assertions which were commendable and
sincere. To the memory of Drusus were decreed the same solemnities as
to that of Germanicus; with many super-added; agreeably to the genius
of flattery, which delights in variety and improvements. Most signal was
the lustre of the funeral in a conspicuous procession of images; when at
it appeared in a pompous train, Aeneas, father of the Julian race;
all the kings of Alba, and Romulus founder of Rome; next the Sabine
nobility, Attus Clausus, and his descendants of the Claudian family.

In relating the death of Drusus, I have followed the greatest part of
our historians, and the most faithful: I would not however omit a rumour
which in those times was so prevailing that it is not extinguished in
ours; "that Sejanus having by adultery gained Livia to the murder, had
likewise engaged by constupration the affections and concurrence of
Lygdus the eunuch; because Lygdus was, for his youth and loveliness,
dear to his master, and one of his chief attendants: that when the time
and place of poisoning, were by the conspirators concerted; the eunuch
carried his boldness so high, as to charge upon Drusus a design of
poisoning Tiberius; and secretly warning the Emperor of this, advised
him to shun the first draught offered him in the next entertainment
at his son's: that the old man possessed with this fictitious treason,
after he had sate down to table, having received the cup delivered it to
Drusus, who ignorantly and gaily drank it off: that this heightened the
jealousy and apprehensions of Tiberius, as if through fear and shame
his son had swallowed the same death, which for his father he had
contrived.