No More Learning

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.

About him flocked the Centurions with officious representations, "that
upon him particularly were bent the affections and zeal of the legions,
and he should proceed to resume the province, at first injuriously taken
from him and now destitute of a governor. " As he therefore consulted
what he had best pursue, his son Marcus Piso advised "a speedy journey
to Rome: hitherto," he said, "nothing past expiation was committed; nor
were impotent suspicions to be dreaded; nor the idle blazonings of fame:
his variance and contention with Germanicus was perhaps subject to hate
and aversion, but to no prosecution or penalty; and, by bereaving him of
the province, his enemies were gratified: but if he returned thither, as
Sentius would certainly oppose him with arms, a civil war would thence
be actually begun: neither would the Centurions and soldiers persist in
his party; men with whom the recent memory of their late commander, and
an inveterate love to the Caesarian general, were still prevalent. "

Domitius Celer, one in intimate credit with Piso, argued on the
contrary, "that the present event must by all means be improved; it was
Piso and not Sentius who had commission to govern Syria; upon him, were
conferred the jurisdiction of Praetor, and the badges of magistracy, and
with him the legions were instructed: so that if acts of hostility were
by his opponents attempted, with how much better warrant could he avow
assuming arms in his own right and defence, who was thus vested with the
authority of general, and acted under special orders from the Emperor.
Rumours too were to be neglected, and left to perish with time: in
truth to the sallies and violence of recent hate the innocent were often
unequal: but were he once possessed of the army, and had well augmented
his forces, many things, not to be foreseen, would from fortune derive
success. Are we then preposterously hastening to arrive at Rome with the
ashes of Germanicus, that you may there fall, unheard and undefended, a
victim to the wailings of Agrippina, a prey to the passionate populace
governed by the first impressions of rumour? Livia, it is true, is your
confederate; Tiberius is your friend; but both secretly: and indeed none
will more pompously bewail the violent fate of Germanicus, than such as
for it do most sincerely rejoice. "

Piso of himself prompt to violent pursuits, was with no great labour
persuaded into this opinion, and, in a letter transmitted to Tiberius,
accused Germanicus "of luxury and pride: that for himself, he had been
expulsed, to leave room for dangerous designs against the State, and now
resumed, with his former faith and loyalty, the care of the army. " In
the meantime he put Domitius on board a galley, and ordered him to avoid
appearing upon the coasts or amongst the isles, but, through the
main sea, to sail to Syria. The deserters, who from all quarters were
flocking to him in crowds, he formed into companies, and armed all the
retainers to the camp; then sailing over to the continent, intercepted
a regiment of recruits, upon their march into Syria; and wrote to the
small kings of Cilicia to assist him with present succours: nor was
the younger Piso slow in prosecuting all the measures of war, though to
adventure a war had been against his sentiments and advice.