The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus
been _decies sestertium_, about 9,000_l._ sterling.
[140] Thus Seneca: "Little souls rendered insolent by prosperity have
this worst property, that they hate those whom they have injured."--De
Ira, ii. 33.
[141] Several who suffered under Nero and Domitian erred, though nobly,
in this respect.
[142] A Greek epigram still extant of Antiphilus, a Byzantine, to the
memory of a certain Agricola, is supposed by the learned to refer to the
great man who is the subject of this work. It is in the Anthologia, lib.
i. tit. 37.
[143] Dio absolutely affirms it; but from the manner in which Tacitus,
who had better means of information, speaks of it, the story was
probably false.
[144] It appears that the custom of making the emperor co-heir with the
children of the testator was not by any means uncommon. It was done in
order to secure the remainder to the family. Thus Prasutagus, king of
the Iceni in Britain, made Nero co-heir with his two daughters. Thus
when Lucius Vetus was put to death by Nero, his friends urged him to
leave part of his property to the emperor, that his grandsons might
enjoy the rest. (Ann. xvi. 11.) Suetonius (viii. 17) mentions that
Domitian used to seize the estates of persons the most unknown to him,
if any one could be found to assert that the deceased had expressed an
intention to make the emperor his heir.--_White_.
[145] Caligula. This was A.D. 40, when he was sole consul.
[146] According to this account, the birth of Agricola was on June 13th,
in the year of Rome 793, A.D. 40; and his death on August 23d, in the
year of Rome 846 A.D. 93: for this appears by the Fasti Consulares
to have been the year of the consulate of Collega and Priscus. He
was therefore only in his fifty-fourth year when he died; so that the
copyists must probably have written by mistake LVI. instead of LIV.
[147] From this representation, Dio appears to have been mistaken in
asserting that Agricola passed the latter part of his life in dishonor
and penury.
[148] Juvenal breaks out in a noble strain of indignation against this
savage cruelty, which distinguished the latter part of Domitian's reign:
Atque utinam his potius nugis tota illa dedisset
Tempora saevitiae: claras quibus abstulit Urbi
Illustresque animas impune, et vindice nullo.
Sed periit, postquam cerdonibus esse timendus
Coeperat: hoc nocuit Lamiarum, caede madenti.--Sat. iv. 150.
"What folly this! but oh! that all the rest
Of his dire reign had thus been spent in jest!
And all that time such trifles had employ'd
In which so many nobles he destroy'd!
He safe, they unrevenged, to the disgrace
Of the surviving, tame, patrician race!
But when he dreadful to the rabble grew,
Him, who so many lords had slain, they slew."--DUKE.
[149] This happened in the year of Rome 848.
[150] Carus and Massa, who were proverbially infamous as informers,
are represented by Juvenal as dreading a still more dangerous villain,
Heliodorus.
--Quem Massa timet, quem munere palpat
Carus.--Sat. i. 35.
"Whom Massa dreads, whom Carus soothes with bribes."
Carus is also mentioned with deserved infamy by Pliny and Martial. He
was a mimic by profession.
[151] Of this odious instrument of tyranny, Pliny the younger thus
speaks: "The conversation turned upon Catullus Messalinus, whose loss
of sight added the evils of blindness to a cruel disposition. He was
irreverent, unblushing, unpitying, Like a weapon, of itself blind and
unconscious, he was frequently hurled by Domitian against every man of
worth." (iv. 22.) Juvenal launches the thunder of invective against him
in the following lines:--
Et cum mortifero prudens Vejento Catullo,
Qui numquam visae flagrabat amore puellae,
Grande, et conspicuum nostro quoque tempore monstrum,
Caecus adulator, dirusque a ponte satelles,
Dignus Aricinos qui mendicaret ad axes,
Blandaque devexae jactaret basia rhedae.--Sat. iv. 113.
"Cunning Vejento next, and by his side
Bloody Catullus leaning on his guide:
Decrepit, yet a furious lover he,
And deeply smit with charms he could not see.
A monster, that ev'n this worst age outvies,
Conspicuous and above the common size.
A blind base flatterer; from some bridge or gate,
Raised to a murd'ring minister of state.
Deserving still to beg upon the road,
And bless each passing wagon and its load."--DUKE.
[152] This was a famous villa of Domitian's, near the site of the
ancient Alba, about twelve miles from Rome. The place is now called
Albano, and vast ruins of its magnificent edifices still remain.
[153] Tacitus, in his History, mentions this Massa Baebius as a person
most destructive to all men of worth, and constantly engaged on the
side of villains. From a letter of Pliny's to Tacitus, it appears that
Herennius Senecio and himself were joined as counsel for the province
of Boetica in a prosecution of Massa Baebius; and that Massa after his
condemnation petitioned the consuls for liberty to prosecute Senecio for
treason.
[154] By "our own hands," Tacitus means one of our own body, a senator.
As Publicius Certus had seized upon Helvidius and led him to prison,
Tacitus imputes the crime to the whole senatorian order. To the same
purpose Pliny observes: "Amidst the numerous villanies of numerous
persons, nothing appeared more atrocious than that in the senate-house
one senator should lay hands on another, a praetorian on a consular man,
a judge on a criminal."--B. ix. ep. 13.
[155] Helvidius Priscus, a friend of Pliny the younger, who did not
suffer his death to remain unrevenged. See the Epistle above referred
to.
[156] There is in this place some defect in the manuscripts, which
critics have endeavored to supply in different manners. Brotier seems to
prefer, though he does not adopt in the text, "nos Mauricum Rusticumque
divisimus," "we parted Mauricus and Rusticus," by the death of one
and the banishment of the other. The prosecution and crime of Rusticus
(Arulenus) is mentioned at the beginning of this piece, c. 2. Mauricus
was his brother.
[157] Herennius Senecio. See c. 2.
[158] Thus Pliny, in his Panegyr. on Trajan, xlviii.: "Domitian was
terrible even to behold; pride in his brow, anger in his eyes, a
feminine paleness in the rest of his body, in his face shamelessness
suffused in a glowing red." Seneca, in Epist. xi. remarks, that "some
are never more to be dreaded than when they blush; as if they had
effused all their modesty. Sylla was always most furious when the blood
had mounted into his cheeks."