第170章 A.D.48-54(13)

Claudius handed over to them the whole administration of justice for which there had been by sedition or war so many struggles; the Sempronian laws vesting judicial power in the equestrian order, and those of Servilius restoring it to the Senate, while it was for this above everything else that Marius and Sulla fought of old.But those were days of political conflict between classes, and the results of victory were binding on the State.Caius Oppius and Cornelius Balbus were the first who were able, with Caesar's support, to settle conditions of peace and terms of war.To mention after them the Matii, Vedii, and other too influential names of Roman knights would be superfluous, when Claudius, we know, raised freedmen whom he had set over his household to equality with himself and with the laws.

Next the emperor proposed to grant immunity from taxation to the people of Cos, and he dwelt much on their antiquity."The Argives or Coeus, the father of Latona, were the earliest inhabitants of the island; soon afterwards, by the arrival of Aesculapius, the art of the physician was introduced and was practised with much fame by his descendants." Claudius named them one by one, with the periods in which they had respectively flourished.He said too that Xenophon, of whose medical skill he availed himself, was one of the same family, and that they ought to grant his request and let the people of Cos dwell free from all tribute in their sacred island, as a place devoted to the sole service of their god.It was also certain that many obligations under which they had laid Rome and joint victories with her might have been recounted.Claudius however did not seek to veil under any external considerations a concession he had made, with his usual good nature, to an individual.

Envoys from Byzantium having received audience, in complaining to the Senate of their heavy burdens, recapitulated their whole history.Beginning with the treaty which they concluded with us when we fought against that king of Macedonia whose supposed spurious birth acquired for him the name of the Pseudo Philip, they reminded us of the forces which they had afterwards sent against Antiochus, Perses and Aristonicus, of the aid they had given Antonius in the pirate-war, of their offers to Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompeius, and then of their late services to the Caesars, when they were in occupation of a district peculiarly convenient for the land or sea passage of generals and armies, as well as for the conveyance of supplies.

It was indeed on that very narrow strait which parts Europe from Asia, at Europe's furthest extremity, that the Greeks built Byzantium.

When they consulted the Pythian Apollo as to where they should found a city, the oracle replied that they were to seek a home opposite to the blind men's country.This obscure hint pointed to the people of Chalcedon, who, though they arrived there first and saw before others the advantageous position, chose the worse.For Byzantium has a fruitful soil and productive seas, as immense shoals of fish pour out of the Pontus and are driven by the sloping surface of the rocks under water to quit the windings of the Asiatic shore and take refuge in these harbours.Consequently the inhabitants were at first money-making and wealthy traders, but afterwards, under the pressure of excessive burdens, they petitioned for immunity or at least relief, and were supported by the emperor, who argued to the Senate that, exhausted as they were by the late wars in Thrace and Bosporus, they deserved help.So their tribute was remitted for five years.

In the year of the consulship of Marcus Asinius and Manius Acilius it was seen to be portended by a succession of prodigies that there were to be political changes for the worse.The soldiers' standards and tents were set in a blaze by lightning.A swarm of bees settled on the summit of the Capitol; births of monsters, half man, half beast, and of a pig with a hawk's talons, were reported.It was accounted a portent that every order of magistrates had had its number reduced, a quaestor, an aedile, a tribune, a praetor and consul having died within a few months.But Agrippina's terror was the most conspicuous.Alarmed by some words dropped by Claudius when half intoxicated, that it was his destiny to have to endure his wives'

infamy and at last punish it, she determined to act without a moment's delay.First she destroyed Lepida from motives of feminine jealousy.

Lepida indeed as the daughter of the younger Antonia, as the grandniece of Augustus, the cousin of Agrippina, and sister of her husband Cneius, thought herself of equally high rank.In beauty, youth, and wealth they differed but slightly.Both were shameless, infamous, and intractable, and were rivals in vice as much as in the advantages they had derived from fortune.It was indeed a desperate contest whether the aunt or the mother should have most power over Nero.Lepida tried to win the young prince's heart by flattery and lavish liberality, while Agrippina on the other hand, who could give her son empire but could not endure that he should be emperor, was fierce and full of menace.