第45章 A.D.20-22(5)

There was a further proposal of Messalinus, that Tiberius, Augusta, Antonia, Agrippina and Drusus ought to be publicly thanked for having avenged Germanicus.He omitted all mention of Claudius.

Thereupon he was pointedly asked by Lucius Asprenas before the Senate, whether the omission had been intentional, and it was only then that the name of Claudius was added.For my part, the wider the scope of my reflection on the present and the past, the more am I impressed by their mockery of human plans in every transaction.Clearly, the very last man marked out for empire by public opinion, expectation and general respect was he whom fortune was holding in reserve as the emperor of the future.

A few days afterwards the emperor proposed to the Senate to confer the priesthood on Vitellius, Veranius and Servaeus.To Fulcinius he promised his support in seeking promotion, but warned him not to ruin his eloquence by rancour.This was the end of avenging the death of Germanicus, a subject of conflicting rumours not only among the people then living but also in after times.So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.

Drusus meanwhile quitted Rome to resume his command and soon afterwards re-entered the city with an ovation.In the course of a few days his mother Vipsania died, the only one of all Agrippa's children whose death was without violence.As for the rest, they perished, some it is certain by the sword, others it was believed by poison or starvation.

That same year Tacfarinas who had been defeated, as I have related, by Camillus in the previous summer, renewed hostilities in Africa, first by mere desultory raids, so swift as to be unpunished;next, by destroying villages and carrying off plunder wholesale.

Finally, he hemmed in a Roman cohort near the river Pagyda.The position was commanded by Decrius, a soldier energetic in action and experienced in war, who regarded the siege as a disgrace.Cheering on his men to offer battle in the open plain, he drew up his line in front of his intrenchments.At the first shock, the cohort was driven back, upon which he threw himself fearlessly amid the missiles in the path of the fugitives and cried shame on the standard-bearers for letting Roman soldiers show their backs to a rabble of deserters.At the same moment he was covered with wounds, and though pierced through the eye, he resolutely faced the enemy and ceased not to fight till he fell deserted by his men.

On receiving this information, Lucius Apronius, successor to Camillus, alarmed more by the dishonour of his own men than by the glory of the enemy, ventured on a deed quite exceptional at that time and derived from old tradition.He flogged to death every tenth man drawn by lot from the disgraced cohort.So beneficial was this rigour that a detachment of veterans, numbering not more than five hundred, routed those same troops of Tacfarinas on their attacking a fortress named Thala.In this engagement Rufus Helvius, a common soldier, won the honour of saving a citizen's life, and was rewarded by Apronius with a neck-chain and a spear.To these the emperor added the civic crown, complaining, but without anger, that Apronius had not used his right as proconsul to bestow this further distinction.

Tacfarinas, however, finding that the Numidians were cowed and had a horror of siege-operations, pursued a desultory warfare, retreating when he was pressed, and then again hanging on his enemy's rear.While the barbarian continued these tactics, he could safely insult the baffled and exhausted Romans.But when he marched away towards the coast and, hampered with booty, fixed himself in a regular camp, Caesianus was despatched by his father Apronius with some cavalry and auxiliary infantry, reinforced by the most active of the legionaries, and, after a successful battle with the Numidians, drove them into the desert.

At Rome meanwhile Lepida, who beside the glory of being one of the Aemilii was the great-granddaughter of Lucius Sulla and Cneius Pompeius, was accused of pretending to be a mother by Publius Quirinus, a rich and childless man.Then, too, there were charges of adulteries, of poisonings, and of inquiries made through astrologers concerning the imperial house.The accused was defended by her brother Manius Lepidus.Quirinus by his relentless enmity even after his divorce, had procured for her some sympathy, infamous and guilty as she was.One could not easily perceive the emperor's feelings at her trial; so effectually did he interchange and blend the outward signs of resentment and compassion.He first begged the Senate not to deal with the charges of treason, and subsequently induced Marcus Servilius, an ex-consul, to divulge what he had seemingly wished to suppress.He also handed over to the consuls Lepida's slaves, who were in military custody, but would not allow them to be examined by torture on matters referring to his own family.Drusus too, the consul-elect, he released from the necessity of having to speak first to the question.Some thought this a gracious act, done to save the rest of the Senators from a compulsory assent, while others ascribed it to malignity, on the ground that he would have yielded only where there was a necessity of condemning.