At Rome in the beginning of the year, as if the iniquities of Livia had been but just discovered, and not even long since punished, furious orders were passed against her statues too, and memory; with another, "that the effects of Sejanus should be taken from the public treasury, and placed in that of the Emperor:" as if this vain translation could any wise avail the State. And yet such was the motion of these great names, the Scipios, the Silani, and the Cassii; who urged it, each almost in the same words, but all with mighty zeal and earnestness: when all on a sudden, Togonius Gallus, while he would be thrusting his own meanness amongst names so greatly illustrious, became the object of derision: for he besought the Prince "to choose a body of Senators of whom twenty, drawn by lot and under arms, should wait upon him and defend his person, as often as he entered the Senate." He had been weak enough to credit a letter from the Emperor, requiring "the guard and protection of one of the Consuls, that he might return in safety from Capreae to Rome." Tiberius however returned thanks to the Senate for such an instance of affection; but as he was wont to mix pleasantry with things serious, he asked, "How was it to be executed? what Senators were to be chosen? who to be omitted? whether always the same, or a continued succession? whether young Senators, or such as had borne dignities? whether those who were Magistrates, or those exercising no magistracy? moreover what a becoming figure they would make, grave Senators, men of the gown, under arms at the entrance of the Senate! in truth he held not his life of such importance, to have it thus protected by arms." So much in answer to Togonius, without asperity of words; nor did he farther, than this, press them to cancel the motion.
But Junius Gallio escaped not thus. He had proposed "that the Praetorian soldiers, having accomplished their term of service, should thence acquire the privilege of sitting in the fourteen rows of the theatre allotted to the Roman knights." Upon him Tiberius fell with violent wrath, and, as if present, demanded, what business had he with the soldiers? men whose duty bound them to observe only the orders of the Emperor, and from the Emperor alone to receive their rewards. Gallio had forsooth discovered a recompense which had escaped the sagacity of the deified Augustus? Or was it not rather a project started by a mercenary of Sejanus, to raise sedition and discord; a project tending to debauch the rude minds of the soldiers with the show and bait of new honour; to corrupt their discipline, and set them loose from military restrictions? This reward, had the studied flattery of Gallio; who was instantly expelled the Senate, and then Italy: nay, it became a charge upon him, that his exile would be too easy, having for the place of it chosen Lesbos, an island noble and delightful; he was therefore haled back to Rome and confined a prisoner in the house of a Magistrate. Tiberius in the same letter demanded the doom of Sextus Paconianus, formerly Praetor, to the extreme joy of the Senate, as he was a man bold and mischievous, one armed with snares, and continually diving into the purposes and secret transactions of all men; and one chosen by Sejanus, for plotting the overthrow of Caligula. When this was now laid open, the general hate and animosities long since conceived against him, broke violently out, and had he not offered to make a discovery, he had been instantly condemned to death.
The next impeached was Cotta Messalinus, the author of every the most bloody counsel, and thence long and intensely hated. The first opportunity was therefore snatched to fall upon him with a combination of crimes; as that he had called Caius Caligula by the feminine name of Caia Caligula, and branded him with constuprations of both kinds; that when he celebrated among the Priests the birthday of Augusta, he had styled the entertainment a funeral supper; and that complaining of the great sway of Marcus Lepidus, and of Lucius Arruntius, with whom he had a suit about money, he had added; "they indeed will be supported by the Senate, but I by my little Tiberius." {Footnote: Tiberiolus meus.} Of all this he stood exposed to conviction by men of the first rank in Rome; who being earnest to attack him, he appealed to Caesar: from whom soon after a letter was brought in behalf of Cotta; in it he recounted "the beginning of their friendship," repeated "his many good services to himself," and desired "that words perversely construed, and humorous tales told at an entertainment, might not be wrested into crimes."
Most remarkable was the beginning of that letter; for in these words he introduced it: "What to write you, Conscript Fathers, or in what manner to write, or what at all not to write at this instant; if I can determine, may all the Deities, Gods and Goddesses, doom me still to more cruel agonies than those under which I feel myself perishing daily." So closely did the bloody horror of his cruelties and infamy haunt this man of blood, and became his torturers! Nor was it at random what the wisest of all men {Footnote: Socrates.} was wont to affirm, that if the hearts of tyrants were displayed, in them might be seen deadly wounds and gorings, and all the butcheries of fear and rage; seeing what the severity of stripes is to the body, the same to the soul is the bitter anguish of cruelty, lust, and execrable pursuits. To Tiberius not his imperial fortune, not his gloomy and inaccessible solitudes could ensure tranquillity; nor exempt him from feeling and even avowing the rack in his breast and the avenging furies that pursued him.
After this, it was left to the discretion of the Senate to proceed as they listed against Caecilianus the Senator, "who had loaded Cotta with many imputations;" and it was resolved, "to subject him to the same penalties inflicted upon Aruseius and Sanquinius, the accusers of Lucius Annuntius." A more signal instance of honour than this had never befallen Cotta; who noble in truth, but through luxury indigent, and, for the baseness of his crimes, detestable, was by the dignity of this amends equalled in character to the most venerable reputation and virtues of Arruntius.
About the same time died Lucius Piso, the Pontiff; and, by a felicity, then rare in so much splendour and elevation, died by the course of nature. The author he never himself was of any servile motion, and ever wise in moderating such motions from others, where necessity enforced his assent. That his father had sustained the sublime office of Censor, I have before remembered: he himself lived to fourscore years, and for his warlike feats in Thrace, had obtained the glory of triumph. But from hence arose his most distinguished glory, that being created Governor of Rome, a jurisdiction newly instituted, and the more difficult, as not yet settled into public reverence, he tempered it wonderfully and possessed it long.
For, of old, to supply the absence of the Kings, and afterwards of the Consuls, that the city might not remain without a ruler, a temporary Magistrate was appointed to administer justice, and watch over exigencies: and it is said that by Romulus was deputed Denter Romulius; Numa Marcius, by Tullus Hostilius; and by Tarquin the Proud, Spurius Lucretius. The same delegation was made by the Consuls; and there remains still a shadow of the old institution, when during the Latin festival, one is authorised to discharge the Consular function. Moreover, Augustus during the Civil Wars, committed to Cilnius Maecenas of the Equestrian Order, the Government of Rome and of all Italy. Afterwards, when sole master of the Empire, and moved by the immense multitude of people and the slowness of relief from the laws, he chose a Consular to bridle the licentiousness of the slaves, and to awe such turbulent citizens as are only quiet from the dread of chastisement. Messala Corvinus was the first invested with this authority, and in a few days dismissed, as a man insufficient to discharge it. It was then filled by Taurus Statilius, who, though very ancient, sustained it with signal honour. After him Piso held it for twenty years, with a credit so high and uninterrupted, that he was distinguished with a public funeral, by decree of the Senate.
A motion was thereafter made in Senate by Quinctilianus, Tribune of the People, concerning a Book of the Sibyl, which Caninius Gallus, one of the College of Fifteen, had prayed "might be received by a decree amongst the rest of that Prophetess." The decree passed without opposition, but was followed by letters from Tiberius. In them having gently chid the Tribune, "as young and therefore unskilled in the ancient usages," he upbraided Gallus, "that he who was so long practised in the science of sacred ceremonies, should without taking the opinion of his own college, without the usual reading and deliberation with the other Priests, deal, by surprise, with a thin Senate, to admit a prophetic book of an uncertain author." He also advertised them "of the conduct of Augustus, who, to suppress the multitude of fictious predictions everywhere published under the solemn name of the Sibyl, had ordained, that within a precise day, they should be carried to the City Praetor; and made it unlawful to keep them in private hands." The same had likewise been decreed by our ancestors, when after the burning of the capitol in the Social War, the Rhymes of the Sibyl (whether there were but one, or more) were everywhere sought, in Samos, Ilium, and Erythrae, through Africa too and Sicily and all the Roman colonies, with injunctions to the Priests, that, as far as human wit could enable them, they would separate the genuine. Therefore, upon this occasion also, the book was subjected to the inspection of the Quindecimvirate.
Under the same Consuls, the dearth of corn had nigh raised a sedition. The populace for many days urged their wants and demands in the public theatre, with a licentiousness towards the Emperor, higher than usual. He was alarmed with this bold spirit, and censured the Magistrates and Senate, "that they had not by the public authority quelled the people." He recounted "the continued supplies of grain which he had caused to be imported; from what provinces, and in how much greater abundance than those procured by Augustus." So that for correcting the populace, a decree passed framed in the strain of ancient severity: nor less vigorous was the edict published by the Consuls. His own silence, which he hoped would be taken by the people as an instance of moderation, was by them imputed to his pride.
In the meanwhile, the whole band of accusers broke loose upon those who augmented their wealth by usury, in contradiction to a law of Caesar the Dictator, "for ascertaining the terms of lending money, and holding mortgages in Italy;" a law waxed long since obsolete, through the selfish passions of men, sacrificing public good to private gain. Usury was, in truth, an inveterate evil in Rome, and the eternal cause of civil discord and seditions, and therefore restrained even in ancient times, while the public manners were not yet greatly corrupted. For, first it was ordained by a law of the twelve tables, "that no man should take higher interest than twelve in the hundred;" when, before, it was exacted at the pleasure of the rich. Afterwards by a regulation of the Tribunes it was reduced to six, and at last was quite abolished. By the people, too, repeated statutes were made, for obviating all elusions, which by whatever frequent expedients repressed, were yet through wonderful devices still springing up afresh. Gracchus the Praetor was therefore now appointed to inquire into the complaints and allegations of the accusers; but, appalled with the multitude of those threatened by the accusation, he had recourse to the Senate. The Fathers also were dismayed (for of this fault not a soul was guiltless) and sought and obtained impunity from the Prince; and a year and six months were granted for balancing all accounts between debtors and creditors, agreeably to the direction of the law.
Hence a great scarcity of money: for, besides that all debts were at once called in; so many delinquents were condemned, that by the sale of their effects, the current coin was swallowed up in the public treasury, or in that of the Emperor. Against this stagnation, the Senate had provided, "that two-thirds of the debts should by every creditor be laid out upon lands in Italy." But the creditors warned in the whole; {Footnote: Demanded payment in full.} nor could the debtors without breach of faith divide the payment. So that at first, meetings and entreaties were tried; and at last it was contested before the Praetor. And the project applied as a remedy; namely, that the debtor should sell, and the creditor buy, had a contrary operation: for the usurers hoarded up all their treasure for purchasing of lands, and the plenty of estates to be sold, miserably sinking the price; the more men were indebted, the more difficult they found it to sell. Many were utterly stripped of their fortunes; and the ruin of their private patrimony drew headlong with it that of their reputation and all public preferment. The destruction was going on, when the Emperor administered relief, by lending a hundred thousand great sesterces {Footnote: About ￡830,000.} for three years, without interest; provided each borrower pawned to the people double the value in inheritance. {Footnote: Gave a security to the State, on landed property.} Thus was credit restored; and by degrees private lenders too were found.
About the same time, Claudia, daughter to Marcus Silanus, was given in marriage to Caligula, who had accompanied his grandfather to Capreae, having always hid under a subdolous guise of modesty, his savage and inhuman spirit: even upon the condemnation of his mother, even for the exile of his brothers, not a word escaped him, not a sigh, nor groan. So blindly observant of Tiberius, that he studied the bent of his temper and seemed to possess it; practised his looks, imitated the change and fashion of his dress, and affected his words and manner of expression. Hence the observation of Passienus the Orator, grew afterwards famous, "that never lived a better slave nor a worse master." Neither would I omit the presage of Tiberius concerning Galba, then Consul. Having sent for him and sifted him upon several subjects, he at last told him in Greek, "and thou, Galba, shalt hereafter taste of Empire;" signifying his late and short sovereignty. This he uttered from his skill in astrology, which at Rhodes he had leisure to learn; and Thrasullus for his teacher, whose capacity he proved by this following trial.
As often as he consulted this way concerning any affair, he retired to the roof of the house, attended by one freedman trusted with the secret. This man strong of body, but destitute of letters, guided along the astrologer, whose art Tiberius meant to try, over solitary precipices (for upon a rock the house stood) and, as he returned, if any suspicion arose that his predictions were vain, or that the author designed fraud, cast him headlong into the sea, to prevent his making discoveries. Thrasullus being therefore led over the same rocks, and minutely consulted, his answers were full, and struck Tiberius; as approaching Empire and many future revolutions were specifically foretold him. The artist was then questioned, "whether he had calculated his own nativity, and thence presaged what was to befall him that same year, nay, that very day?" Thrasullus surveying the positions of the stars, and calculating their aspects, began at first to hesitate, then to quake, and the more he meditated, being more and more dismayed with wonder and dread, he at last cried out, "that over him just then hung a boding danger and well-nigh fatal." Forthwith Tiberius embraced him, congratulated him "upon his foresight of perils, and his security from them;" and esteeming his predictions as so many oracles, held him thenceforward in the rank of his most intimate friends.
For myself, while I listen to these and the like relations, my judgment wavers, whether things human are in their course and rotation determined by Fate and immutable necessity, or left to roll at random. For upon this subject the wisest of the ancients and those addicted to their Sects, are of opposite sentiments. {Footnote: The Epicureans.} Many are of opinion "that to the Gods neither the generation of us men nor our death, and in truth neither men nor the actions of men, are of any importance or concernment: and thence such numberless calamities afflict the upright, while pleasure and prosperity surround the wicked." Others {Footnote: The Stoics.} hold the contrary position, and believe "a Fate to preside over events; a fate however not resulting from wandering stars, but coeval with the first principles of things, and operating by the continued connection of natural causes. Yet their philosophy leaves our course of life in our own free option; but that after the choice is made, the chain of consequences is inevitable: neither is that good or evil, which passes for such in the estimation of the vulgar: many, who seem wounded with adversity, are yet happy; numbers, that wallow in wealth, are yet most wretched: since the first often bear with magnanimity the blows of fortune; and the latter abuse her bounty in baneful pursuits." For the rest, it is common to multitudes of men "to have each their whole future fortunes determined from the moment of their birth: or if some events thwart the prediction, it is through the mistakes of such as pronounce at random, and thence debase the credit of an art, which, both in ages past and our own, hath given signal instances of its certainty." For, to avoid lengthening this digression, I shall remember in its order, how by the son of this same Thrasullus the Empire was predicted to Nero.
During the same Consulship flew abroad the death of Asinius Gallus: that he perished through famine was undoubted; but whether of his own accord, or by constraint, was held uncertain. The pleasure of the Emperor being consulted, "whether he would suffer him to be buried;" he was not ashamed to grant such a piece of mock mercy, nor even to blame the anticipations of casualty, which had withdrawn the criminal, before he was publicly convicted: as if during three intermediate years between his accusation and his death, there wanted time for the trial of an ancient Consular, and the father of so many Consulars. Next perished Drusus, condemned by his grandfather to be starved; but by gnawing the weeds upon which he lay, he by that miserable nourishment protracted life the space of nine days. Some authors relate that, in case Sejanus had resisted and taken arms, Macro had instructions to draw the young man out of confinement (for he was kept in the palace) and set him at the head of the people: afterwards because a report ran, "that the Emperor was about to be reconciled to his daughter-in-law and grandson;" he chose rather to gratify himself by cruelty, than the public by relenting.
Tiberius not satiated with the death of Drusus, even after death pursued him with cruel invectives, and, in a letter to the Senate, charged him with "a body foul with prostitution; with a spirit breathing destruction to his own family, and rage against the Republic;" and ordered to be recited "the minutes of his words and actions, which had been long and daily registered," A proceeding more black with horror could not be devised! That for so many years, there should be those expressly appointed, who were to note down his looks, his groans, his secret and extorted murmurs; that his grandfather should delight to hear the treacherous detail, to read it, and to the public expose it, would appear a series of fraud, meanness and amazement beyond all measure of faith, were it not for the letters of Actius the Centurion, and Didymus the Freedman; who in them declare, particularly, the names of the slaves set purposely to abuse and provoke Drusus, with the several parts they acted; how one struck him going out of his chamber, and how another filled him with terrors and dismay. The Centurion too repeated, as matter of glory, his own language to Drusus, language full of outrage and barbarity, with the words uttered by him under the agonies of famine; that, at first, feigning disorder of spirit, he vented, in the style of a madman, dismal denunciations against Tiberius; but after all hopes of life had forsaken him, then, in steady and deliberate imprecations, he invoked the direful vengeance of the Gods, "that as he had slaughtered his son's wife, slaughtered the son of his brother, and his son's sons, and with slaughters had filled his own house; so they would in justice to the ancestors of the slain, in justice to their posterity, doom him to the dreadful penalties of so many murders." The Senators, in truth, upon this raised a mighty din, under colour of detesting these imprecations: but it was dread which possessed them, and amazement, that he who had been once so dark in the practice of wickedness, and so subtle in the concealment of his bloody spirit, was arrived at such an utter insensibility of shame, that he could thus remove, as it were, the covert of the walls, and represent his own grandson under the ignominious chastisement of a Centurion, torn by the barbarous stripes of slaves, and imploring in vain the last sustenance of life.
Before the impressions of this grief were worn away, the death of Agrippina was published. I suppose she had lived thus long upon the hopes, which from the execution of Sejanus she had conceived; but, feeling afterwards no relaxation of cruelty, death grew her choice: unless she were bereaved of nourishment, and her decease feigned to have been of her own seeking. For, Tiberius raged against her with abominable imputations, reproaching her "with lewdness; as the adulteress of Asinius Gallus; and that upon his death she became weary of life." But these were none of her crimes: Agrippina impatient of an equal lot, and eager for rule, had thence sacrificed to masculine ambition all the passions and vices of women. The Emperor added, "that she departed the same day on which Sejanus had suffered as a traitor two years before, and that the same ought to be perpetuated by a public memorial." Nay, he boasted of his clemency, in "that she had not been strangled, and her body cast into the charnel of malefactors." For this, as for an instance of mercy the Senate solemnly thanked him, and decreed "that, on the seventeenth of October, the day of both their deaths, a yearly offering should be consecrated to Jupiter for ever."
Not long after, Cocceius Nerva, in full prosperity of fortune, in perfect vigour of body, formed a purpose of dying. As he was the incessant companion of the Prince, and accomplished in the knowledge of all laws divine and humane, Tiberius having learnt his design, was earnest to dissuade him, examined his motives, joined entreaties, and even declared, "how grievous to his own spirit it would prove, how grievous to his reputation, if the nearest of his friends should relinquish life, without any cause for dying." Nerva rejected his reasoning, and completed his purpose by abstinence. It was alleged, by such as knew his thoughts, that the more he saw into the dreadful source and increase of public miseries, the more transported with indignation and fear, he resolved to make an honest end, in the bloom of his integrity, e'er his life and credit were assaulted. Moreover the fall of Agrippina, by a reverse hardly credible, procured that of Plancina. She was formerly married to Cneius Piso; and, though she exulted publicly for the death of Germanicus, yet when Piso fell, she was protected by the solicitations of Augusta, nor less by the known animosity of Agrippina. But as favour and hate were now withdrawn, justice prevailed, and being questioned for crimes long since sufficiently manifest, she executed with her own hand that vengeance, which was rather too slow than too severe,
In the Consulship of Paulus Fabius and Lucius Vitellius, after a long vicissitude of ages, the phoenix arrived in Egypt, and furnished the most learned of the natives and Greeks with matter of large and various observations concerning that miraculous bird. The circumstances in which they agree, with many others, that, however disputed, deserve to be known, claim a recital here. That it is a creature sacred to the sun, and in the fashion of its head, and diversity of feathers, distinct from other birds, all who have described its figure, are agreed; about the length of its life, relations vary. It is by the vulgar tradition fixed at five hundred years: but there are those, who extend it to one thousand four hundred and sixty-one; and assert that the three former phoenixes appeared in reigns greatly distant, the first under Sesostris, the next under Amasis; and that one was seen under Ptolomy the third King of Egypt of the Macedonian race, and flew to the city of Heliopolis, accompanied by a vast host of other birds gazing upon the wonderful stranger. But these are, in truth, the obscure accounts of antiquity: between Ptolomy and Tiberius the interval was shorter, not two hundred and fifty years: hence some have believed that the present was a spurious phoenix, and derived not its origin from the territories of Arabia, since it observed nothing of the instinct which ancient tradition attributes to the genuine: for that the latter having completed his course of years, just before his death builds a nest in his native land, and upon it sheds a generative power, from whence arises a young one, whose first care, when he is grown, is to bury his father: neither does he undertake it unadvisedly, but by collecting and fetching loads of myrrh, tries his strength in great journeys; and as soon as he finds himself equal to the burden, and fit for the long flight, he rears upon his back his father's body, carries it quite to the altar of the sun, and then flies away. These are uncertain tales, and their uncertainty heightened by fables; but that this bird has been sometimes seen in Egypt, is not questioned.
The same year the city suffered the grievous calamity of fire, which burnt down that part of the Circus contiguous to Mount Aventine and the Mount itself: a loss which turned to the glory of the Prince, as he paid in money the value of the houses destroyed. A hundred thousand great sesterces {Footnote: About ￡830,000.} he expended in this bounty, which proved the more grateful to the people as he was ever sparing in private buildings: in truth, his public works never exceeded two, the Temple of Augustus and the scene {Footnote: The stage.} of Pompey's Theatre; nor, when he had finished both, did he dedicate either, whether obstructed by old age, or despising popularity. For ascertaining the damage of particulars, the four sons-in-law of Tiberius were appointed, Cneius Domitius, Cassius Longinus, Marcus Vincinus and Rubellius Blandus; assisted by Publius Petronius, nominated by the Consuls. To the Emperor likewise were decreed several honours, variously devised according to the different drift and genius of such as proposed them. Which of these he meant to accept, or which to reject, the approaching issue of his days, has buried in uncertainty. For not long after, Cneius Acerronius and Caius Pontius commenced Consuls; the last under Tiberius. The power of Macro was already excessive; who, as he had at no time neglected the favour of Caligula, courted it now more and more earnestly every day. After the death of Claudia, whom I have mentioned to have been espoused to the young Prince, he constrained Ennia his own wife to stimulate the affections of Caligula and to secure him by a promise of marriage. The truth is, he was one that denied nothing that opened his way to sovereignty; for although of a tempestuous genius, he had yet in the school of his grandfather, well acquired all the hollow guises of dissimulation.
His spirit was known to the Emperor; hence he was puzzled about bequeathing the Empire: and first as to his grandsons; the son of Drusus was nearer in blood, and dearer in point of affection, but as yet a child; the son of Germanicus had arrived at the vigour of youth, and the zeal of the people followed him, a motive this to his grandfather, only to hate him. He had even debates with himself concerning Claudius, because of solid age and naturally inclined to honest pursuits; but the defect of his faculties withstood the choice. In case he sought a successor apart from his own family, he dreaded lest the memory of Augustus, lest the name of the Caesars should come to be scorned and insulted. For, it was not so much any study of his, to gratify the present generation and secure the Roman State, as to perpetuate to posterity the grandeur of his race. So that his mind still wavering and his strength decaying, to the decision of fortune he permitted a counsel to which he was now unequal. Yet he dropped certain words whence might be gathered that he foresaw the events and revolutions which were to come to pass after him: for, he upbraided Macro, by no dark riddle, "that he forsook the setting sun and courted the rising:" and of Caligula, who upon some occasional discourse ridiculed Sylla, he foretold, "that he would have all Sylla's vices, and not one of his virtues." Moreover, as he was, with many tears, embracing the younger of his grandsons, and perceived the countenance of Caligula implacable and provoked; "thou," said he, "wilt slay him, and another shall slay thee." But, however his illness prevailed, he relinquished nothing of his vile voluptuousness; forcing patience, and feigning health. He was wont too to ridicule the prescriptions of physicians, and all men who, after the age of thirty, needed to be informed by any one else, what helped or hurted their constitutions.
At Rome, the while, were sown the sanguinary seeds of executions to be perpetrated even after Tiberius. Laelius Balbus had with high treason charged Acutia, some time the wife of Publius Vitellius; and, as the Senate were, after her condemnation, decreeing a reward to the accuser, the same was obstructed by the interposition of Junius Otho, Tribune of the People: hence their mutual hate, which ended in the exile of Otho. Thereafter Albucilla, who had been married to Satrius Secundus, him that revealed the conspiracy of Sejanus, and herself famous for many amours, was impeached of impious rites devised against the Prince. In the charge were involved, as her associates and adulterers, Cneius Domitius, Vibius Marsus, and Lucius Arruntius. The noble descent of Domitius I have above declared: Marsus too was distinguished by the ancient dignities in his house, and himself illustrious for learning. The minutes, however, transmitted to the Senate imported, "that in the examination of the witnesses, and torture of the slaves, Macro had presided:" neither came these minutes accompanied with any letter from the Emperor against the accused. Hence it was suspected, that, while he was ill, and perhaps without his privacy, the accusations were in great measure forged by Macro, in consequence of his notorious enmity to Arruntius.
Domitius therefore by preparing for his defence, and Marsus by seeming determined to famish, both protracted their lives. Arruntius chose to die; and to the importunity of his friends, urging him to try delays and evasions, he answered, "that the same measures were not alike honourable to all men: his own life was abundantly long; nor had he wherewithal to reproach himself, save that he had submitted to bear thus far an old age loaded with anxieties, exposed to daily dangers, and the cruel sport of power; long hated as he was by Sejanus, now by Macro, always by some reigning minister; hated through no fault of his own, but as one irreconcilable to baseness and the iniquities of power. He might, in truth, outlive and avoid the few and last days of Tiberius: but how escape the youth of his heir? If upon Tiberius at such an age, and after such consummate experience, the violent spirit of unbridled dominion had wrought with such efficacy, as entirely to transport and change him; was it likely that Caligula, he who had scarce outgrown his childhood, a youth ignorant of all things, or nursed and principled in the worst, would follow a course more righteous under the guidance of Macro; the same Macro, who, for destroying Sejanus, was employed as the more wicked of the two, and had since by more mischiefs and cruelties torn and afflicted the Commonweal? For himself; he foresaw a servitude yet more vehement, and therefore withdrew at once from the agonies of past and of impending tyranny." Uttering these words, with the spirit of a prophet, he opened his veins. How wisely Arruntius anticipated death, the following times will terribly demonstrate. For Albucilla; she aimed at her own life, but the blow being impotent, she was by order of Senate dragged to execution in the prison. Against the ministers of her lusts it was decreed, "that Grasidius Sacerdos, formerly Praetor, should be exiled into an island; Pontius Fregellanus be degraded from the Senate; and that upon Laelius Balbus the same penalty be inflicted:" his punishment particularly proved matter of joy, as he was accounted a man of pestilent eloquence, and prompt to attack the innocent.
About the same time, Sextus Papinius of a Consular family, chose on a sudden a frightful end, by a desperate and precipitate fall. The cause was ascribed to his mother, who, after many repulses, had by various allurements and the stimulations of sensuality, urged him to practices and embarrassments from whence, only by dying, he could devise an issue. She was therefore accused in the Senate; and, though in a prostrate posture she embraced the knees of the Fathers, and pleaded "the tenderness and grief of a mother, the imbecility of a woman's spirit under such an affecting calamity;" with other motives of pity in the same doleful strain; she was banished Rome for ten years, till her younger son were past the age of lubricity.
As to Tiberius; already his body, already his spirits failed him; but his dissimulation failed him not. He exerted the same vigour of mind, the same energy in his looks and discourse; and even sometimes studied to be gay, by it to hide his declension however notorious. So that, after much shifting of places, he settled at the Promontory of Misenum, in a villa of which Lucullus was once Lord. There it was discovered that his end was at hand, by this device. In his train was a physician, his name Charicles, signal in his profession, one, in truth, not employed to govern the Prince's health, but wont however to afford his counsel and skill. Charicles, as if he were departing to attend his own affairs, under the appearance of paying duty and kissing his hands, touched his pulse. But the artifice beguiled not Tiberius; for he instantly ordered the entertainment to be served up; whether incensed, and thence the more smothering his wrath, is uncertain: but, at table he continued beyond his wont, as if he meant that honour only for a farewell to his friend. But for all this Charicles satisfied Macro, "that the flame of life was expiring, and could not outlast two days." Hence the whole court was filled with close consultations, and expresses were despatched to the generals and armies. On the 16th of March, so deep a swoon seized him, that he was believed to have paid the last debt of mortality: insomuch that Caligula, in the midst of a great throng, paying their congratulations, was already appearing abroad, to assume the first offices of sovereignty, when sudden notice came, "that Tiberius had recovered his sight and voice, and, to strengthen his fainting spirits, had called for some refreshment." Hence dread seized all, and the whole concourse about Caligula dispersed, every man resuming false sorrow, or feigning ignorance: he himself was struck speechless, and thus fallen from the highest hopes, waited for present death. Macro continued undismayed, and ordering the apartment to be cleared, caused the feeble old man to be smothered with a weight of coverings. Thus expired Tiberius in the seventy-eighth year of his age.
He was the son of Nero, and on both sides a branch of the Claudian House; though his mother had been ingrafted by adoptions into the Livian, and next into the Julian stock. From his first infancy, his life was chequered by various turns and perils: for, then he followed, like an exile, his proscribed father; and when taken in quality of a step-son into the family of Augustus, he long struggled there with many potent rivals, during the lives of Marcellus and Agrippa; next of the young Caesars, Caius and Lucius. His brother Drusus too eclipsed him, and possessed more eminently the hearts of the Roman People. But above all, his marriage with Julia, most egregiously threatened and distressed him; whether he bore the prostitutions of his wife, or relinquished the daughter of Augustus. Upon his return thereafter from Rhodes, he occupied for twelve years the Prince's family, now bereft of heirs, and nigh four-and-twenty ruled the Roman State. His manners also varied with the several junctures of his fortune: he was well esteemed while yet a private man; and, in discharging public dignities under Augustus, of signal reputation: covert and subdolous in feigning virtue so long as Germanicus and Drusus survived: a mixed character of good and evil during the days of his mother: detestably cruel; but secret in his lewdness, while he loved or feared Sejanus: at last he abandoned himself, at once, to the rage of tyranny and the sway of his lusts: for, he had then conquered all the checks of shame and fear, and thenceforth followed only the bent of his own abominable spirit.