The Histories & The Annals. Tacitus

into the Nar, “as it would burst in a flood on the entire neighbourhood. Nature had admirably provided for human interests in having assigned to rivers their mouths, their channels, and their limits, as well as their sources. Regard, too, must be paid to the different religions of the allies, who had dedicated sacred rites, groves, and altars to the rivers of their country. Tiber himself would be altogether unwilling to be deprived of his neighbour streams and to flow with less glory.” Either the entreaties of the colonies, or the difficulty of the work or superstitious motives prevailed, and they yielded to Piso’s opinion, who declared himself against any change.

      Poppaeus Sabinus was continued in his government of the province of Moesia with the addition of Achaia and Macedonia. It was part of Tiberius’ character to prolong indefinitely military commands and to keep many men to the end of their life with the same armies and in the same administrations. Various motives have been assigned for this. Some say that, out of aversion to any fresh anxiety, he retained what he had once approved as a permanent arrangement; others, that he grudged to see many enjoying promotion. Some, again, think that though he had an acute intellect, his judgment was irresolute, for he did not seek out eminent merit, and yet he detested vice. From the best men he apprehended danger to himself, from the worst, disgrace to the State. He went so far at last in this irresolution, that he appointed to provinces men whom he did not mean to allow to leave Rome.

      I can hardly venture on any positive statement about the consular elections, now held for the first time under this emperor, or, indeed, subsequently, so conflicting are the accounts we find not only in historians but in Tiberius’ own speeches. Sometimes he kept back the names of the candidates, describing their origin, their life and military career, so that it might be understood who they were. Occasionally even these hints were withheld, and, after urging them not to disturb the elections by canvassing, he would promise his own help towards the result. Generally he declared that only those had offered themselves to him as candidates whose names he had given to the consuls, and that others might offer themselves if they had confidence in their influence or merit. A plausible profession this in words, but really unmeaning and delusive, and the greater the disguise of freedom which marked it, the more cruel the enslavement into which it was soon to plunge us.

      BOOK II.

       A.D. 16-19

       Table of Contents

      In the consulship of Sisenna Statilius Taurus and Lucius Libo there was a commotion in the kingdoms and Roman provinces of the East. It had its origin among the Parthians, who disdained as a foreigner a king whom they had sought and received from Rome, though he was of the family of the Arsacids. This was Vonones, who had been given as an hostage to Augustus by Phraates. For although he had driven before him armies and generals from Rome, Phraates had shown to Augustus every token of reverence and had sent him some of his children, to cement the friendship, not so much from dread of us as from distrust of the loyalty of his countrymen.

      After the death of Phraates and the succeeding kings in the bloodshed of civil wars, there came to Rome envoys from the chief men of Parthia, in quest of Vonones, his eldest son. Caesar thought this a great honour to himself, and loaded Vonones with wealth. The barbarians, too, welcomed him with rejoicing, as is usual with new rulers. Soon they felt shame at Parthians having become degenerate, at their having sought a king from another world, one too infected with the training of the enemy, at the throne of the Arsacids now being possessed and given away among the provinces of Rome. “Where,” they asked, “was the glory of the men who slew Crassus, who drove out Antonius, if Caesar’s drudge, after an endurance of so many years’ slavery, were to rule over Parthians.”

      Vonones himself too further provoked their disdain, by his contrast with their ancestral manners, by his rare indulgence in the chase, by his feeble interest in horses, by the litter in which he was carried whenever he made a progress through their cities, and by his contemptuous dislike of their national festivities. They also ridiculed his Greek attendants and his keeping under seal the commonest household articles. But he was easy of approach; his courtesy was open to all, and he had thus virtues with which the Parthians were unfamiliar, and vices new to them. And as his ways were quite alien from theirs they hated alike what was bad and what was good in him.

      Accordingly they summoned Artabanus, an Arsacid by blood, who had grown to manhood among the Dahae, and who, though routed in the first encounter, rallied his forces and possessed himself of the kingdom. The conquered Vonones found a refuge in Armenia, then a free country, and exposed to the power of Parthia and Rome, without being trusted by either, in consequence of the crime of Antonius, who, under the guise of friendship, had inveigled Artavasdes, king of the Armenians, then loaded him with chains, and finally murdered him. His son, Artaxias, our bitter foe because of his father’s memory, found defence for himself and his kingdom in the might of the Arsacids. When he was slain by the treachery of kinsmen, Caesar gave Tigranes to the Armenians, and he was put in possession of the kingdom under the escort of Tiberius Nero. But neither Tigranes nor his children reigned long, though, in foreign fashion, they were united in marriage and in royal power.

      Next, at the bidding of Augustus, Artavasdes was set on the throne, nor was he deposed without disaster to ourselves. Caius Caesar was then appointed to restore order in Armenia. He put over the Armenians Ariobarzanes, a Mede by birth, whom they willingly accepted, because of his singularly handsome person and noble spirit. On the death of Ariobarzanes through a fatal accident, they would not endure his son. Having tried the government of a woman named Erato and having soon afterwards driven her from them, bewildered and disorganised, rather indeed without a ruler than enjoying freedom, they received for their king the fugitive Vonones. When, however, Artabanus began to threaten, and but feeble support could be given by the Armenians, or war with Parthia would have to be undertaken, if Vonones was to be upheld by our arms, the governor of Syria, Creticus Silanus, sent for him and kept him under surveillance, letting him retain his royal pomp and title. How Vonones meditated an escape from this mockery, I will relate in the proper place.

      Meanwhile the commotion in the East was rather pleasing to Tiberius, as it was a pretext for withdrawing Germanicus from the legions which knew him well, and placing him over new provinces where he would be exposed both to treachery and to disasters. Germanicus, however, in proportion to the strength of the soldiers’ attachment and to his uncle’s dislike, was eager to hasten his victory, and he pondered on plans of battle, and on the reverses or successes which during more than three years of war had fallen to his lot. The Germans, he knew, were beaten in the field and on fair ground; they were helped by woods, swamps, short summers, and early winters. His own troops were affected not so much by wounds as by long marches and damage to their arms. Gaul had been exhausted by supplying horses; a long baggage-train presented facilities for ambuscades, and was embarrassing to its defenders. But by embarking on the sea, invasion would be easy for them, and a surprise to the enemy, while a campaign too would be more quickly begun, the legions and supplies would be brought up simultaneously, and the cavalry with their horses would arrive, in good condition, by the rivermouths and channels, at the heart of Germany.

      To this accordingly he gave his mind, and sent Publius Vitellius and Caius Antius to collect the taxes of Gaul. Silius, Anteius, and Caecina had the charge of building a fleet. It seemed that a thousand vessels were required, and they were speedily constructed, some of small draught with a narrow stem and stern and a broad centre, that they might bear the waves more easily; some flat-bottomed, that they might ground without being injured; several, furnished with a rudder at each end, so that by a sudden shifting of the oars they might be run into shore either way. Many were covered in with decks, on which engines for missiles might be conveyed, and were also fit for the carrying of horses or supplies, and being equipped with sails as well as rapidly moved by oars, they assumed, through the enthusiasm of our soldiers, an imposing and formidable aspect.

      The island of the Batavi was the appointed rendezvous, because of its easy landing-places, and its convenience for receiving the army and carrying the war across the river. For the Rhine after flowing continuously in a single channel or encircling merely insignificant islands, divides itself, so to say, where the Batavian territory begins, into two rivers, retaining