In the consulship of Cornelius Cethegus and Visellius Varro, the pontiffs, whose example was followed by the other priests in offering prayers for the emperor's health, commended also Nero and Drusus to the same deities, not so much out of love for the young princes as out of sycophancy, the absence and excess of which in a corrupt age are alike dangerous.Tiberius indeed, who was never friendly to the house of Germanicus, was then vexed beyond endurance at their youth being honoured equally with his declining years.He summoned the pontiffs, and asked them whether it was to the entreaties or the threats of Agrippina that they had made this concession.And though they gave a flat denial, he rebuked them but gently, for many of them were her own relatives or were leading men in the State.
However he addressed a warning to the Senate against encouraging pride in their young and excitable minds by premature honours.For Sejanus spoke vehemently, and charged them with rending the State almost by civil war."There were those," he said, "who called themselves the party of Agrippina, and, unless they were checked, there would be more; the only remedy for the increasing discord was the overthrow of one or two of the most enterprising leaders."Accordingly he attacked Caius Silius and Titius Sabinus.The friendship of Germanicus was fatal to both.As for Silius, his having commanded a great army for seven years, and won in Germany the distinctions of a triumph for his success in the war with Sacrovir, would make his downfall all the more tremendous and so spread greater terror among others.Many thought that he had provoked further displeasure by his own presumption and his extravagant boasts that his troops had been steadfastly loyal, while other armies were falling into mutiny, and that Tiberius's throne could not have lasted had his legions too been bent on revolution.All this the emperor regarded as undermining his own power, which seemed to be unequal to the burden of such an obligation.For benefits received are a delight to us as long as we think we can requite them; when that possibility is far exceeded, they are repaid with hatred instead of gratitude.
Silius had a wife, Sosia Galla, whose love of Agrippina made her hateful to the emperor.The two, it was decided, were to be attacked, but Sabinus was to be put off for a time.Varro, the consul, was let loose on them, who, under colour of a hereditary feud, humoured the malignity of Sejanus to his own disgrace.The accused begged a brief respite, until the prosecutor's consulship expired, but the emperor opposed the request."It was usual," he argued, "for magistrates to bring a private citizen to trial, and a consul's authority ought not to be impaired, seeing that it rested with his vigilance to guard the commonwealth from loss." It was characteristic of Tiberius to veil new devices in wickedness under ancient names.And so, with a solemn appeal, he summoned the Senate, as if there were any laws by which Silius was being tried, as if Varro were a real consul, or Rome a commonwealth.The accused either said nothing, or, if he attempted to defend himself, hinted, not obscurely, at the person whose resentment was crushing him.A long concealed complicity in Sacrovir's rebellion, a rapacity which sullied his victory, and his wife Sosia's conduct, were alleged against him.
Unquestionably, they could not extricate themselves from the charge of extortion.The whole affair however was conducted as a trial for treason, and Silius forestalled impending doom by a self-inflicted death.
Yet there was a merciless confiscation of his property, though not to refund their money to the provincials, none of whom pressed any demand.But Augustus's bounty was wrested from him, and the claims of the imperial exchequer were computed in detail.This was the first instance on Tiberius's part of sharp dealing with the wealth of others.Sosia was banished on the motion of Asinius Gallus, who had proposed that half her estate should be confiscated, half left to the children.Marcus Lepidus, on the contrary, was for giving a fourth to the prosecutors, as the law required, and the remainder to the children.
This Lepidus, I am satisfied, was for that age a wise and high-principled man.Many a cruel suggestion made by the flattery of others he changed for the better, and yet he did not want tact, seeing that he always enjoyed an uniform prestige, and also the favour of Tiberius.This compels me to doubt whether the liking of princes for some men and their antipathy to others depend, like other contingencies, on a fate and destiny to which we are born, or, to some degree, on our own plans; so that it is possible to pursue a course between a defiant independence and a debasing servility, free from ambition and its perils.Messalinus Cotta, of equally illustrious ancestry as Lepidus, but wholly different in disposition, proposed that the Senate should pass a decree providing that even innocent governors who knew nothing of the delinquencies of others should be punished for their wives' offences in the provinces as much as for their own.
Proceedings were then taken against Calpurnius Piso, a high-spirited nobleman.He it was, as I have related, who had exclaimed more than once in the Senate that he would quit Rome because of the combinations of the informers, and had dared in defiance of Augusta's power, to sue Urgulania and summon her from the emperor's palace.Tiberius submitted to this at the time not ungraciously, but the remembrance of it was vividly impressed on a mind which brooded over its resentments, even though the first impulse of his displeasure had subsided.
