It was now that he celebrated a corresponding number
of "Preservation Sacrifices," as he called them,
and dedicated the forum for the sale of dainties,
called
Macellum
.
19
Somewhat later he instituted a different
kind of feast (called Juvenalia, a word that
showed it belonged in some way to "youth"). The
occasion was the shaving of his beard for the first
time. The hairs he cast into a small golden globe and
offered to Jupiter Capitolinus. To furnish amusement
members of the noblest families as well as others
did not fail to give exhibitions. For instance, Aelia
Catella danced: he was first of all a man prominent
for family and wealth and also advanced in years,--he
was eighty years of age. Others who on account of
old age or disease could not do anything on their own
account sang as chorus. All devoted themselves to
practicing as much as and by whatever way they were
able. Regularly appointed "schools" were frequented
by the most distinguished men, women, girls,
lads, old women, old men. In case any one was unable
to appear in any other fashion, he would enter the
choruses. And whereas some of them out of shame
had put on masks to avoid being recognized, Nero at
the request of the populace had them taken off and
showed these people to those by whom they had once
been ruled. Now most of all it was that these amateur
performers and others deemed the dead happy; for
many of the foremost men this year had been slain.
Some of them, charged with conspiracy against Nero,
were surrounded by the soldiers and stoned to death.
20
And, as there needed to be a fitting climax to these
deeds, Nero himself appeared as an actor and Gallio
[
]
proclaimed him by name. There stood Caesar on
the stage wearing the garb of a singing zither-player.
Spoke the emperor: "My lords, of your kindness
give me ear." Then did the Augustus sing to the
zither a thing called "Attis or the Bacchantes,"
[
]
whilst many soldiers stood by and all the people that
the seats would hold sat watching. Yet had he (according
to the tradition) but a slight voice and an indistinct,
so that he moved all present to laughter and
tears at once. Beside him stood Burrus and Seneca
like teachers prompting a pupil: they would wave their
hands and togas at every utterance and draw others
on to do the same. Indeed, Nero had ready a peculiar
corps of about five thousand soldiers, called Augustans;
these would begin the applause, and all the rest,
however loath, were obliged to shout aloud with them,--except
Thrasea. He would never stoop to such conduct.
But the rest, and especially the prominent men,
gathered with alacrity even when in grief and joined
as if glad in all the shouts of the Augustans. One
could hear them saying: "Excellent Caesar! Apollo!
Augustus! One like unto the Pythian! By thine own
self, O Caesar, no one can surpass thee!" After this
performance he entertained the people at a feast on
boats on the site of the naval battle given by Augustus:
thence at midnight he sailed through a canal into
the Tiber.
A.D. 60 (a.u. 813)
21
This, then, he did to celebrate the shaving of his
chin. In behalf of his preservation and the continuance
of his authority,--thus he gave notice,--he instituted
quinquennial games, naming them Neronia.
In honor of the event he also constructed the gymnasium
at the dedication of which he made a free distribution
of olive oil to the senators and knights. The
crown for singing to the zither, moreover, he took
without a contest, for all others were debarred on the
assumption that they were unworthy of victory.
[And
immediately in their garb he was enrolled on the very
lists of the gymnasium.]
Thenceforward all other
crowns for zither playing at all the contests were sent
to him as the only person competent to win victories
of that sort.
DURATION OF TIME
Nero Aug. (IV), Cornelius Cossus Cossi F. Lentulus.
(A.D. 60 = a.u. 813 = Seventh of Nero, from Oct. 13th).
Caesonius Paetus, P. Petronius Turpilianus.
(A.D. 61 = a.u 814 = Eighth of Nero).
P. Marius Celsus, L. Asinius Gallus.
(A.D. 62 = a.u. 815 = Ninth of Nero).
C. Memmius Regulus, L. Verginius Rufus.
(A.D. 63 = a.u. 816 = Tenth of Nero).
C. Lecanius Bassus, M. Licinius Crassus Frugi.
(A.D. 64 = a.u. 817 = Eleventh of Nero).
A. Licinius Nerva Silanus, M. Vestinus Atticus.
(A.D. 65 = a.u. 818 = Twelfth of Nero).
(A.D. 60 = a.u. 813 = Seventh of Nero, from Oct. 13th).
Caesonius Paetus, P. Petronius Turpilianus.
(A.D. 61 = a.u 814 = Eighth of Nero).
P. Marius Celsus, L. Asinius Gallus.
(A.D. 62 = a.u. 815 = Ninth of Nero).
C. Memmius Regulus, L. Verginius Rufus.
(A.D. 63 = a.u. 816 = Tenth of Nero).
C. Lecanius Bassus, M. Licinius Crassus Frugi.
(A.D. 64 = a.u. 817 = Eleventh of Nero).
A. Licinius Nerva Silanus, M. Vestinus Atticus.
(A.D. 65 = a.u. 818 = Twelfth of Nero).
A.D. 61 (a.u. 814)
1
While this sport was going on at Rome, a terrible
disaster had taken place in Britain. Two cities had
been sacked, eight myriads of Romans and of their
allies had perished, and the island had been lost.
Moreover, all this ruin was brought upon them by a
woman, a fact which in itself caused them the greatest
shame. Heaven evidently gave them in advance an
indication of the catastrophe. At night there was
heard to issue from the senate-house foreign jargon
mingled with laughter and from the theatre outcries
with wailing: yet no mortal man had uttered the
speeches or the groans. Houses under water came to
view in the river Thames,
[
]
and the ocean between the
island and Gaul sometimes grew bloody at flood-tide.
2
The
casus belli
lay in the confiscation of the money
which Claudius had given to the foremost Britons,--Decianus
Catus, governor of the island, announcing
that this must now be sent back. This was one reason [Lacuna]
[
]
and another was that Seneca had lent
them on excellent terms as regards interest a thousand
myriads that they did not want,
[
]
and had afterward
called in this loan all at once and levied on them for
it with severity. But the person who most stirred their
spirits and persuaded them to fight the Romans, who
was deemed worthy to stand at their head and to have
the conduct of the entire war, was a British woman,
Buduica,
[
]
of the royal family and possessed of greater
judgment than often belongs to women. It was she
who gathered the army to the number of nearly twelve
myriads and ascended a tribunal of marshy soil made
after the Roman fashion. In person she was very
tall, with a most sturdy figure and a piercing glance;
her voice was harsh; a great mass of yellow hair fell
below her waist and a large golden necklace clasped
her throat; wound about her was a tunic of every conceivable
color and over it a thick chlamys had been
fastened with a brooch. This was her constant attire.
She now grasped a spear to aid her in terrifying all
beholders and spoke as follows:--
3
"You have had actual experience of the difference
between freedom and slavery. Hence, though some of
you previously through ignorance of which was better
may have been deceived by the alluring announcements
of the Romans, yet now that you have tried both
you have learned how great a mistake you made by
preferring a self-imposed despotism to your ancestral
mode of life. You have come to recognize how far
superior is the poverty of independence to wealth in
servitude. What treatment have we met with that is
not most outrageous, that is not most grievous, ever
since these men insinuated themselves into Britain?
Have we not been deprived of our most numerous and
our greatest possessions entire, while for what remains
we must pay taxes? Besides pasturing and
tilling all the various regions for them do we not contribute
a yearly sum for our very bodies? How much
better it would have been to be sold to masters once
and for all than to ransom ourselves annually and possess
empty names of freedom! How much better to
have been slain and perish rather than go about with
subservient heads! Yet what have I said? Even
dying is not free from expense among them, and you
know what fees we deposit on behalf of the dead.
Throughout the rest of mankind death frees even those
who are in slavery; only in the case of the Romans do
the very dead live for their profit. Why is it that
though none of us has any money,--and how or whence
should we get it?,--we are stripped and despoiled like
a murderer's victims? How should the Romans grow
milder in process of time, when they have conducted
themselves so toward us at the very start,--a period
when all men show consideration for even newly captured
beasts?
4
"But, to tell the truth, it is we who have made ourselves
responsible for all these evils in allowing them
so much as to set foot on the island in the first place
instead of expelling them at once as we did their famous
Julius Caesar,--yes, in not making the idea of attempting
the voyage formidable to them, while they
were as yet far off, as it was to Augustus and to Gaius
Caligula. So great an island, or rather in one sense
a continent encircled by water, do we inhabit, a veritable
world of our own, and so far are we separated by
the ocean from all the rest of mankind that we have
been believed to dwell on a different earth and under
a different sky and some of their wisest men were not
previously sure of even our exact name. Yet for all
this we have been scorned and trampled under foot by
men who know naught else than how to secure gain.
Still, let us even at this late day, if not before,
fellow-citizens, friends and relatives,--for I deem you all
relatives, in that you inhabit a single island and are
called by
[
]
one common name,--let us do our duty while
the memory of freedom still abides within us, that we
may leave both the name and the fact of it to our children.
For if we utterly lose sight of the happy conditions
amid which we were born and bred, what pray
will they do, reared in bondage?
5
"This I say not to inspire you with a hatred of
present circumstances,--that hatred is already apparent,--nor
with a fear of the future,--that fear
you already have,--but to commend you because of
your own accord you choose to do just what you ought,
and to thank you for cooperating so readily with me
and your own selves at once. Be nowise afraid of the
Romans. They are not more numerous than are we
nor yet braver. And the proof is that they have
protected themselves with helmets and breastplates and
greaves and furthermore have equipped their camps
with palisades and walls and ditches to make sure that
they shall suffer no harm by any hostile assault.
[
]
Their fears impel them to choose this method rather
than engage in any active work like us. We enjoy such
a superabundance of bravery that we regard tents as
safer than walls and our shields as affording greater
protection than their whole suits of mail. As a
consequence, we when victorious can capture them and
when overcome by force can elude them. And should
we ever choose to retreat, we can conceal ourselves in
swamps and mountains so inaccessible that we can be
neither found nor taken. The enemy, however, can
neither pursue any one by reason of their heavy armor
nor yet flee. And if they ever should slip away from
us, taking refuge in certain designated spots, there, too,
they are sure to be enclosed as in a trap. These are
some of the respects in which they are vastly inferior to
us, and others are their inability to bear up under
hunger, thirst, cold, or heat, as we can; for they
require shade and protection, they require kneaded bread
and wine and oil, and if the supply of any of these
things fails them they simply perish. For us, on the
other hand, any root or grass serves as bread, any
plant juice as olive oil, any water as wine, any tree
as a house. Indeed, this very region is to us an
acquaintance and ally, but to them unknown and hostile.
As for the rivers, we swim them naked, but they even
with boats can not cross easily. Let us therefore go
against them trusting boldly to good fortune. Let us
show them that they are hares and foxes trying to rule
dogs and wolves."
6
At these words, employing a species of divination,
she let a hare escape from her bosom, and as it ran in
what they considered a lucky direction, the whole multitude
shouted with pleasure, and Buduica raising her
hand to heaven, spoke: "I thank thee, Andraste,
[
]
and call upon thee, who are a woman, being myself also
a woman that rules not burden-bearing Egyptians like
Nitocris, nor merchant Assyrians like Semiramis (of
these things we have heard from the Romans), nor
even the Romans themselves, as did Messalina first
and later Agrippina;--at present their chief is Nero,
in name a man, in fact a woman, as is shown by his
singing, his playing the cithara, his adorning himself:--but
ruling as I do men of Britain that know not how
to till the soil or ply a trade yet are thoroughly versed
in the arts of war and hold all things common, even
children and wives; wherefore the latter possess the
same valor as the males: being therefore queen of such
men and such women I supplicate and pray thee for
victory and salvation and liberty against men insolent,
unjust, insatiable, impious,--if, indeed we ought to
term those creatures men who wash in warm water, eat
artificial dainties, drink unmixed wine, anoint themselves
with myrrh, sleep on soft couches with boys for
bedfellows (and past their prime at that), are slaves
to a zither-player, yes, an inferior zither-player.
Wherefore may this Domitia-Nero
woman
reign no
more over you or over me: let the wench sing and play
the despot over the Romans. They surely deserve to
be in slavery to such a being whose tyranny they have
patiently borne already this long time. But may we,
mistress, ever look to thee alone as our head."
7
After an harangue of this general nature Buduica
led her army against the Romans. The latter chanced
to be without a leader for the reason that Paulinus
their commander had gone on an expedition to Mona,
an island near Britain. This enabled her to sack and
plunder two Roman cities, and, as I said, she wrought
indescribable slaughter. Persons captured by the Britons
underwent every form of most frightful treatment.
The conquerors committed the most atrocious
and bestial outrages. For instance, they hung up
naked the noblest and most distinguished women, cut
off their breasts and sewed them to their mouths, to
make the victims appear to be eating them. After
that they impaled them on sharp skewers run perpendicularly
the whole length of the body. All this they
did to the accompaniment of sacrifices, banquets, and
exhibitions of insolence in all of their sacred places,
but chiefly in the grove of Andate,--that being the
name of their personification of Victory, to whom they
paid the most excessive reverence.
8
It happened that Paulinus had already brought
Mona to terms; hence on learning of the disaster in
Britain he at once set sail thither from Mona. He was
unwilling to risk a conflict with the barbarians immediately,
for he feared their numbers and their frenzy;
therefore he was for postponing the battle to a more
convenient season. But as he grew short of food and
the barbarians did not desist from pressing him hard,
he was compelled, though contrary to his plan, to enter
into an engagement with them. Buduica herself,
heading an army of about twenty-three myriads of
men, rode on a chariot and assigned the rest to their
several stations. Now Paulinus could not extend his
phalanx the width of her whole line, for, even if the
men had been drawn up only one deep, they would not
have stretched far enough, so inferior were they in
numbers: nor did he dare to join battle with one compact
force, for fear he should be surrounded and cut
down. Accordingly, he separated his army into three
divisions in order to fight at several points at once,
and he made each of the divisions so strong that it
could not easily be broken through. While ordering
and arranging his men he likewise exhorted them, saying:
9
"Up, fellow-soldiers! Up, men of Rome! Show
these pests how much even in misfortune we surpass
them. It is a shame for you now to lose ingloriously
what but a short while ago you gained by your valor.
Often have we ourselves and also our fathers with far
fewer numbers than we have at the present conquered
far more numerous antagonists. Fear not the host of
them or their rebellion: their boldness rests on nothing
better than headlong rashness unaided by arms
and exercise. Fear not because they have set on fire a
few cities: they took these not by force nor after a battle,
but one was betrayed and the other abandoned.
Do you now exact from them the proper penalty for
these deeds, that so they may learn by actual experience
what they undertook when they wronged such
men as us."
10
After speaking these words to some he came to a
second group and said: "Now is the occasion, now,
fellow-soldiers, for zeal, for daring. If to-day you
prove yourselves brave men, you will recover what
has slipped from your grasp. If you overcome this
enemy, no one else will any longer withstand us. By
one such battle you will both make sure of your present
possessions and subdue whatever is left. All
soldiers stationed anywhere else will emulate you and
foes will be terror-stricken. Therefore, since it is in
your own hands either to rule fearlessly all mankind,
both the nations that your fathers left under your control
and those which you yourselves have gained in addition,
or else to be bereft of them utterly, choose rather
to be free, to rule, to live in wealth, to enjoy prosperity,
than through indolence to suffer the reverse
of these conditions."
11
After making an address of this sort to the group
in question, he came up to the third division and said
also to them: "You have heard what sort of acts
these wretches have committed against us, nay more,
you have even seen some of them. Therefore choose
either yourselves to suffer the same treatment as previous
victims and furthermore to be driven entirely
out of Britain, or else through victory to avenge those
that perished and also to give to the rest of mankind
an example of mild clemency toward the obedient, of
necessary severity toward the rebellious. I entertain
the highest hopes of victory for our side, counting on
the following factors: first, the assistance of the gods;
they usually cooperate with the party that has been
wronged: second, our inherited bravery; we are Romans
and have shown ourselves superior to all mankind
in various instances of valor: next, our experience;
we have defeated and subdued these very men
that are now arrayed against us: last, our good name;
it is not worthy opponents but our slaves with whom
we are coming in conflict, persons who enjoyed freedom
and self-government only so far as we allowed it.
Yet even should the outcome prove contrary to our
hope,--and I will not shrink from mentioning even
this contingency,--it is better for us to fall fighting
bravely than to be captured and impaled, to see our
own entrails cut out, to be spitted on red hot skewers,
to perish dissolved in boiling water, when we have fallen
into the power of creatures that are very beasts,
savage, lawless, godless. Let us therefore either beat
them or die on the spot. Britain shall be a noble memorial
to us, even though all subsequent Romans
should be driven from it; for in any case our bodies
shall forever possess the land."
12
At the conclusion of exhortations of this sort and
others like them he raised the signal for battle. Thereupon
they approached each other, the barbarians making
a great outcry intermingled with menacing incantations,
but the Romans silently and in order until
they came within a javelin's throw of the enemy.
Then, while the foe were advancing against them at
a walk, the Romans started at a given word and
charged them at full speed, and when the clash came
easily broke through the opposing ranks; but, as they
were surrounded by the great numbers, they had to be
fighting everywhere at once. Their struggle took many
forms. In the first place, light-armed troops might be
in conflict with light-armed, heavy-armed be arrayed
against heavy-armed, cavalry join issue with cavalry;
and against the chariots of the barbarians the Roman
archers would be contending. Again, the barbarians
would assail the Romans with a rush of their chariots,
knocking them helter-skelter, but, since they fought
without breastplates, would be themselves repulsed by
the arrows. Horseman would upset foot-soldier, and
foot-soldier strike down horseman; some, forming in
close order, would go to meet the chariots, and others
would be scattered by them; some would come to close
quarters with the archers and rout them, whereas others
were content to dodge their shafts at a distance:
and all these things went on not at one spot, but in
the three divisions at once. They contended for a long
time, both parties being animated by the same zeal and
daring. Finally, though late in the day, the Romans
prevailed, having slain numbers in the battle, beside
the wagons, or in the wood: they also captured many
alive. Still, not a few made their escape and went on
to prepare to fight a second time. Meanwhile, however,
Buduica fell sick and died. The Britons mourned
her deeply and gave her a costly burial; but, as they
themselves were this time really defeated, they scattered
to their homes.--So far the history of affairs in
Britain.
A.D. 62 (a.u. 815)
13
In Rome Nero had before this sent away Octavia
Augusta, on account of his concubine Sabina, and subsequently
he put her to death. This he did in spite
of the opposition of Burrus, who tried to prevent his
sending her away, and once said to him: "Well, then,
give her back her dowry" (by which he meant the
sovereignty). Indeed, Burrus used such unmitigated
frankness that on one occasion, when he was asked by
the emperor a second time for an opinion on matters
regarding which he had already made clear his attitude,
he answered bluntly: "When I have once had
my say about anything, don't ask me again." So
Nero disposed of him by poison. He also appointed
to command the Pretorians a certain Ofonius Tigillinus,
who outstripped all his contemporaries in licentiousness
and bloodiness.
[It was he who won Nero
away from them and made light of his colleague
Rufus.
[
]
]
To him
the famous sentence of Pythias is
said to have been directed. She had proved the only
exception when all the other attendants of Octavia
had joined Sabina in attacking their mistress, despising
the one because she was in misfortune and toadying
to the other because her influence was strong.
Pythias alone had refused though cruelly tortured to
utter lies against Octavia, and finally, as Tigillinus
continued to urge her, she spat in his face, saying:
"My mistress's privy parts are cleaner, Tigillinus,
than your mouth."
14
The troubles of his relatives Nero turned into
laughter and jest. For instance, after killing Plautus
[
]
he took a look at his head when it was brought to him
and remarked: "I didn't know he had such a big
nose," as much as to say that he would have spared
him, had he been aware of this fact beforehand. And
though he spent practically his whole existence in
tavern life, he forbade others to sell in taverns anything
boiled save vegetables and pea-soup. He put
Pallas out of the way because the latter had accumulated
great wealth that could be counted by the ten
thousand myriads. Likewise he was very liable to
peevishness that showed in his behavior, and at such
times he would not speak a word to his servants or
freedmen but write on tablets whatever he wanted as
well as any orders that he had to give them.
A.D. 63 (a.u. 816)
15
Indeed, when many of those who had gathered at Antium perished,
Nero made that, too, an occasion for a festival.
A certain Thrasea gave his opinion to the effect that for a senator the extreme penalty should be exile.
A certain Thrasea gave his opinion to the effect that for a senator the extreme penalty should be exile.
A.D. 64 (a.u. 817)
To such lengths did Nero's self-indulgence go that
he actually drove chariots in public. Again, one time
after the slaughter of beasts he straightway brought
water into the theatre by means of pipes and produced
a sea-fight: then he let the water out again
and arranged a gladiatorial combat. Last of all he
flooded the place once more and gave a costly public
banquet. The person who had been appointed director
of the banquet was Tigillinus, and a large and complete
equipment had been furnished. The arrangements
made were as follows. In the center and resting
on the water were placed the great wooden wine
vessels, over which boards had been fastened. Round
about it had been built taverns and booths. Thus
Nero and Tigillinus and their fellow-banqueters,
being in the center, held their feast on purple carpets
and soft mattresses, while all the other people
caroused in the taverns. These also entered the
brothels, where unrestrictedly they might enjoy absolutely
any woman to be found there. Now the latter
were some of the most beautiful and distinguished in
the city, both slaves and free, some hetaerae, some virgins,
some wives,--not merely, that is to say, public
wenches, but both girls and women of the very noblest
families. Every man was given authority to have
whichever one he wished, for the women were not
allowed to refuse any one. Consequently, the multitude
being a regular rabble, they drank greedily and
reveled in wanton conduct. So a slave debauched
his mistress in the presence of his master and a
gladiator ravished a girl of noble family while her
father looked on. The shoving and striking and
uproar that went on, first on the part of those who
were going in and second on the part of those who
stood around outside, was disgraceful. Many men
met their death in these encounters, and of the women
some were strangled and some were seized and
carried off.
16
After this Nero had the wish (or rather it had
always been a fixed purpose of his) to make an end
of the whole city and sovereignty during his lifetime.
Priam he deemed wonderfully happy in that he had
seen his country perish at the same moment as his
authority. Accordingly he sent in different directions
men feigning to be drunk or engaged in some indifferent
species of rascality and at first had one or two
or more blazes quietly kindled in different quarters:
people, of course, fell into the utmost confusion, not
being able to find any beginning of the trouble nor to
put any end to it, and meanwhile they became aware
of many strange sights and sounds. For soon there
was nothing to be observed but many fires as in a
camp, and no other phrases fell from men's lips but
"This or that is burning "; "Where?"; "How?";
"Who set it?"; "To the rescue!" An extraordinary
perturbation laid hold on all wherever they
might be, and they ran about as if distracted, some
in one direction and some in another. Some men in
the midst of assisting their neighbors would learn
that their own premises were on fire. Others received
the first intimation of their own possessions being
aflame when informed that they were destroyed. Persons
would run from their houses into the lanes with
some idea of being of assistance from the outside, or
again they would dash into the dwellings from the
streets, appearing to think they could accomplish
something inside. The shouting and screaming of
children, women, men, and graybeards all together
were incessant, so that one could have no consciousness
nor comprehension of anything by reason of the
smoke and shouting combined. On this account some
might be seen standing speechless, as if dumb. All
this time many who were carrying out their goods
and many more who were stealing what belonged to
others kept encountering one another and falling over
the merchandise. It was not possible to get anywhere,
nor yet to stand still; but people pushed and were
pushed back, they upset others and were themselves
upset, many were suffocated, many were crushed: in
fine, no evil that can possibly happen to men at such
a crisis failed to befall them. They could not with
ease find even any avenue of escape, and, if any one
did save himself from some immediate danger, he
usually fell into another one and was lost.
17
This did
not all take place on one day, but lasted for several
days and nights together. Many houses were destroyed
through lack of some one to defend them and
many were set on fire in still more places by persons
who presumably came to the rescue. For the soldiers
(including the night watch), having an eye upon plunder,
instead of extinguishing any blaze kindled greater
conflagrations. While similar scenes were being enacted
at various points a sudden wind caught the fire
and swept it over whatever remained. Consequently
no one concerned himself any longer about goods or
houses, but all the survivors, standing in a place of
safety, gazed upon what seemed to be many islands
and cities burning. There was no longer any grief
over individual losses, for it was swallowed up in the
public lamentation, as men reminded one another how
once before most of their city had been similarly laid
waste by the Gauls.
18
While the whole population was
in this state of mind and many crazed by the disaster
were leaping into the blaze itself, Nero mounted to
the roof of the palace, where nearly the whole conflagration
could be taken in by a sweeping glance, and
having assumed the lyrist's garb he sang the Taking
(as he said) of Ilium, which, to the ordinary vision,
however, appeared to be the Taking of Rome.
The calamity which the city at this time experienced
has no parallel before or since, except in the Gallic
invasion. The whole Palatine hill, the theatre of
Taurus, and nearly two-thirds of the remainder of the
city were burned and countless human beings perished.
The populace invoked curses upon Nero without
intermission, not uttering his name but simply cursing
those who had set the city on fire: and this was
especially the case because they were disturbed by
the memory of the oracle chanted in Tiberius's day.
These were the words:--
"Thrice three hundred cycles of tireless years being ended,
Civil strife shall the Romans destroy."
[15]
And when Nero by way of encouraging them reported
that these verses were nowhere to be found,
they changed and went to repeating another oracle,
which they averred to be a genuine Sibylline production,
namely:--
"Last of the sons of Aeneas a matricide shall govern."
And so it proved, whether this was actually revealed
beforehand by some divination or whether the
populace now for the first time gave it the form of a
divine saying adapted to existing circumstances. For
Nero was indeed the last emperor of the Julian line
descended from Aeneas.
He now began to collect vast sums from both individuals
and nations, sometimes using compulsion, with
the conflagration for his excuse, and sometimes obtaining
it by "voluntary" offers; and the mass of the
Romans had the food supply fund withdrawn.
19
While he was so engaged, he received news from
Armenia and soon after a laurel wreath in honor of
victory. The scattered bodies of soldiery in that
region had been united by Corbulo, who trained them
sedulously after a period of neglect, and then by the
very report of his coming had terrified both Vologaesus,
king of Parthia, and Tiridates, chief of Armenia.
He resembled the primitive Romans in that
besides coming of a brilliant family and besides possessing
much strength of body he was still further
gifted with a shrewd intelligence: and he behaved
with great bravery, with great fairness, and with
great good faith toward all, both friends and enemies.
For these reasons Nero had despatched him
to the scene of war in his own stead and had entrusted
to him a larger force than to anybody else,
being equally assured that the man would subdue the
barbarians and would not revolt against him. And
Corbulo proved neither of these assumptions false.
All other men, however, had it as a particular grievance
against him that he kept faith with Nero. They
were very anxious to get him as emperor in place of
the actual despot, and this conduct of his seemed to
them his only defect.
20
Corbulo, accordingly, had taken Artaxata without a
struggle and had razed the city to the ground. This
exploit finished, he marched in the direction of Tigranocerta,
sparing all the districts that yielded themselves
but devastating the lands of all such as resisted
him. Tigranocerta submitted to him voluntarily,
and he performed other brilliant and glorious
deeds, as a result of which he induced the formidable
Vologaesus to accept terms that accorded with the Roman
reputation.
[For Vologaesus, on hearing that
Nero had assigned Armenia to others and that Adiabene
was being ravaged by Tigranes, made preparations
himself to go on a campaign into Syria against
Corbulo, but sent into Armenia Monobazus, king of
Adiabene, and Monaeses, a Parthian. These two had
shut up Tigranes in Tigranocerta. But since they did
not succeed in harming him at all by their siege and as
often as they tried conclusions with him were repulsed
by both the native troops and the Romans that were
in his army, and since Corbulo guarded Syria with
extreme care, Vologaesus recognized the hopelessness
of his attempt and disbanded his forces. Then he sent
to Corbulo and obtained peace on condition that he
send a new embassy to Nero, raise the siege,
and withdraw his soldiers from Armenia. Nero made
him no immediate nor speedy nor definite reply, but
despatched Lucius Caesennius Paetus to Cappadocia to
see to it that there should be no Armenian uprising.]