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26 - Works of Tacitus by Thomas Gordon, Publius Cornelius Tacitus · Works of Tacitus

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty five of the Complete Works of Tacitus, edited
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  Speaker 1: by Thomas Gordon. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recorded by Graham Redman.
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  Speaker 1: The Complete Works of Tacitus, to which are prefixed political
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  Speaker 1: discourses upon that author, Edited and translated by Thomas Gordon,
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  Speaker 1: with introductory essays by Thomas Gordon. Volume one The Annals,
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  Speaker 1: Book three, Part one, The Disgrace of Piso Agrippina. Notwithstanding
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  Speaker 1: the roughness of winter, pursuing without intermission, her boisterous voyage
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  Speaker 1: put in at the island Corsirah, situation waited over against
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  Speaker 1: the coasts of Calabria. Here to settle her spirit, she
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  Speaker 1: spent a few days, violent in her grief and a
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  Speaker 1: stranger to patience, her arrival being the while divulged all
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  Speaker 1: the particular friends to her family, mostly men of the sword,
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  Speaker 1: many who had served under Germanicus, and even many strangers
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  Speaker 1: from the neighboring towns, some inefficiousness towards the emperor. More
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  Speaker 1: for company crowded to the city of Brindusium, the readiest
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  Speaker 1: port in her way and the safest landing. As soon
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  Speaker 1: as the fleet appeared in the deep, instantly were filled
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  Speaker 1: not the port alone and adjacent shores, but the walls
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  Speaker 1: and roofs, and as far as the eye would go,
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  Speaker 1: filled with the sorrowing multitude. They were consulting one from
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  Speaker 1: one how they should receive her landing, whether with unifor
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  Speaker 1: versal silence, or with some mote of acclamation. Nor was
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  Speaker 1: it manifest which they would do when the fleet sailed
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  Speaker 1: slowly in, not as usual, with joyful sailors and cheerful oars,
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  Speaker 1: but all things impressed with the face of sadness. After
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  Speaker 1: she descended from the ship, accompanied with her two infants,
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  Speaker 1: carrying in her bosom the melancholy urn, with her eyes
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  Speaker 1: cast steadily down, Equal and universal were the groans of
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  Speaker 1: the beholders. Nor could you distinguish relations from strangers, nor
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  Speaker 1: the wailings of men from those of women, unless that
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  Speaker 1: the newcomers, who were recent in their sallies of grief
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  Speaker 1: exceeded Agrippina's attendants wearied out with long lamentations, unless that
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  Speaker 1: the newcomers, who were recent in their salex of grief
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  Speaker 1: exceeded Agrippina's attendants will carried out with long lamentations. Tiberius
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  Speaker 1: had dispatched two Pretorian cohorts with directions that the magistrates
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  Speaker 1: of Calabria, Apulia and Campania should pay their last offices
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  Speaker 1: to the memory of his son upon the shoulders. Therefore
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  Speaker 1: of the tribunes and centurions. His ashes were born before,
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  Speaker 1: when the ensigns rough and unadorned, with the faces reversed,
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  Speaker 1: as they passed through the colonies. The populace were in black,
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  Speaker 1: the knights in purple, and each place, according to its wealth,
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  Speaker 1: burnt precious raiment, perfumes, and whatever else is used in
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  Speaker 1: funeral solemnities. Even they whose cities lay remote attended to
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  Speaker 1: the gods of the dead. They slew victims, they erected altars,
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  Speaker 1: and with tears and united lamentations, testifyed their common sorrow.
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  Speaker 1: Drusus came as far as Terrecina with Claudius, the brother
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  Speaker 1: of Germanicus, and those of his children who had been
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  Speaker 1: left at Rome. The consuls Marcus Valerius and Marcus Aurelius
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  Speaker 1: just then entered upon their office. The Senate and great
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  Speaker 1: part of the people filled the road a scattered procession,
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  Speaker 1: each walking and weeping his own way. In this morning,
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  Speaker 1: flattery had no share, for all knew how real was
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  Speaker 1: the joy, how hollow the grief of Tiberius for the
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  Speaker 1: death of Germanicus. Tiberius and Livia avoided appearing abroad public lamentation.
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  Speaker 1: They thought below their grandeur, or perhaps they apprehended that
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  Speaker 1: their countenances examined by all eyes might show deceitful hearts.
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  Speaker 1: That Antonia, mother to the deceased, bore an any part
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  Speaker 1: in the funeral I do not find either in the
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  Speaker 1: historians or in the city journals, though besides Agrippina and
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  Speaker 1: Drusus and Claudius, his other relations are likewise there recorded
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  Speaker 1: by name. Whether by sickness she was prevented, or whether
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  Speaker 1: her soul, vanquished by sorrow, could not bear the representation
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  Speaker 1: of such a mighty calamity, I would rather believe her
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  Speaker 1: to have been constrained by Tiberius and Livia, who left
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  Speaker 1: not the palace and affecting equal affliction with her. Would
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  Speaker 1: have it seem that, by the example of the mother,
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  Speaker 1: the grandmother too and uncle were detained the day when
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  Speaker 1: his remains were reposited in the tomb of Augustus. Various
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  Speaker 1: were the symptoms of public grief, now an awful silence,
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  Speaker 1: then an uproar of lamentation, the city in every quarter
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  Speaker 1: full of processions, the field of marks in a blaze
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  Speaker 1: of torches. Here the soldiers under arms, the magistrates without
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  Speaker 1: the insignia, the people, by their tribes, all cried in
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  Speaker 1: concert that the commonwealth was fallen, and henceforth there was
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  Speaker 1: no remain of hope. So openly and boldly that you
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  Speaker 1: would have believed they had forgot who bore sway. But
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  Speaker 1: nothing pierced Tiberius more than the ardent affections of the
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  Speaker 1: people towards Agrippina. While they gave her such titles as
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  Speaker 1: the ornament of her country, the only blood of Augustus,
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  Speaker 1: the single instance of ancient virtue, and while applying to Heaven,
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  Speaker 1: they implored the continuance of her issue, that they might
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  Speaker 1: survive the persecuting and malignant. There were those who missed
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  Speaker 1: the pomp of a public funeral, and compared with this
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  Speaker 1: the superior honors and magnificence bestowed by Augustus on their
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  Speaker 1: of Drusus, the father of Germanicus, that he himself had
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  Speaker 1: traveled in the sharpness of winter as far as Pavia
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  Speaker 1: and thence, continuing by the corpse, had with it entered
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  Speaker 1: the city. Round his head were placed the images of
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  Speaker 1: the Claudii and Julii. He was mourned in the forum,
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  Speaker 1: his encomium pronounced in the rosters. All sorts of honors,
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  Speaker 1: such as were the inventions of our ancestors or the
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  Speaker 1: improvements of their posterity, were heaped upon him. But to
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  Speaker 1: Germanicus were denied the ordinary solemnities, and such as were
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  Speaker 1: due to every distinguished Roman in a foreign country. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: his corpse, because of the long journey, was burnt without pomp.
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  Speaker 1: But afterwards it was but just to have supplied the
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  Speaker 1: scantiness of the first ceremony by the solemnity of the last.
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  Speaker 1: His brother at him, but one day's journey his uncle
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  Speaker 1: not even at the gate. Where were those generous observances
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  Speaker 1: of the ancients, the effigies of the dead born on
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  Speaker 1: a bed, hymns composed in memory of their virtue, with
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  Speaker 1: the oblations of praises and tears, Where at least were
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  Speaker 1: the ceremonies, and even outside of sorrow. All this was
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  Speaker 1: known to Tiberius, and to suppress the discourses of the populace,
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  Speaker 1: he published an edict that many illustrious Romans had died
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  Speaker 1: for the commonwealth, but none so vehemently lamented. This, however,
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  Speaker 1: was to the glory of himself and of all men.
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  Speaker 1: If a measure were observed, the same things which became
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  Speaker 1: private families and small states became not princes and an
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  Speaker 1: imperial people. Fresh grief indeed required vent and ease by lament,
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  Speaker 1: but it was now time to recover and fortify their minds.
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  Speaker 1: Thus the deified Julius upon the loss of an only daughter,
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  Speaker 1: thus the deified Augustus, upon the hasty death of his grandsons,
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  Speaker 1: had both vanquished their sorrow. More ancient examples were unnecessary.
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  Speaker 1: How often the Roman people sustained with constancy the slaughter
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  Speaker 1: of their armies, the death that their generals, and entire
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  Speaker 1: destruction of their noblest families. Princes were mortal, the commonwealth
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  Speaker 1: was eternal. They should therefore resume their several vocations, And
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  Speaker 1: because the Megalensian games were at hand, he added that
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  Speaker 1: they should even apply to the usual festivities. The vacation ended,
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  Speaker 1: public affairs were resumed. Drusus departed for the army in
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  Speaker 1: a life ricum, and the minds of all men were
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  Speaker 1: bent upon seeing vengeance done upon Piso, They repeated their
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  Speaker 1: resentments that while he wandered over the delightful countries of
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  Speaker 1: Asia and Greece, he was stifling by contumacious and deceitful
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  Speaker 1: delays the evidences of his crimes. For it was bruted
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  Speaker 1: abroad that Martina, she who was famous for poisonings, and sent,
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  Speaker 1: as I have above related by Caniacentius towards Rome, was
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  Speaker 1: suddenly dead at Bridusium. That poison lay concealed in a
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  Speaker 1: knot of her hair, but upon her body were found
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  Speaker 1: no symptoms of self murder. Piso, sending forward his son
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  Speaker 1: to Rome with instructions how to soften the emperor, proceeded
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  Speaker 1: himself to Drusus him he hoped to find less rigid
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  Speaker 1: for the death of a brother than favorable for the
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  Speaker 1: removal of arrival. Tiberius, to make show of a spirit
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  Speaker 1: perfectly unbiased, received the young man graciously and honored him
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  Speaker 1: with the presence usually bestowed on young noblemen. The answer
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  Speaker 1: of Drusus to Piso was that if the current rumors
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  Speaker 1: were true, he stood in the first place of grief
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  Speaker 1: and revenge. But he hoped they were false and chimerical,
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  Speaker 1: and that the death of Germanicus would be pernicious to none.
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  Speaker 1: This he declared in public and avoided all privacy. Nor
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  Speaker 1: was it doubted, but the answer was dictated by Tiberius,
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  Speaker 1: when a youth otherwise easy and unwary, practiced thus the
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  Speaker 1: wiles and cunning of age. Piso, having crossed the Sea
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  Speaker 1: of Dalmatia and left his ships at Ancona, took first
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  Speaker 1: the road of Picenum and then the Flaminian way for
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  Speaker 1: following the legion, which was going from Pannonia to Rome
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  Speaker 1: and thence to Garrison in Africa. This too became the
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  Speaker 1: subject of popular censure that he officiously mixed with the
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  Speaker 1: soldiers and courted them in their march and quarters. He, therefore,
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  Speaker 1: to avoid suspicion, or because when men are in dread
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  Speaker 1: their conduct waivers, did at Nana embark upon the nar
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  Speaker 1: and then sailed into the Tiber. By landing at the
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  Speaker 1: burying place of the Caesars, he heightened the wrawth of
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  Speaker 1: the populace. Besides, he and Plancina came ashore in open
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  Speaker 1: day in the face of the city, who were crowding
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  Speaker 1: the banks, and proceeded with gay countenances he attended by
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  Speaker 1: a long band of clients, she by a train of ladies.
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  Speaker 1: There were yet other provocations to hatred the situation of
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  Speaker 1: his house, proudly overlooking the formorum, and adorned and illuminated
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  Speaker 1: as for a festival, the banquet and rejoicings held in it,
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  Speaker 1: all as public as the place. The next day, Fulcinius
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  Speaker 1: Trio arraigned Piso before the consuls, but was opposed by
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  Speaker 1: Vitellius Feranius and others who had accompanied Germanicus. They said
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  Speaker 1: that in this prosecution Trio had no part, nor did
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  Speaker 1: they themselves act as accusers, but only gathered materials, and
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  Speaker 1: as witnesses produced the last injunctions of Germanicus. Trio dropped
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  Speaker 1: that accusation, but got leave to call in question his
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  Speaker 1: former life, and now the Emperor was desired to undertake
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  Speaker 1: the trial, a request which the accused did not at
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  Speaker 1: all oppose, dreading the inclinations of the people and senate,
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  Speaker 1: he knew Tiberius, on the contrary, resolute in despising popular
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  Speaker 1: rumors and in guilt confederate with his mother. Besides that,
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  Speaker 1: truth and misrepresentations were easiest distinguished by a single judge,
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  Speaker 1: but in assemblies, odium and envy often prevailed. Tiberius was
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  Speaker 1: aware of the weight of the trial and with what
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  Speaker 1: reproaches he was assaulted, admitting therefore a few confidants. He
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  Speaker 1: heard the charge of the accusers, as also the apology
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  Speaker 1: of the accused, and left the cause entire to the Senate.
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  Speaker 1: Drusus returned the while from Illyricum, and though the Senate
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  Speaker 1: had for the reduction of Meribodius and other his exploits
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  Speaker 1: the summer before, decreed him the triumph of ovation, he
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  Speaker 1: postponed the honor and privately entered the city Piso. For
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  Speaker 1: his advocates desired Titus Erentius, Vulcinius, Asinius Gallus, as Ninus Marcellus,
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  Speaker 1: and Sextus Pompeius. But they all framed different excuses, and
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  Speaker 1: he had in their room Marcus Lepidus, Lucius Piso, Leveneus, Regulus.
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  Speaker 1: Now earnest were the expectations of all men, How great
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  Speaker 1: would prove the fidelity of the friends of Germanicus Haught,
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  Speaker 1: the assurance of the criminal thought the behavior of Tiberius,
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  Speaker 1: whether he would sufficiently smother or betray his sentiments. He
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  Speaker 1: never had a more anxious part. Neither did the people
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  Speaker 1: ever indulge themselves in such secret murmurs against their emperor,
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  Speaker 1: nor harbor in silence severer suspicions. When the Senate met,
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  Speaker 1: Tiberius made a speech full of labored moderation, that Piso
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  Speaker 1: had been his father's lieutenant friend, and lately appointed by
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  Speaker 1: himself at the direction of the Senate coadjutor to Germanicus
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  Speaker 1: in administering the affairs of the East. Whether he had
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  Speaker 1: there by contumacy and opposition, exasperated the young prince and
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  Speaker 1: exulted over his death, or wickedly procured it, they were
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  Speaker 1: then to judge with minds unprejudiced. For if he who
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  Speaker 1: was the lieutenant of my son, violated the limits of
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  Speaker 1: his commission, cast off obedience to his general, and even
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  Speaker 1: rejoiced at his decease and at my affliction, I will
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  Speaker 1: detest the man. I will banish him from my house,
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  Speaker 1: and for domestic injuries, exert domestic revenge, not the revenge
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  Speaker 1: of an emperor, but for you, if his guilt of
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  Speaker 1: any man's death, forsoever be discovered, show your just vengeance,
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  Speaker 1: and by it satisfy yourself, satisfy the children of Germanicus
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  Speaker 1: and us his father, and grandmother, Consider too, especially whether
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  Speaker 1: he vitiated the discipline and promoted sedition in the army,
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  Speaker 1: whether he sought to debauch the affections of the soldiers
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  Speaker 1: and to recover the province by arms, or whether these
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  Speaker 1: allegations are not published falsely and with aggravations by the accusers,
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  Speaker 1: with whose overpassionate Zeal I am justly offended. For whither
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  Speaker 1: tended the stripping the corpse and exposing it to the
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  Speaker 1: eyes and examination of the populace. With what view was
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  Speaker 1: it proclaimed even to foreign nations that his death was
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  Speaker 1: the effect of poison? If all this was still doubtful
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  Speaker 1: and remains yet to be tried. It is true I
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  Speaker 1: bewail my son, and shall ever bewail him. But neither
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  Speaker 1: do I hinder the accused to do what in him
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  Speaker 1: lies to manifest his innocence, even at the expense of Germanicus.
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  Speaker 1: If aught blameable was in him from you, I entreat
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  Speaker 1: the same impartiality. Let not the connection of my sorrow
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  Speaker 1: with this cause mislead you to take crimes for proved,
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  Speaker 1: because they are imputed. For Piso, If the tenderness of kinsmen,
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  Speaker 1: if the faith of friends has furnished him with patrons.
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  Speaker 1: Let them aid him in his peril, show their utmost eloquence,
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  Speaker 1: and exert their best diligence to the same pains, to
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  Speaker 1: the same firmness I exhort the accusers. Thus much out
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  Speaker 1: of the common course, we will grant to the memory
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  Speaker 1: of Germanicus, that the inquest concerning his death be held
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  Speaker 1: rather here than in the Forum, in the Senate, than
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  Speaker 1: in the common tribunals. In all the rest we will
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  Speaker 1: descend to the ordinary methods. Let no man in this
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  Speaker 1: cause considered Drusus's tears. Let none regard my sorrow no
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  Speaker 1: more than the probable fictions of calumny against us. Two
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  Speaker 1: days were then appointed for maintaining the charge, six for
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  Speaker 1: preparing the defense, and three for making it Fulcinius began
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  Speaker 1: with things stale and impertinent about the ambition and rappin
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  Speaker 1: of Piso in his administration of Spain, things which, though proved,
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  Speaker 1: brought him under no penalty if acquitted of the present charge,
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  Speaker 1: Nor though he had been cleared of former faults, could
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  Speaker 1: he escape the load of greater enormities after him. Servius, Verinius,
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  Speaker 1: and Vitellius, all with equal zeal but Vitellius, with great eloquence,
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  Speaker 1: urged that Piso, in hatred to Germanicus and passionate for innovations,
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  Speaker 1: by tolerating general licentiousness and the oppression of the allies,
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  Speaker 1: corrupted the common soldiers to that degree that by the
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  Speaker 1: most profligate he was styled father of the legions. He had,
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  Speaker 1: on the contrary, been outrageous to the best men, above
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  Speaker 1: all to the friends and companions of Germanicus, and at last,
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  Speaker 1: by witchcraft and poison, destroyed Germanicus himself. Hence the infernal
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  Speaker 1: charms and immolations practiced by him and Plancina. He had
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  Speaker 1: then attacked the commonwealth with open arms, and before he
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  Speaker 1: could be brought to be tried, they were forced to
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  Speaker 1: fight and defeat him. In every article but one, his
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  Speaker 1: defense was faltering, for neither his dangerous intrigues in debauching
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  Speaker 1: the soldiery, nor his abandoning the province to the most
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  Speaker 1: profligate and rapacious, nor even his insults to Germanicus, were
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  Speaker 1: to be denied. He seemed only to wipe off the
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  Speaker 1: charge of poison, a charge which in truth was not
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  Speaker 1: sufficiently corroborated by the accusers, since they had only to
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  Speaker 1: allege that at an entertainment of Germanicus, Piso, while he
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  Speaker 1: sat above him with his hands, poisoned the meat. It
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  Speaker 1: appeared absurd that amongst so many attending slaves besides his own,
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  Speaker 1: in so great a presence and under the eye of Germanicus,
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  Speaker 1: he would attempt it. He himself required that the waiters
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  Speaker 1: might be racked, and offered to the rack his own domestics.
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  Speaker 1: But the judges were implacable from different motives. Tiberius for
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  Speaker 1: the war raised in the province, and the Senate could
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  Speaker 1: never be convinced that the death of Germanicus was not
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  Speaker 1: the effect of fraud. Some moved for the letters written
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  Speaker 1: to Piso from Rome a motion of hose by Tiberius
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  Speaker 1: no less than by Piso from without. At the same
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: time were heard the cries of the people that if
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  Speaker 1: he escaped the judgment of the Senate, they would with
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  Speaker 1: their own hands destroy him. They had already dragged his
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  Speaker 1: statues to the place from whence malefactors were precipitated, and
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  Speaker 1: there had broken them. But by the orders of Tiberius
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  Speaker 1: they were rescued and replaced. Piso was put into a
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  Speaker 1: litter and carried back by a tribune of a praetorian cohort,
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  Speaker 1: and attendants variously understood whether that officer was intended as
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  Speaker 1: a guard for his safety or a minister of death.
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  Speaker 1: Plancina was under equal public hatred, but had more secret favor.
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  Speaker 1: Hence it was doubted how far Tiberius durst proceed against
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  Speaker 1: her for herself, while her husband's hopes were yet plausible,
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  Speaker 1: she professed that she would accompany his fortune, whatever it were,
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  Speaker 1: and if he fell, fall with him. But when by
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  Speaker 1: the secret solicitations of Livia, she had secured her own pardon,
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  Speaker 1: she began by degrees to drop her husband and to
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  Speaker 1: make a separate defense. After this fatal warning, he doubted
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  Speaker 1: whether he should make any further efforts, But by the
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  Speaker 1: advice of his sons, fortifying his mind, he again entered
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  Speaker 1: the Senate. There he found the prosecution renewed, suffered the
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  Speaker 1: declared indignation of the fathers, and saw all things cross
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  Speaker 1: and terrible. But nothing so much daunted him as to
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  Speaker 1: behold Tiberius without mercy, without loth, close, dark, unmovable, and
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  Speaker 1: bent against every access of tenderness. When he was brought home,
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  Speaker 1: as if he were preparing for his further defense. The
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  Speaker 1: next day he wrote some way, which he sealed and
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  Speaker 1: delivered to his freedman. He then washed and anointed, and
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  Speaker 1: took the usual care of his person. Late in the night,
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  Speaker 1: his wife leaving the chamber, he ordered the door to
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  Speaker 1: be shut, and was found at break of day with
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  Speaker 1: his throat cut, his sword lying by him. I remember
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  Speaker 1: to have heard from ancient men that in the hands
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  Speaker 1: of Piso was frequently seen a bundle of writings, which
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: he did not expose, but which, as his friends constantly averred,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: contained the letters of Tiberius and his cruel orders towards Doermanicus.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: That he resolved to lay them before the fathers and
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: to charge the Emperor, but was deluded by the hollow
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: promises of Sir Janus. And that neither did Piso die
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: by his own hands, but by those of an expressant
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: private executioner. I dare affirm not either nor yet ought
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I to conceal the relations of such as still lived
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: when I was a youth. Tiberius, with an assumed air
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: of sadness, complained in the Senate that Piso, by that
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: sort of death, had aimed to load him with obloquy,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: and asked many questions, how he had passed his last day,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: how his last night. The freedman answered to most with prudence,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: to some in confusion. The Emperor then recited the letter
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: sent him by Piso. It was conceived almost in these words,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: oppressed by a combination of my enemies and the imputation
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: of false crimes. Since no place is left here to
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: truth and my innocence to the immortal gods, I appeal
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: that towards you, Caesar, I have lived with sincere faith,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: nor towards your mother with less reverence. For my sons,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: I implore her protection and yours. My son Canius had
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: no share in my late management, whatever it were, since
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: all the while he abode at Rome, my son Marcus
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: dissuaded me from returning to Syria. O that old as
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I am, I had yielded to him, rather than he
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: young as he is to me. Hence more passionately, I
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: pray that, innocent as he is, he suffer not in
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: the punishment of my guilt. By a series of services
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: for five and forty years. I entreat you, by our
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: former fellowship in the consulship, by the memory of the
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: deified Augustus, your father, by his friendship to me by
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: mine to you, I entreat you for the life and
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: fortune of my unhappy son. It is the last request
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: which I shall ever make you of Plancina. He said nothing. Tiberius,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: upon this, cleared the young man of any crime as
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: to the civil war. He alleged the orders of his father,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: which a son could not disobey. He likewise bewailed that
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: noble house, and even the grievous lot of Piso himself,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: however deserved, for Plancina. He pleaded with shame and guilt,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: alleging the importunity of his mother against whom, more particularly
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: the secret murmurs of the best people waxed bitter and poignant.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Was it then the tender part of a grandmother to admit,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: to her sight the murderess of her grandson, to be
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: intimate with her, and to snatch her from the vengeance
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: of the senate. To Germanicus alone was denied what by
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the laws was granted to every citizen. By Vitellius and Varinius.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: The cause of that prince was mourned and pleaded by
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the Emperor and his mother. Plancina was defended and protected.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Henceforth she might pursue her infernal arts so successfully tried
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: repeat her poisonings, and by her arts and poisons, assail
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Agrippina and her children, and with the blood of that
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: most miserable house, satiate the worthy grandmother and uncle. In
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: this mock trial, two days were wasted Tiberius, all the
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: while animating the sons of Piso to defend their mother.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: When the pleaders and witnesses had vigorously pushed the charge
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: and no reply was made, commiseration prevailed over hatred. The
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: consul Aurelius Cotter was first asked his opinion for when
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: the emperor collected the voices, the magistrates likewise voted. Cotter's
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: sentence was that the name of Piso should be raised
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: from the annals part of his estate forfeit did part
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: granted to his son Canius upon changing that name. His
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: son Marcus should be divested of his dignity and content
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: with fifty thousand great Sesterces be banished for ten years,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and to Plancina, at the request of Livia, indemnity should
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: be granted. Much of this sentence was abated by the emperor,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: particularly that of striking Piso's name out of the annals,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: when that of marc Antony, who made war upon his country,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: that of Julus Antonius, who had by adultery violated the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: House of Augustus, continued still there. He also exempted Marcus
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Piso from the ignominy of degradation, and left him his
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: whole paternal inheritance, For as I have already often observed,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: he was incorruptible by any temptations of money, and from
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the shame of having acquitted Plancina, render then more than
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: usually mild. He likewise withstood the motion of Valerius Messalinus
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: for erecting a golden statue in the temple of Mars
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: the Avenger, and that of Caecinna Severus for founding an
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: altar to revenge. Such monuments as these, he argued, were
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: only fit to be raised upon foreign victories. Domestic evils
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: were to be buried in sadness. Messollinus had added that
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: to Tiberius, Livia, Antonia, Agrippina, and Drusus, public thanks were
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: to be rendered for having revenged the death of Germanicus,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: but had omitted to mention. Claudius Messolinus was asked by
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Lucius Aspraynus in the presence of the Senate, whether by
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: design he had omitted him. And then at last the
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: name of Claudius was subjoined to me. The more I
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: rever evolve the events of late or of old, the
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: more of mockery and slipperiness appears in all human wisdom
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and the transactions of men. For in popular fame, in
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: the hopes, wishes, and veneration of the public, all men
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: were rather destined to the Empire than he for whom
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: fortune then reserved the sovereignty. In the dark end of
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Section twenty five,