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

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty one 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, 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 two, Section three. Debates in the Senate next time
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  Speaker 1: the Senate sat long discourses against the luxury of the
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  Speaker 1: city were made by Quintus Haterius, a consular, and by
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  Speaker 1: Octavius Fronto, formerly Preter, and a law was passed against
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  Speaker 1: using table plate of solid gold, and against men's debasing
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  Speaker 1: themselves with gorgeous and effeminate silks. Fronto went farther and
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  Speaker 1: desired that the quantities of silver plate, the expense of furniture,
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  Speaker 1: and the number of domestics might be limited. For it
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  Speaker 1: was yet common for senators to depart from the present
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  Speaker 1: debate and offer as their advice whatever they judged conducing
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  Speaker 1: to the interests of the commonweal. Against him, it was
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  Speaker 1: argued by Aucinious Gallus that with the growth of the empire,
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  Speaker 1: private riches were likewise grown, and it was no new
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  Speaker 1: thing for citizens to live according to their conditions, but
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  Speaker 1: indeed agreeable to the most primitive usage. The ancient fabricie
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  Speaker 1: and the latter sipias, having different wealth, lived differently, but
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  Speaker 1: all suitably to the several stages of the commonwealth. Public
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  Speaker 1: poverty was accompanied with domestic but when the state rose
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  Speaker 1: to such a height of magnificence, the magnificence of particulars
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  Speaker 1: rose too. As to plate and train and expense, there
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  Speaker 1: was no standard of excess or frugality, but from the
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  Speaker 1: fortunes of men. The law indeed had made a distinction
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  Speaker 1: between the fortunes of senators and of knights, not for
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  Speaker 1: any natural difference between them, but that they who excelled
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  Speaker 1: in place rank and civil pre eminence, might excel to
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  Speaker 1: in other particulars, such as conduced to the health of
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  Speaker 1: the body, or to the peace and solacement of the soul.
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  Speaker 1: Unless it were expected that the most illustrious citizens should
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  Speaker 1: sustain the sharpest cares and undergo the heaviest fatigues and dangers,
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  Speaker 1: but continued destitute of every alleviation of fatigue and danger
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  Speaker 1: and care, Gallus easily prevailed, whilst under worthy names he
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  Speaker 1: avowed and supported popular vices in an assembly engaged in them.
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  Speaker 1: Tiberius too had said that it was not a season
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  Speaker 1: for reformation, or if there were any corruption of nanos,
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  Speaker 1: there would not be wanting one to correct them. During
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  Speaker 1: these transactions, Lucius Piso, after he had declaimed bitterly in
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  Speaker 1: the Senate against the cabals and intrigues of the Forum,
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  Speaker 1: the corruption of the tribunals, and the inhumanity of the
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  Speaker 1: pleader's breathing continual terror and impeachments, declared he would entirely
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  Speaker 1: relinquish Rome and retire into a quiet corner of the country,
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  Speaker 1: far distant and obscure. With these words he left the Senate.
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  Speaker 1: Tiberius was provoked, and yet not only soothed him with
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  Speaker 1: gentle words, but likewise obliged Piso's relations by their authority
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  Speaker 1: or entreaties to retain him. The same Piso gave soon
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  Speaker 1: after an equal instance of the indignation of a free
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  Speaker 1: spirit by prosecuting a suit against Ergulania, a lady whom
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  Speaker 1: the partial friendship of Livia had set at defiance with
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  Speaker 1: the laws. Urgulania, being carried for protection to the palace,
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  Speaker 1: despised the efforts of Piso, so that neither did she
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  Speaker 1: submit nor would he desist, notwithstanding the complaints and resentments
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  Speaker 1: of Livia that in the prosecution violence and indignity were
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  Speaker 1: done to her own person. Tiberius promised to attend the
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  Speaker 1: trial and assist Urgulania, but only promised in civility to
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  Speaker 1: his mother. For so far he thought it became him,
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  Speaker 1: and thus left the palace, ordering his guards to follow
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  Speaker 1: at a distance. People the while crowded about him, and
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  Speaker 1: he walked with a slow and composed air. As he
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  Speaker 1: lingered and prolonged the time and way with various discourse.
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  Speaker 1: The trial went on. Piso would not be mollified by
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  Speaker 1: the importunity of his friends, and hence, at last the
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  Speaker 1: Empress ordered the payment of the money claimed by him.
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  Speaker 1: This was the issue of the affair. By it Piso
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  Speaker 1: lost no renown, and it signally increased the credit of Tiberius.
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  Speaker 1: The power, however, of Vergulania, was so exorbitant to the
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  Speaker 1: state that she disdained to appear a witness in a
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  Speaker 1: certain cause before the Senate, and when it had been
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  Speaker 1: always usual, even for the vestal virgins, to attend the
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  Speaker 1: Forum and courts of justice as often as their evidence
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  Speaker 1: was required. A praetor was sent to examine Urgulania at
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  Speaker 1: her own house. The procrastination which happened this year in
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  Speaker 1: the public affairs I should not mention but that the
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  Speaker 1: different opinions of Tenius Piso and Asinius Gallus about it
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  Speaker 1: are worth knowing. Their dispute was occasioned by a declaration
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  Speaker 1: of Tiberius that he was about to be absent, and
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  Speaker 1: it was the motion of Piso that for that very
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  Speaker 1: reason the prosecution of public business was the rather to
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  Speaker 1: be continued, since as in the prince's absence, the Senate
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  Speaker 1: and Equestrian order might administer their several parts, the same
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  Speaker 1: would become the dignity of the commonwealth. This was a
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  Speaker 1: declaration for liberty, and in it Piso had prevented Gallus,
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  Speaker 1: who now in opposition, said that nothing sufficiently illustrious nor
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  Speaker 1: suiting the dignity of the Roman people could be transacted
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  Speaker 1: but under the immediate eye of the Emperor, and therefore
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  Speaker 1: the conflux of suitors and the affairs from Italy and
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  Speaker 1: the provinces must by all means be reserved for his presence.
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  Speaker 1: Tiberius heard and was silent, while the debate was managed
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  Speaker 1: on both sides with mighty vehemence. But the adjourman was carried.
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  Speaker 1: A debate too, arose between Gallus and the Emperor. For
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  Speaker 1: Gallus moved that the magistrates should be henceforth elected but
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  Speaker 1: once every five years, that the legates of the legions,
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  Speaker 1: who had never exercised the praetorships, should be appointed praetors,
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  Speaker 1: and that the prince should nominate twelve candidates every year.
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  Speaker 1: It was not doubted, but this motion had a deeper aim,
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  Speaker 1: and that by it the secret springs and reserves of
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  Speaker 1: imperial power were invaded. But Tiberius, as if he rather
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  Speaker 1: apprehended the augmentation of his authority, argued that it was
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  Speaker 1: a heavy task upon his moderation to choose so many
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  Speaker 1: magistrates and to postpone so many candidates, that disgusts from
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  Speaker 1: disappointments were hardly avoided in yearly elections, though for their solacement,
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  Speaker 1: fresh hopes remained of approaching success in the next. Now,
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  Speaker 1: how great must be the hatred, how lasting the resentment
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  Speaker 1: of such whose pretensions were to be rejected beyond five years,
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  Speaker 1: And whence could it be foreseen that in so long
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  Speaker 1: a tract of time the same men would continue to
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  Speaker 1: have the same dispositions, the same alliances and fortunes. Even
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  Speaker 1: an annual designation to power made men imperious. How imperious
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  Speaker 1: would it make them if they bore the honor for
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  Speaker 1: five years? Besides, it would multiply every single magistrate into
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  Speaker 1: five and utterly subvert the laws which had prescribed a
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  Speaker 1: proper space for exercising the diligence of the candidates and
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  Speaker 1: for soliciting, as well as enjoying preferments. By this speech
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  Speaker 1: in appearance popular, he still retained the spirit and force
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  Speaker 1: of the sovereignty he likewise sustained by gratuities the dignity
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  Speaker 1: of some necessitous senators. Hence, it was the more wondered
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  Speaker 1: that he received, with haughtiness and repulse the petition of
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  Speaker 1: Marcus Hartillus, a young man of signal quality and manifestly poor.
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  Speaker 1: He was the grandson of Hortensius the Orator, and had
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  Speaker 1: been encouraged by the deified Augustus with the bounty of
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  Speaker 1: a thousand great sistercees, to marry for posterity purely to
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  Speaker 1: prevent the extinction of a family so eminently illustrious. The
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  Speaker 1: Senate was sitting in the palace, and Hartalus, having set
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  Speaker 1: his four children before the door, fixed his eyes now
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  Speaker 1: upon the statue of Hortensius placed amongst the orators, then
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  Speaker 1: upon that of Augustus, and instead of speaking to the question,
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  Speaker 1: then debated began on this wise conscript, fathers, you see
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  Speaker 1: there the number and infancy of my children, not mine
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  Speaker 1: by my own choice, but in compliance with the advice
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  Speaker 1: of the Prince. Such too was the splendor of my ancestors,
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  Speaker 1: that it merited to be perpetuated in their race. But
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  Speaker 1: for my own particular, who marred by the revolution of
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  Speaker 1: the times, could not raise wealth, nor engage popular favor,
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  Speaker 1: nor cultivate the hereditary fortune of our house. The fortune
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  Speaker 1: of eloquence, I deemed it sufficient, if, in my narrow
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  Speaker 1: circumstances I lived no disgrace to myself, no burden to others.
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  Speaker 1: Commanded by the Emperor, I took a wife. Behold the
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  Speaker 1: offspring of so many consuls, Behold the descendants of so
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  Speaker 1: many dictators. Nor is this remembrance invidiously made, but made
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  Speaker 1: to move mercy in the progress of your reign, Caesar,
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  Speaker 1: these children may arrive at the honors in your gift.
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  Speaker 1: Defend them in the mean time from want. They are
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  Speaker 1: the great grandsons of Hortensius. They are the foster sons
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  Speaker 1: of Augustus. The inclination of the Senate was favorable an
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  Speaker 1: incitement to Tiberius, the more eagerly to thwart Hautelus. These were,
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  Speaker 1: in effect his words. If all that are poor recur
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  Speaker 1: hither for a provision of money to their children, the
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  Speaker 1: public will certainly fail. Yet particulars never be satiated. Our ancestors,
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  Speaker 1: when they permitted a departure from the question to propose
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  Speaker 1: somewhat more important to the state, did not therefore permit
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  Speaker 1: it that we might here transact domestic matters and augment
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  Speaker 1: our private rents, an employment invidious both in the Senate
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  Speaker 1: and the Prince, since whether they grant or deny the
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  Speaker 1: petition bounties, either the people or the petitioners will ever
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  Speaker 1: be offended. But these, in truth, are not petitions. They
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  Speaker 1: are demands made against order, and made by surprise. While
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  Speaker 1: you are assembled upon other affairs, he stands up and
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  Speaker 1: urges your pity by the number and infancy of his children.
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  Speaker 1: With the same violence, he changes the attack to me, and,
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  Speaker 1: as it were, bursts open the exchequer. But if by
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  Speaker 1: popular bounties we exhaust it by rapine and oppression, we
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  Speaker 1: must supply it. The deified Augustus gave you money haughtless,
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  Speaker 1: but without solicitation. He gave it, and on no condition
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  Speaker 1: that it should always be given. Otherwise diligence will languish,
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  Speaker 1: sloth will prevail, and men having no hopes in resources
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  Speaker 1: of their own, no anxiety for themselves, but all securely
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  Speaker 1: relying on foreign relief will become private sluggards and public burdens.
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  Speaker 1: These and the like reasonings of Tiberius were differently received
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  Speaker 1: with approbation by those whose way it is to extol
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  Speaker 1: without distinction, all the doings of princes worthy and unworthy.
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  Speaker 1: By most. However, with silence or low and discontented murmurs,
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  Speaker 1: Tiberius perceived it, and, having paused a little, said his
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  Speaker 1: answer was particularly to Hartillus, but if the senate thought fit,
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  Speaker 1: he would give his sons two hundred great sister sees each.
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  Speaker 1: For this, all the senators presented their thanks. Only Hartilus
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  Speaker 1: said nothing, perhaps through present awe or perhaps possessed, even
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  Speaker 1: in poverty, with the grandeur of his ancient nobility. Nor
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  Speaker 1: did Tiberius ever show father pity, though the house of
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  Speaker 1: Hortensius was fallen into shameful distress. End of Section twenty
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  Speaker 1: one to t