Chapter X: Part IV: Politics and Justice in Ancient Rome (2)

The day arrived when the more enlightened men of the Conservative party realised that the law, in the form in which it had been drafted, would never be approved. Piso by himself, helped by the Popular party and by the growing mistrust of public opinion, sufficed to checkmate the majority of the Senate and the party in power. It was necessary, therefore, to devise a compromise. And the man who devised it was Hortensius, the great orator who ten years before had been Verres’s defending counsel. He proposed that the two Consuls should abandon their law; and that Fusius Calenus, who was tribune of the _plebs_, should bring forward another, in which the first part of the preceding law, that which made of Clodius’s act an incest, should be retained, but the second part should be modified in such a way that the judges summoned to administer it should not be the College of Pontiffs but the ordinary jury, chosen in the ordinary way, that is to say, by lot, and not, as the law of the two Consuls proposed, by the Prætors. By this equable compromise Hortensius hoped to satisfy all parties—he disarmed the opposition of the Popular party, which would not dare, now that the law had been purged of the provision which aroused the greatest mistrust in the public, to persist in its opposition, and to risk appearing too openly to desire the protection of Clodius. He gave a sop to public opinion, which was deeply stirred and offended by the scandal. He gave satisfaction to the _amour propre_ of the Conservative party, by presenting them with the head of Clodius. As a matter of fact, he thought—and this was the argument he used to persuade the most recalcitrant of the Pietist party—that it was not necessary to alter the mode of choosing the judges. Clodius’s guilt was so evident that it was quite impossible to imagine that a court of law, however corrupt, could acquit him.

The first of Hortensius’s anticipations quickly came true. The law, thus modified, passed without difficulty. At once, several citizens hastened to indict Clodius of incest. Matters had not gone far, however, before everyone perceived that Hortensius’s second anticipation, that the conviction of Clodius was inevitable, would not be realised so easily. Months had passed; the first impression of horror made on the public had faded. The Conservative party—the same that had made such efforts to save Verres—was too deeply committed to obtaining the conviction of Clodius at whatever cost, for the Popular party not to take Clodius under its protection, though it did so covertly and without compromising itself too far. Crassus and Cæsar in particular, without appearing on the scene, were disposed to do whatever they could, to help Clodius, and to procure him, if it were possible, an acquittal, an outcome which in no less a degree than the conviction of Verres, would have been a rebuff for the party which Sulla had installed in the government, and which, notwithstanding all the reverses which it had undergone in recent years, was still so powerful. Clodius on his side worked with the energy of despair to escape conviction, which would have shattered his political career irreparably and forever.

The trial took place at the beginning of May, in the midst of a curiosity and excitement which may be easily imagined. The two parties had by now decided to face each other once again, as in Verres’s time, in the confined arena of a law-court. The judges were chosen by lot, and the defendant especially availed himself of the right which the law conceded to both sides, of challenging a certain number of them. Nobody was surprised at this, as everyone knew that the struggle would be a fierce one, or rather a hopeless one, for the accused. Indeed, how could Clodius escape conviction, when his guilt was so manifest? In declaring his act to be _incestum_, the law had already condemned him in anticipation. When, however, the jury had been impannelled, and the trial opened, an unexpected and dramatic incident occurred. Clodius defended himself by saying that the matrons present at the feast in honour of the _Bona Dea_ had been deceived. They had mistaken somebody else for him. On that day he was actually not in Rome, but at Iteramna (Terni)!

Just at first, this alibi made the public laugh. Nobody took it seriously. It seemed to everyone that Clodius was joking and wished to make fun of the Court, or that he was trying a desperate coup. But here, too, they were wrong. Clodius intended that his point be taken quite seriously, and had prepared his defence much more cleverly than his adversaries, emboldened by the certainty of victory, supposed. People were not slow to realise this, as the trial went on and on, without producing that proof of Clodius’s guilt which everybody thought so easy and certain, and without destroying his daring alibi. The first step was to put Clodius’s slaves to the torture,—a step which was allowed in a case in which “incest” was imputed. This procedure was, however, barren of results. Clodius had sent the five slaves of whose evidence he was particularly afraid, partly to his brother in Greece, and partly to a distant property of his in the Alps. Then came Cæsar, who had been cited as a witness, and by whose evidence also the enemies of Clodius set great store. Had he not divorced his wife immediately after the scandal? This divorce clearly indicated that Cæsar considered his wife guilty; a state of mind which gave ground for hope that he would revenge himself by charging Clodius. Cæsar, however, had too great an interest in pleasing Crassus, whose desire to give the Democratic party the satisfaction of procuring the acquittal of Clodius was growing keener and keener. So Cæsar deposed under examination that he knew nothing and could say nothing, as, in conformity with religious precepts, he was out of the house that evening. Great was the irritation and disappointment of the prosecutors, one of whom thereupon, in order to put Cæsar in a difficulty, asked Cæsar for what reason, if he knew nothing and could say nothing, he had divorced his wife immediately after the scandal had broken out. Cæsar then, assuming a solemn air, pronounced the famous phrase: “Because Cæsar’s wife must be above suspicion,” a phrase which historians have proceeded to quote as a proof of his precocious monarchical ambitions and of his masterful temperament. On the contrary, the phrase was merely a _boutade_, devised to elude an embarrassing question in a political trial, which none of those who heard it took too seriously, and in saying which Cæsar himself knew quite well that nobody would take him at his word. In fact, the public smiled at the idea of the elegant and debt-laden demagogue, who was known to all for his somewhat free opinions and customs, having become all at once so jealous of the spotless reputation of his house.

At any rate, as a loophole the answer was a clever one; and the prosecutors could not press the question. So Julia, Cæsar’s sister, and Aurelia, his mother, came forward. Both deposed that, on the night on which the mysteries of the _Bona Dea_ were celebrated, a man had been surprised in Cæsar’s house; but that they could not say with certainty that the defendant was the man. We should be doing an injustice to the memory of the two noble dames if we suspected that this evidence was not candid, but prompted by concern for the political interests and friendships of their brother and son. Is it not probable that, in the confusion and disorder of the just-discovered scandal, neither may have scrutinised the man in female disguise with so much attention and particularity as to be able to recognise him subsequently in court, where Clodius denied the identity with so much assurance? Therefore this evidence also was in Clodius’s favour; for there was nobody who could affirm positively that the man surprised in the middle of the rites of the _Bona Dea_ was the accused.

Next came the evidence adduced by Clodius, to prove his alibi. It took the form of a certain C. Causinius Schola, who deposed frankly and resolutely that the gentlemen of the jury might take it from him that at a certain hour on the day of the mysteries of the _Bona Dea_, he had conversed with Clodius at Iteramna, which was ninety thousand _passi_ distant from Rome. This evidence, after that of Cæsar, Julia, and Aurelia, made the acquittal of Clodius inevitable. Certain proofs of his guilt there were none. The improbable alibi, which at the beginning nobody had taken seriously, threatened to triumph owing to the doubts and scruples of a few witnesses, the adroit reticence of others, and thanks to the subterranean workings of Clodius’s friends, backed by Crassus’s gold.

Then came a second and even more unexpected surprise. At the very moment when Clodius seemed to have emerged victorious, there appeared to destroy his alibi.... Who? Cicero himself. Cited as witness, Cicero deposed that on the day of the mysteries, three hours before the hour at which Causinius declared that he had spoken to Clodius at Terni, Clodius had come to call on him at his house in Rome! What had happened? Cicero had up to that time adopted a distinctly reserved attitude, making it clear that he, who since the suppression of Catiline’s conspiracy had become one of the leading figures in the State, had no wish to be mixed up in so trivial and stupid an affair. For what reason did he thus hurl himself all at once, at the close of the trial, into the thick of the fight, and opposing his evidence to that of Causinius, seem to challenge the jury to choose between his word—the word of a man of consular rank, the word of one of the three or four most famous men in the Empire—and that of this obscure and probably corrupt witness? Had he yielded to the pressure of the Conservative party, which, realising that the prey was slipping from their grasp, had wished to make a supreme attempt to destroy the alibi which had been so adroitly prepared by Clodius? Had he, upright and honourable man as he was, yielded to his disgust at seeing a comedy, which had been staged with such ability, completely successful? Or had he yielded to pressure and to considerations of the sort of which Plutarch speaks? Plutarch says that Cicero’s wife, Terentia, was jealous of Clodia, Clodius’s sister, whom she suspected of having cast eyes upon Cicero; and had so much worried Cicero, by harping upon the subject, and accusing him of sparing Clodius out of regard for the sister, that Cicero, in order to convince her that her jealousy was groundless, gave the evidence he did.

Which of these suppositions is the true one we do not know, and we never shall know. What, however, is certain is that Cicero’s evidence appeared at once to be the death-blow to Clodius. Clodius’s defenders perceived this so clearly that they all rose in their seats, hurling threats and insults at Cicero, hoping to intimidate him and to obliterate the impression made by his evidence. Cicero retorted in the same key. One section of the public, that favourable to Clodius, supported the advocates. An uproar ensued. The judges rose from their seats, and formed a circle round Cicero, as if to defend him. It seemed for one moment that the partisans were coming to blows. In short, the whole affair was a scandal, but one which made Clodius’s position even more grave. Everyone realised that he considered himself lost. Was it, in truth, possible that the jury should hesitate between Cicero’s asseveration and that of Causinius? Clodius himself, as soon as the uproar had quieted down, realised that he could not accuse Cicero, a man of such authority, of lying. Indeed, he did not deny that the fact was as stated; but he said that after having spoken with Cicero he had immediately left Rome for Terni. To which it was easy to reply that in three hours one cannot cover a distance of ninety thousand _passi_; and this reply did not admit of answer, confutation, or sophistication. The falseness of the alibi was the gravest of proofs against Clodius, and that which was bound to compromise his cause most gravely in the opinion of the public and of the judges.

On the evening of the day on which Cicero gave his evidence, there was not a soul in Rome who did not think that the great orator had dealt the youthful and turbulent patrician his _coup de grâce_. But Cicero’s evidence, the tumult and threats which had succeeded, the self-assurance of the Conservatives, who were now confident of securing a conviction, only intensified the bitterness of public feeling. Strange rumours and whispers began to circulate through Rome, originating no one knew where. It was said that, on the day the verdict was given, blood would flow amid scenes of terrible violence. Some of the judges took fright and asked the Senate for the protection of an armed bodyguard, which the Senate gave them. Round Cicero the Conservative party organised a kind of permanent demonstration, arranging that he should be accompanied everywhere by a number of friends ready to defend him. The idea was to persuade the public in every possible way that Clodius intended to sneak away, or even to use violence, so sure was he of conviction, to shackle the free judgment of the Court. That conviction was a certainty was the general opinion. In the midst of these rumours, fears, and suspicions the case drew rapidly to a close. In the crowded Forum, surrounded by the swords of the bodyguard supplied by the Senate for the protection of the judges, the Court finally pronounced its verdict—but how different it was from that which was universally expected. By thirty-one votes to twenty-five Clodius was acquitted!

The surprise, the scandal, the jubilation, the amusement, according to each man’s disposition and party, were great in Rome when this result was announced. In truth, whoever, after the lapse of so many centuries, reads the history of the trial will find no difficulty in believing Cicero when he accuses Crassus of having secured Clodius’s acquittal by the exercise of pressure and corruption. In no other way can be explained the fact that a Roman Court of law, forced to choose between Cicero and Causinius, believed Causinius. Nevertheless, it is certain that Clodius was much helped in this struggle by the political mistakes of the Conservative party, by their blind relentlessness, and by the obstinacy with which they had endeavoured for so long to bring about, to the detriment of Clodius, a change in the method of choosing the judges. At this epoch, justice in Rome was much too much exposed to the influence of politics. If, however, the times were disturbed, if the parties were divided by acute discord and men’s minds inflamed by the memories of a terrible civil war, the sense of justice was, nevertheless, not yet so much blunted by party passions as to allow the dominant party to abuse their own power beyond a certain point. Clodius might be a man little deserving of public interest; but there were many persons in Rome to whom it was repugnant that, even for the purpose of punishing a sacrilege, recourse should be had to means so unusual, revolutionary, and extreme.

So the Popular party, with the support of the general sentiment of legality, had succeeded in checkmating the Conservative party, the Sullan association. The checkmate in itself was, however, not a serious one, because the trial of Clodius had not been so important and complex that his acquittal could seriously weaken the strength of the Conservative party. The indirect consequences, on the other hand, were most serious. The first was that Clodius went over body and soul to the Popular party, and became the boldest and most violent of its leaders. If the Conservative party had followed Cicero’s advice and abandoned Clodius to the infamy which his act must have brought upon him, there would have been an end of Clodius. The man who had profaned the mysteries of the _Bona Dea_ would not have dared to show himself any more in public. By persecuting him as it did, and by giving him the chance of posing before the public as the victim of its persecutions, this unpopular party saved his career, or at least helped to enable him to continue to play a part in the political world of Rome, and a part fraught with danger to the State. Clodius, realising that, after the trial, he could no longer hope for anything from the Conservative party in which he had grown up and in whose ranks he had fought, turned to the Popular party; and, in order to make that party forget his origin, his relations, and the _Bona Dea_ scandal, became the most violent and turbulent of its chiefs. It is this trial which has made of Clodius the famous demagogue of whom history tells, who in a few years contributed so much, with his agitations, his laws, his violent acts, and his enmities, to the destruction of the little order and concord that were left in the Republic. The most violent of his enmities was that which he entertained for Cicero. From this trial dates the deadly enmity between the two, which was not the least of the causes of the great disorder into which the Republic fell, which gave birth to the civil war.

The trial of Clodius is, then, one of the events which paved the way for the catastrophe of the Republic. What an object lesson it is for political parties! In the excitement of the struggle, such parties reck nothing, while they deal each other slashing blows, of the hatred and rancour which they sow broadcast. But this hatred and rancour undermine in men’s minds the sentiments of concord, loyalty, moderation, tolerance, and equity, without which the social order cannot in the long run subsist; it is one of the most potent causes of the great catastrophes of history. A revolution is usually only the ultimate effect of a long succession of violent acts, affronts, and injustices which have exasperated the public mind, in which feelings of rancour accumulate and ferment until one day they explode.

III

THE TRIAL OF PISO

Nearly a century had passed since the trial of Verres, and more than eighty years since the trial of Clodius. The quarrels of the Roman aristocracy, which had given birth to those two extraordinary and sensational trials, had kindled the spark of two dreadful civil wars, in the course of which the Empire had narrowly escaped complete dissolution. Gradually, however, order had been re-established. From the midst of the discords of the aristocracy, one family had emerged and succeeded in acquiring preponderating influence: the family of the Cæsars. First, Augustus for forty-two years, and, for the three years succeeding his death, his stepson and adopted son Tiberius, had governed the State as _principes_, or life-presidents, accumulating in their own hands powers of the most diverse kinds—the supreme command of the legions, the presidency of the Senate, the high-priesthood, the surveillance of the most important provinces—and at the same time making every effort to keep the ancient machinery of republican government working with as little friction as possible under such widely different conditions and in control of an empire of so much vaster extent. No law had laid it down that this power should be hereditary; but the force of circumstances—the exhaustion of the ancient nobility, the weakness of the Senate, the dying out of all the parties and all the powerful cabals which for centuries had bulked so large in the Republic—made of this family, little by little, the mistress of the Empire’s destinies.

If, however, the violent disputes of parties no longer raged in the Senate; if blows were no longer exchanged in the Forum when the election of the magistrates or the discussion of the laws was toward; if the threat of civil war no longer hovered continually over the heads of all, concord was not, for all that, re-established in the ranks of the aristocracy which surrounded Cæsar’s family and which ought to have helped that family to govern the immense Empire. Men’s feelings were as much divided as ever, though for different motives. Tiberius, the second _princeps_ in three years chosen by the Senate as successor of Augustus, was hated by one section of the Roman aristocracy, which judged him too old-fashioned—too closely bound to the traditions of the old nobility and of his family, the Claudii; too stern, hard, and rigid; too much out of sympathy with the new customs and new refinements that were beginning to flow from Egypt into Italy; too close-fisted and too keen a professor of a scrupulous and strict financial policy; worst of all, too cautious in his foreign policy.

An old warrior, who had passed the best years of his life fighting on the Rhine and the Danube against the barbarians, a consummate diplomat, head and shoulders above all his contemporaries in matters of war and diplomacy, Tiberius had convinced himself that Rome had not strength enough to extend her empire beyond the Rhine and the Danube, and that, therefore, she ought to rest content with the empire which she had already won, which was, after all, vast enough for a tiny aristocracy like that which was seated at Rome. The malcontents, however,—and there were many of these, especially among the younger generation,—not only did not recognise Tiberius’s wisdom, but imputed this sagacious prudence of his to inexperience, to fear, or to envy of the young and brilliant Germanicus.

The son of Drusus, the brother whom Tiberius had so much loved, the adopted son of Tiberius, who had been enjoined by Augustus to adopt him, intelligent, brilliant, generous, well-educated, handsome, affable, inclined to be light-headed and casual like most youths who are fortune’s favourites, Germanicus was the idol of all the enemies of Tiberius. He was, and he was conscious of being, their idol, and, without assuming too openly an attitude of opposition, he willingly let himself be worshipped and extolled by the faction opposed to his adoptive father, which faction was strong enough to exercise an effective pressure on the Senate and throughout the State. In fact, Germanicus, who after the death of Augustus had been sent by Tiberius to take command of the legions of the Rhine, had dared to follow a policy of his own, differing from that of Tiberius, on the Rhine, crossing the great river on his own initiative, and making a long and hazardous incursion into the territories abandoned by Rome after the defeat of Varus.

This incursion—the first step taken by Rome to avenge Varus and his legions, which had been betrayed and butchered in the great forest—had evoked such enthusiasm in Rome and in Italy; Germanicus was so popular; the expansionist party, always strong and now reinforced by all the enemies of Tiberius, had made so much of the daring act of the young general, that Tiberius had not dared to intervene, to repress, or to moderate the dashing initiative of his young nephew and adopted son. So he let Germanicus go on. On no account and at no cost would Tiberius, however, again begin beyond the Rhine a dangerous and expensive policy of provocation and expansion. Therefore, after having allowed Germanicus to cover himself with glory through his expedition, to collect and to bury in the great forests the bones of the butchered legions, and to lay waste the territories of the tribes which had taken part in the war against Rome, he called him back, in order to send him—in the year 17 of the Christian era—to the East, complications and difficulties having arisen in Cappadocia and Armenia. He was not prepared to leave this ambitious, active, bold youth, the tool of his own enemies, too long at grips with the warlike German tribes. He was afraid that the all-powerful craving for glory might lead Germanicus to provoke in the end some great and dangerous war. In Rome, the party which favoured the reconquest of Germany was still powerful. Tiberius did not want to reconquer that region. In the East, amongst unwarlike nations, the danger was less urgent.

So Germanicus was sent to the East—but, by way of compensation for his recall, he was given unusually large powers. When the time came to approve the decree which conferred these powers upon him, the party of his friends in the Senate proposed and carried a motion giving him power overriding that of all the governors of the separate provinces of the whole East; the result being that he was constituted a sort of governor-general or even viceroy. Whether Tiberius was personally in favour of this decree, which placed half the Empire in the absolute power of a young man of little more than thirty years of age, or not, we do not know. The probability is that he was not, and that on this occasion also Tiberius was the victim of the intrigues and cabals of the party which favoured his nephew and adopted son. It was very difficult for him to oppose laws which heaped honours on the public darling, Germanicus, because the public imputed his opposition to base motives, such as jealousy, envy, or the fear of opposition. What is certain, at any rate, is that, after this decree, Tiberius suddenly changed the governor in Syria, the most important province in the East, the choice of whose governors rested with him. He replaced the mediocre person who then occupied the post by a first-rate man, Cneius Piso, a descendant of one of the most noble Roman families, of a family which had distinguished itself in the civil wars by its aversion to the Cæsarian party; of a family, in short, which was aristocratic, traditionalist, and conservative to the core. Cneius Piso himself was a determined, conservative, and energetic man, a firm partisan of the old policy with which Rome had kept in subjection and governed so many nations for hundreds of years.

Tiberius’s idea is quite clear to anyone who examines it impartially. He did not wish to leave the East at the mercy of Germanicus, who was intelligent and good, but still young, inexperienced, and not always deliberate, and who was easily influenced by light-headed, irresponsible, and often vicious and corrupt flatterers. He wished to place, at Germanicus’s elbow in the East, a serious, mature, energetic, and cautious man; a man who could, so to speak, counterbalance him, retrieve his more serious mistakes, keep an eye on everything he did or said, and in every case warn him in time of the more grave eventualities. Can we label such a device a crime? Or the sinister expression of a morbid jealousy, as Tacitus would have us do? Was it not rather the wise precaution of a cautious statesman, who did not wish to rob an intelligent youth of the opportunities of distinguishing himself and of becoming proficient in the government of a world which would, perhaps, one day devolve upon him, though Tiberius was at the same time anxious that the other’s inexperience should not involve too much danger to the Empire and to himself? But the wisest precautions are on occasions the seed of disasters of the first magnitude.

And so they were in this case. In the year 18 A.D., Germanicus and Piso started, one after the other, at a short interval of time, for the East, but they lost no time in coming to loggerheads. The first incident occurred at Athens, which first Germanicus, and then Piso, made a stage in the journey. Germanicus, who was an ardent admirer of Greek culture, had wished to do honour in every possible way to the great city in which the fire of ancient culture had burned with the most dazzling brightness. He had entered Athens almost like a private person, with only one lictor in attendance; and had exchanged the most flowery and amiable speeches with the magistrates of the city. This attitude, however, had seemed too affable to a Roman of the old stamp, like Piso, who considered that the representative of the power of Rome ought never to repose too great authority and confidence in the subject nations and cities, even if they called themselves Greece and Athens, and could pride themselves on having listened to Socrates and on having been the first to applaud the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides. So Piso also stopped at Athens, but with the object of cancelling by a brusque and harsh demeanour the impression which might have been made by the imprudent affability of Germanicus. He, in his turn, made a speech, full of stern reproof and almost veiled threats to the Athenians, which seemed to everybody to be a disavowal of the speeches of Germanicus; as if Piso intended to convey to the people of Athens that Germanicus had spoken on his own account and not in the name of the Roman government.

Germanicus was an impressionable young man, but really kind-hearted and conciliatory. He did not take, in bad part, the kind of disavowal which Piso had inflicted on him, all the more because he knew that Piso was the mouthpiece of a perhaps harsh version of the admonitions of Tiberius’s experienced wisdom. Round Germanicus, however, there stood a large party of flatterers and intriguers who had fixed on him as the future emperor—Tiberius was already an old man—; also, Germanicus had to wife Agrippina, a virtuous and highly educated woman, who loved and admired him intensely, but was at the same time very ambitious, passionate, and uncritical, prone to mistake for just and wise everything which appeased her ardent and not ungenerous passions. Piso was accompanied to the East by his wife, Plancina, a great friend of Livia, Tiberius’s mother, and a great enemy of Agrippina. The interested flatteries of friends, the fiery temperament of Agrippina, her blind love for her husband, and her hatred for Plancina, in a short time transformed into a violent personal conflict what Tiberius had intended to be a discreet collaboration between a man of ripe age and experience, and a young man full of good intentions but at times lacking in ballast.

For the rest, the matters which Germanicus and Piso had been sent to the East to settle were complicated and difficult, and therefore afforded countless opportunities and pretexts for quarrels. Rome found herself involved in a grave difficulty in the East. Some years before, the Parthians, left without a king, had sent to Italy for Vonones, a son of their old King Phraates, who had been educated in Rome at the house of Augustus. To have at the head of the Parthian Empire a king who had been educated on the banks of the Tiber was a stroke of luck for Rome. The Parthians, however, very soon discovered that Vonones had become too much Latinised at Rome, and had forgotten too completely the ideas and customs of his nation. Consequently, they had turned him out and elected in his stead Artabanus. Vonones had fled to Armenia, and had succeeded in getting elected King of the Armenians. But Artabanus, not wishing his predecessor to become king of a vast empire marching with his own, from which he might retrieve in due course the crown of the Parthians, had succeeded also by means of various intrigues and threats in getting Vonones expelled from Armenia.

The difficulty which Tiberius had charged Germanicus and Piso to study and resolve on the spot was actually this: whether Rome should or should not give ear to Vonones’s clamour and replace him on the throne of Armenia. The difficulty was a serious one, as each of the two opposing courses promised grave dangers. By replacing Vonones on the throne of Armenia, Rome might implicate herself in serious quarrels, and perhaps in a war, with the King of the Parthians, who was opposed to Vonones’s restoration. By not replacing him, Rome appeared to sacrifice to the hatred of the Parthian King this faithful client of hers, whose only fault was that he had been educated in Rome; to be inclined to recognise that a prince who had been too thoroughly Romanised could not govern an Oriental state,—a confession which certainly would not encourage the protected sovereigns of Asia, great and small, to bring themselves too closely into touch with the affairs, ideas, and customs of the protecting state. In point of fact, Germanicus and Piso, who were already embittered against each other by the incidents at Athens, came into open conflict on this point. Germanicus and his supporters were in favour of sacrificing Vonones to the resentment of the King of the Parthians and to the national susceptibilities of the East; while Piso, more loyal to the authoritative traditions of the old Roman policy, which were faithfully reflected in his own more cautious judgment, decided to defend Vonones. Rome must not abandon the cause of this her faithful servant in the East!

Germanicus had, by virtue of a decree of the Senate, supreme powers in the East; as a result his opinion carried the day, notwithstanding all the efforts that Piso made to prevent his sacrificing Vonones, whom Piso by way of compensation entertained, treated with honour, and openly took under his protection. Towards the middle of the year 18, Germanicus crowned Zenon King of the Armenians in Artaxata, a son of Polemon, King of Pontus. When, however, Germanicus asked Piso to send into Armenia a section of the legions placed under his command, to make an armed demonstration in favour of the new sovereign, Piso refused. Theoretically and by virtue of the decrees of the Senate, Germanicus had the right to give orders to Piso, and Piso ought to have obeyed them. On the other hand, Piso represented Tiberius; and with Germanicus, as with every other human authority, it was not enough to possess the power, there was needed also the hardihood to use it. In the face of Piso’s energy and the authority of Tiberius, who stood behind Piso, Germanicus did not dare to insist.

It is easy, however, to picture the fury and rage of Germanicus’s friends and flatterers, to whom this kind of surveillance to which Germanicus was subjected became more intolerable, the more it limited indirectly their own authority. In their fury, they determined to have their revenge, and they were not long in finding an opportunity, though it cost them dear. Artabanus, the King of the Parthians, encouraged by the pliability of Germanicus, sent to ask him to forbid Vonones to live in Syria, on the ground that, as that province bordered on his Empire, Vonones could easily use it as a base from which to intrigue against him. In view of the fact that Vonones was in Syria as the guest of Piso, the Parthian King was asking Germanicus in so many words to forbid Piso to protect him. The demand was, in truth, excessive and somewhat humiliating for Rome; but Germanicus’s _entourage_ saw in this demand a means of humiliating Piso, and worked and talked to such effect that Germanicus conceded to it and shut Vonones up in a city in Cilicia. A checkmate had been inflicted on Piso, but the price of it was a humiliation for Rome. Piso and his party had good reason for accusing Germanicus and his _entourage_ of compromising with singular levity the prestige of Rome in the East.

At the end of the year 18, then, the conflict between Germanicus, invested by a decree of the Senate with the general governorship of the East and supported by a numerous party of Tiberius’s opponents, and Piso, who, as charged by Tiberius with the governorship of Syria, the most important province in the East, represented in the East the will of the Emperor, had become so acute and violent as to upset in a most dangerous manner the whole Eastern policy of Rome. The conflict became still more grave in the following year. At the beginning of the year 19, Germanicus, who was an enlightened young man, and therefore desirous of travelling and seeing the famous spots, the monuments, and the customs of various nations, made with Agrippina an extensive trip through Egypt, impelled by curiosity to visit that ancient and celebrated country, which even then exercised so mysterious a fascination on the minds of the peoples of the West.

While he was on his way to see the Pyramids, however, was interrogating the mysterious smile of the Sphinx, and was cleaving the sacred stream of the Nile, Piso profited by his absence to avenge himself for the checkmate which he had suffered the year before on Vonones’s account. Either on his own initiative, or, it may be, because he had meanwhile received instructions from Tiberius, Piso abolished or modified many of the dispositions which Germanicus, by virtue of his extraordinary powers, had made for Syria, the year before. Imagine the fury of Germanicus, of Agrippina, and of his friends and flatterers, on his return! Was this then all the deference Piso paid to the decrees of the Senate and of the authority conferred by them on Germanicus? Did Piso think himself lord of the East, because he was the friend and representative of Tiberius? On Germanicus’s return there were some violent altercations between him and Piso. This time, Germanicus, impelled by passion, by the incitements of his flatterers, and also by the fear of losing all authority in the eyes of the province if he should yield once more, plucked up courage to resort to extreme measures. In the exercise of his extraordinary powers, he ordered Piso to give up the governorship of the province which Tiberius had entrusted to him. This step, in view of the fact that Piso was the representative of Tiberius, was a bold one, but it was quite a legal one. In disobeying it, Piso was obliged to assume an attitude of open defiance of the laws. Since Germanicus had dared to make use of this power, and on this occasion showed that he meant business and was determined to carry the matter through, it was Piso’s duty to give way and obey, subject to the right of protest to Tiberius and of obtaining from him just compensation for the affront he had received.

Piso resigned his office and left the province; and travelled at an easy rate in short stages towards Italy. When he arrived at Seleucia, he was overtaken by the news that Germanicus was seriously ill at Antioch. He halted, waiting for new and more authentic news; which arrived in a few days, and announced to him the young man’s death. What was his illness? We do not know. Untimely deaths were frequent in the family of Augustus. It seemed as if many of the younger members had not the strength to stand the life of drudgery and fatigue to which he compelled them, by way of preparation for the government of the Empire. However that may be, Piso no sooner knew that Germanicus was dead than he returned to Syria with the object of re-occupying the province. How great, however, was his surprise to learn that it had been decided amongst the friends of Germanicus, after the latter’s death, to entrust the command of the legions and the government of the province to one of themselves, Gnæus Senzius!

This nomination of Senzius was illegal—there can be no doubt about that. With the death of Germanicus, the extraordinary power by which he had momentarily removed Piso from the province, himself assuming its government, came to an end; therefore the province and the command of the armed forces re-devolved on Piso. The friends of Germanicus had no right or power to nominate a substitute for him. But for what reason had they arrived at so grave a decision? Germanicus was surrounded in the East by many friends, many admirers, and many flatterers, who had placed their hopes in him, as the future emperor. His death was, therefore, a disaster for the ambitions and aspirations of many. On the other hand, it had been sudden, unforeseen, and mysterious; a fact which, in times when the causes and symptoms of illness were much less easily recognised than they are at present, readily lent itself to the engendering of suspicions, especially the suspicion of poisoning, then so common and so easy. Before the corpse of Germanicus had been burnt, Agrippina and all the _entourage_ of the dead man’s intimates were persuaded, and were stating openly, that Germanicus had been poisoned,—and poisoned by Piso in revenge. Hence arose the necessity of their preventing Piso, even at the cost of a breach of the laws, from re-occupying his province, in which they wished to be left supreme, so as to be able to collect the proofs of the crime of which Germanicus was the reported victim. For instance, they imprisoned an old woman called Martina, who was said to be an intimate friend of Plancina, a witch by profession. Her they accused of having supplied the poison, and of having sent it to Rome.

When Piso first heard of the accusation, he did not take it very seriously, and tried to force a re-entry into the province from which his adversaries were illegally excluding him. Perhaps he hoped that when he, the legitimate pro-consul, presented himself, the oppositions, which the others pretended to be ready to make, would fade away. In this he was disappointed. Gnæus Senzius resisted, a few insignificant skirmishes took place, and a civil war on a small scale was about to begin. The prospect, however, frightened both sides, and, not wishing that so small a matter of principle should result in a real civil war, both parties—Piso, Senzius, and the friends of Germanicus—agreed to go in a body to Rome and to submit the question to the Emperor. And so they did.

When, however, they arrived, they found Italy and Rome in an incredible state of agitation. Germanicus was most popular, not only because he was really attractive to a great many people, but because everybody in his admiration and sympathy for him vented the discontent and repulsion which the rough character and iron policy of Tiberius inspired in one. The popular voice had gone so far as to say that Germanicus had made up his mind to restore, when he became Emperor, the republic of ancient times in every detail, and that Tiberius on this account suspected and hated him! Not only, then, was his premature death bitterly lamented by everybody; but the explanation which his friends gave of it—that Germanicus had died of poison by the contrivance of Piso—was immediately accepted as true, evident, and proved. Even at the present day, the masses are easily convinced of tales of crimes and poisonings. Imagine how it must have been in those days! And the desire for vengeance followed hard on the general feeling of grief and horror. The wish was expressed on all sides that Piso should be given an exemplary punishment; it was impossible to allow so execrable a crime to go unpunished. Would some noble friend of Germanicus, then, arise and revenge his death? At the same time, other rumours, no less fantastic, were being whispered from ear to ear. No; the trial would never take place. Piso was secretly protected by Tiberius, and Plancina by Livia. Nobody would dare attack them!

The arrival of Agrippina, who, at the end of 19 A.D., reached Brindisi with Germanicus’s ashes; the transportation of the ashes to Rome in the midst of the most moving demonstrations of grief on the part of the Italian cities; the solemn celebration of the funeral rites in Rome, made the situation still more serious. Public exasperation increased, not only against Piso, but also against Tiberius. Tiberius and Livia had not taken part in the funeral ceremonies for Germanicus at Rome; the latter because she was too old and infirm, the former because he had avoided recently as much as possible investing family ceremonies with superfluous official importance. The public, however, began to accuse these two of not being at all displeased at the death of Germanicus. Of course, that young man had always given umbrage to Tiberius. Had not the latter recalled him from Germany, so that he should not cover himself with too much glory?

It was not long before even graver charges began to be whispered about. Piso had arrived at Rome by way of the Tiber, disembarking near the Tomb of the Cæsars, the resting-place of the ashes of his victim, and with a large retinue of friends had made an ostentatious progress to his house above the Forum, where he had given a great banquet. It was clear, then, that he had no fears. He defied public opinion and the Courts. And his attitude was justified, for he had acted on the orders of Tiberius, and possessed a letter from him in which these orders were given. That letter was his shield of defence against every danger! In point of fact, public suspicion was by now being diverted from Piso against a higher target. It was being directed straight against Tiberius and Livia. And Agrippina, whom grief was robbing of the little sense which nature had given her, added fuel to the enmities and suspicions in the public and the Senate through her lamentations, her recriminations, and her accusations, which were as vehement as they were unfounded.

When at last, therefore, certain persons,—Fulcinius Trio, Vitellius, and Veranius,—incited by public opinion, by the friends of Germanicus, who cried for vengeance, and by Agrippina, who would hear of no mercy, decided to accuse Piso and Plancina of poison, as well as Piso and his son Marcius of having tried to stir up civil war, Tiberius found himself in a most grave dilemma. It seems that trials such as these, involving persons of the highest rank and acts of a political character, could not be set in motion without the approval of the Emperor, who had the additional privilege of deciding whether the case should come before the ordinary tribunal,—the jury, as in trials of Verres and Clodius,—or whether he ought to entrust it instead to the Senate. Tiberius did not believe in the imputation of poison, which was the only really grave charge brought against Piso,—the other charge, that of civil war, being more in the nature of a second string. He did not believe in the poison charge, just as no sensible and impartial man believed in it, just as Tacitus, years later, did not believe in it, even though, with his usual malice, he has done all he could to induce posterity to accept it as true. Tiberius did not believe in it, for not only was there no proof of the charge itself, but it was in itself absurd. In fact, the accusers, when forced to explain when and in what way Piso had poisoned Germanicus, had found themselves reduced to asserting that, at a banquet to which Germanicus had invited Piso, and at which Piso was seated at a considerable distance from Germanicus, Piso, at a moment when Germanicus was looking in another direction, had poured the poison into his wine, actually in the midst of his host’s numerous servants and in the presence of the guests! This story may be taken as a sample of the whole accusation. Tiberius then knew that the charge was a romance, created and magnified by the political and partisan enmities which amongst the Roman nobility were so violent, by the credulity of the public, by the unreasoning hatred the people felt towards himself and the supreme authority with which he had been invested. He would, therefore, gladly have cut the trial short at the very beginning.

Could he do so, however? This Emperor, whom so many inexperienced historians have represented as a terrible despot, was in reality possessed of much less power as head of the State than his present-day detractors suppose. He was obliged to take into account public opinion, however obtuse and mad it might be. He was vaguely suspected of having prompted Piso to poison Germanicus, or at least of having willingly shut his eyes to the crime. If he prevented the charge being brought, would not this be the strongest confirmation of this mad calumny? Would not the whole populace murmur in their anger that the unfortunate Germanicus had been robbed, first of life, and then of vengeance,—and by the man who was his adoptive father? This, in the eyes of the ancients, constituted the gravest dereliction of family obligations. The trial was a satisfaction which the public demanded; and the Emperor—that pretended despot, lord of the whole State—had not power enough to refuse it.

So Tiberius was forced to consent to the trial. Being, however, a wise and level-headed man, he remitted it to the Senate, the one of the two tribunals which might be expected with greater reason to be enlightened and serene. The other—the _quæstio_, or, as we should say, the jury—was too closely in contact with public opinion, and not likely to be able to exercise calm judgment in a case in which public opinion was so much excited and prejudiced against the principal defendant. The Senate, on the contrary, was the gravest body in the Republic, and might be expected to rise superior to popular passions in the exercise of its judicial functions. Nevertheless, even in the Senate, the friends of Germanicus and the enemies of Tiberius were to be found in force. Not only this, but a fierce antipathy divided the ancient from the new nobility. During the fifty years which followed the end of the civil wars, many recently ennobled families had entered the Senate. Amongst these, the families of ancient nobility, those whose glory dated back to the grand era of the Republic, at this time formed only a small yet haughty minority, which lived apart, despised the new nobility, and kept aloof as far as possible. Now Piso belonged to one of these ancient families, and to one of the most glorious of them. The constitution of the Senate as the tribunal, meant, therefore, entrusting the decision of the case to the new, upstart nobility, which was full of blind rancour against the haughtiness of the old families.

In any case there was no other tribunal; and between the two evils, Tiberius could only choose the lesser. However, he realised so clearly the gravity of the dangers which surrounded the course of justice, in the midst of so many frenzied passions, in this trial which had been engineered by insensate hatreds and rancours, that when, as president of the Senate, he had to open the sessions, he made a speech, the gist of which Tacitus has preserved for us. Whoever reads it cannot help recognising the spirit of profound wisdom and equity which inspires it. Tiberius explained quite clearly to the Senate that the charge of poisoning levelled against Piso, if true, would be an extremely serious matter. He reminded them, however, that Piso was a prominent man, who had rendered eminent services to the Republic and belonged to one of the most ancient and noble families in Rome. They must, therefore, bring the most serene impartiality to bear on their judgment, forgetting who was the accused, if they found him guilty, forgetting who was the victim, if they found him innocent. However great his affection for Germanicus might be, nothing would induce him to wish for the sacrifice on the latter’s tomb, of an innocent man, for the satisfaction of the insensate mania for revenge which had taken possession of the public.