第65章 A.D.23-28(8)

In another case, that of Publius Suillius, formerly quaestor to Germanicus, who was to be expelled from Italy on a conviction of having received money for a judicial decision, he held that the man ought to be banished to an island, and so intensely strong was his feeling that he bound the Senate by an oath that this was a State necessity.The act was thought cruel at the moment, but subsequently it redounded to his honour when Suillius returned from exile.The next age saw him in tremendous power and a venal creature of the emperor Claudius, whose friendship he long used, with success, never for good.

The same punishment was adjudged to Catus Firmius, a Senator, for having (it was alleged) assailed his sister with a false charge of treason.Catus, as I have related, had drawn Libo into a snare and then destroyed him by an information.Tiberius remembering this service, while he alleged other reasons, deprecated a sentence of exile, but did not oppose his expulsion from the Senate.

Much what I have related and shall have to relate, may perhaps, I am aware, seem petty trifles to record.But no one must compare my annals with the writings of those who have described Rome in old days.They told of great wars, of the storming of cities, of the defeat and capture of kings, or whenever they turned by preference to home affairs, they related, with a free scope for digression, the strifes of consuls with tribunes, land and corn-laws, and the struggles between the commons and the aristocracy.My labours are circumscribed and inglorious; peace wholly unbroken or but slightly disturbed, dismal misery in the capital, an emperor careless about the enlargement of the empire, such is my theme.Still it will not be useless to study those at first sight trifling events out of which the movements of vast changes often take their rise.

All nations and cities are ruled by the people, the nobility, or by one man.A constitution, formed by selection out of these elements, it is easy to commend but not to produce; or, if it is produced, it cannot be lasting.Formerly, when the people had power or when the patricians were in the ascendant, the popular temper and the methods of controlling it, had to be studied, and those who knew most accurately the spirit of the Senate and aristocracy, had the credit of understanding the age and of being wise men.So now, after a revolution, when Rome is nothing but the realm of a single despot, there must be good in carefully noting and recording this period, for it is but few who have the foresight to distinguish right from wrong or what is sound from what is hurtful, while most men learn wisdom from the fortunes of others.Still, though this is instructive, it gives very little pleasure.Descriptions of countries, the various incidents of battles, glorious deaths of great generals, enchain and refresh a reader's mind.I have to present in succession the merciless biddings of a tyrant, incessant prosecutions, faithless friendships, the ruin of innocence, the same causes issuing in the same results, and I am everywhere confronted by a wearisome monotony in my subject matter.Then, again, an ancient historian has but few disparagers, and no one cares whether you praise more heartily the armies of Carthage or Rome.But of many who endured punishment or disgrace under Tiberius, the descendants yet survive; or even though the families themselves may be now extinct, you will find those who, from a resemblance of character, imagine that the evil deeds of others are a reproach to themselves.Again, even honour and virtue make enemies, condemning, as they do, their opposites by too close a contrast.But I return to my work.