It was now that he celebrated a corresponding number of "Preservation Sacrifices," as he called them, and dedicated the forum for the sale of dainties, called
Macellum
.
19
Somewhat later he instituted a different kind of feast (called Juvenalia, a word that showed it belonged in some way to "youth"). The occasion was the shaving of his beard for the first time. The hairs he cast into a small golden globe and offered to Jupiter Capitolinus. To furnish amusement members of the noblest families as well as others did not fail to give exhibitions. For instance, Aelia Catella danced: he was first of all a man prominent for family and wealth and also advanced in years,--he was eighty years of age. Others who on account of old age or disease could not do anything on their own account sang as chorus. All devoted themselves to practicing as much as and by whatever way they were able. Regularly appointed "schools" were frequented by the most distinguished men, women, girls, lads, old women, old men. In case any one was unable to appear in any other fashion, he would enter the choruses. And whereas some of them out of shame had put on masks to avoid being recognized, Nero at the request of the populace had them taken off and showed these people to those by whom they had once been ruled. Now most of all it was that these amateur performers and others deemed the dead happy; for many of the foremost men this year had been slain. Some of them, charged with conspiracy against Nero, were surrounded by the soldiers and stoned to death.
20
And, as there needed to be a fitting climax to these deeds, Nero himself appeared as an actor and Gallio [
4
] proclaimed him by name. There stood Caesar on the stage wearing the garb of a singing zither-player. Spoke the emperor: "My lords, of your kindness give me ear." Then did the Augustus sing to the zither a thing called "Attis or the Bacchantes," [
5
] whilst many soldiers stood by and all the people that the seats would hold sat watching. Yet had he (according to the tradition) but a slight voice and an indistinct, so that he moved all present to laughter and tears at once. Beside him stood Burrus and Seneca like teachers prompting a pupil: they would wave their hands and togas at every utterance and draw others on to do the same. Indeed, Nero had ready a peculiar corps of about five thousand soldiers, called Augustans; these would begin the applause, and all the rest, however loath, were obliged to shout aloud with them,--except Thrasea. He would never stoop to such conduct. But the rest, and especially the prominent men, gathered with alacrity even when in grief and joined as if glad in all the shouts of the Augustans. One could hear them saying: "Excellent Caesar! Apollo! Augustus! One like unto the Pythian! By thine own self, O Caesar, no one can surpass thee!" After this performance he entertained the people at a feast on boats on the site of the naval battle given by Augustus: thence at midnight he sailed through a canal into the Tiber.
A.D. 60 (a.u. 813)
21
This, then, he did to celebrate the shaving of his chin. In behalf of his preservation and the continuance of his authority,--thus he gave notice,--he instituted quinquennial games, naming them Neronia. In honor of the event he also constructed the gymnasium at the dedication of which he made a free distribution of olive oil to the senators and knights. The crown for singing to the zither, moreover, he took without a contest, for all others were debarred on the assumption that they were unworthy of victory. [And immediately in their garb he was enrolled on the very lists of the gymnasium.] Thenceforward all other crowns for zither playing at all the contests were sent to him as the only person competent to win victories of that sort.
DIO'S ROMAN HISTORY62
62
About the disaster to the Romans in Britain, brought upon them by Buduica (chapters1,2,3,4,5,6,7).Paulinus, returning from subduing the island of Mona, conquers in battle (chapters8,9,10,11,12).Octavia Augusta and Burrus, likewise Plautus and Pallas, are put to death by Nero (chapters13,14).Most swinish reveling at the games of Tigillinus (chapter15).How Nero set the city on fire (chapters16,17,18).The uprightness of Corbulo: proceedings against Vologaesus and Tiridates (chapters19,20).Misfortune attends the endeavors of Paetus: Vologaesus forms a compact with Corbulo (chapters21,22,23).Seneca, Soranus, Thrasea, Sabina are put to death: Musonius and Cornutus are banished (chapters24,25,26,27,28,29).
Nero Aug. (IV), Cornelius Cossus Cossi F. Lentulus.(A.D. 60 = a.u. 813 = Seventh of Nero, from Oct. 13th).Caesonius Paetus, P. Petronius Turpilianus.(A.D. 61 = a.u 814 = Eighth of Nero).P. Marius Celsus, L. Asinius Gallus.(A.D. 62 = a.u. 815 = Ninth of Nero).C. Memmius Regulus, L. Verginius Rufus.(A.D. 63 = a.u. 816 = Tenth of Nero).C. Lecanius Bassus, M. Licinius Crassus Frugi.(A.D. 64 = a.u. 817 = Eleventh of Nero).A. Licinius Nerva Silanus, M. Vestinus Atticus.(A.D. 65 = a.u. 818 = Twelfth of Nero).
A.D. 61 (a.u. 814)
1
While this sport was going on at Rome, a terrible disaster had taken place in Britain. Two cities had been sacked, eight myriads of Romans and of their allies had perished, and the island had been lost. Moreover, all this ruin was brought upon them by a woman, a fact which in itself caused them the greatest shame. Heaven evidently gave them in advance an indication of the catastrophe. At night there was heard to issue from the senate-house foreign jargon mingled with laughter and from the theatre outcries with wailing: yet no mortal man had uttered the speeches or the groans. Houses under water came to view in the river Thames, [
6
] and the ocean between the island and Gaul sometimes grew bloody at flood-tide.
2
The
casus belli
lay in the confiscation of the money which Claudius had given to the foremost Britons,--Decianus Catus, governor of the island, announcing that this must now be sent back. This was one reason [Lacuna] [
7
] and another was that Seneca had lent them on excellent terms as regards interest a thousand myriads that they did not want, [
8
] and had afterward called in this loan all at once and levied on them for it with severity. But the person who most stirred their spirits and persuaded them to fight the Romans, who was deemed worthy to stand at their head and to have the conduct of the entire war, was a British woman, Buduica, [
9
] of the royal family and possessed of greater judgment than often belongs to women. It was she who gathered the army to the number of nearly twelve myriads and ascended a tribunal of marshy soil made after the Roman fashion. In person she was very tall, with a most sturdy figure and a piercing glance; her voice was harsh; a great mass of yellow hair fell below her waist and a large golden necklace clasped her throat; wound about her was a tunic of every conceivable color and over it a thick chlamys had been fastened with a brooch. This was her constant attire. She now grasped a spear to aid her in terrifying all beholders and spoke as follows:--
3
"You have had actual experience of the difference between freedom and slavery. Hence, though some of you previously through ignorance of which was better may have been deceived by the alluring announcements of the Romans, yet now that you have tried both you have learned how great a mistake you made by preferring a self-imposed despotism to your ancestral mode of life. You have come to recognize how far superior is the poverty of independence to wealth in servitude. What treatment have we met with that is not most outrageous, that is not most grievous, ever since these men insinuated themselves into Britain? Have we not been deprived of our most numerous and our greatest possessions entire, while for what remains we must pay taxes? Besides pasturing and tilling all the various regions for them do we not contribute a yearly sum for our very bodies? How much better it would have been to be sold to masters once and for all than to ransom ourselves annually and possess empty names of freedom! How much better to have been slain and perish rather than go about with subservient heads! Yet what have I said? Even dying is not free from expense among them, and you know what fees we deposit on behalf of the dead. Throughout the rest of mankind death frees even those who are in slavery; only in the case of the Romans do the very dead live for their profit. Why is it that though none of us has any money,--and how or whence should we get it?,--we are stripped and despoiled like a murderer's victims? How should the Romans grow milder in process of time, when they have conducted themselves so toward us at the very start,--a period when all men show consideration for even newly captured beasts?
4
"But, to tell the truth, it is we who have made ourselves responsible for all these evils in allowing them so much as to set foot on the island in the first place instead of expelling them at once as we did their famous Julius Caesar,--yes, in not making the idea of attempting the voyage formidable to them, while they were as yet far off, as it was to Augustus and to Gaius Caligula. So great an island, or rather in one sense a continent encircled by water, do we inhabit, a veritable world of our own, and so far are we separated by the ocean from all the rest of mankind that we have been believed to dwell on a different earth and under a different sky and some of their wisest men were not previously sure of even our exact name. Yet for all this we have been scorned and trampled under foot by men who know naught else than how to secure gain. Still, let us even at this late day, if not before, fellow-citizens, friends and relatives,--for I deem you all relatives, in that you inhabit a single island and are called by [
10
] one common name,--let us do our duty while the memory of freedom still abides within us, that we may leave both the name and the fact of it to our children. For if we utterly lose sight of the happy conditions amid which we were born and bred, what pray will they do, reared in bondage?
5
"This I say not to inspire you with a hatred of present circumstances,--that hatred is already apparent,--nor with a fear of the future,--that fear you already have,--but to commend you because of your own accord you choose to do just what you ought, and to thank you for cooperating so readily with me and your own selves at once. Be nowise afraid of the Romans. They are not more numerous than are we nor yet braver. And the proof is that they have protected themselves with helmets and breastplates and greaves and furthermore have equipped their camps with palisades and walls and ditches to make sure that they shall suffer no harm by any hostile assault. [
11
] Their fears impel them to choose this method rather than engage in any active work like us. We enjoy such a superabundance of bravery that we regard tents as safer than walls and our shields as affording greater protection than their whole suits of mail. As a consequence, we when victorious can capture them and when overcome by force can elude them. And should we ever choose to retreat, we can conceal ourselves in swamps and mountains so inaccessible that we can be neither found nor taken. The enemy, however, can neither pursue any one by reason of their heavy armor nor yet flee. And if they ever should slip away from us, taking refuge in certain designated spots, there, too, they are sure to be enclosed as in a trap. These are some of the respects in which they are vastly inferior to us, and others are their inability to bear up under hunger, thirst, cold, or heat, as we can; for they require shade and protection, they require kneaded bread and wine and oil, and if the supply of any of these things fails them they simply perish. For us, on the other hand, any root or grass serves as bread, any plant juice as olive oil, any water as wine, any tree as a house. Indeed, this very region is to us an acquaintance and ally, but to them unknown and hostile. As for the rivers, we swim them naked, but they even with boats can not cross easily. Let us therefore go against them trusting boldly to good fortune. Let us show them that they are hares and foxes trying to rule dogs and wolves."
6
At these words, employing a species of divination, she let a hare escape from her bosom, and as it ran in what they considered a lucky direction, the whole multitude shouted with pleasure, and Buduica raising her hand to heaven, spoke: "I thank thee, Andraste, [
12
] and call upon thee, who are a woman, being myself also a woman that rules not burden-bearing Egyptians like Nitocris, nor merchant Assyrians like Semiramis (of these things we have heard from the Romans), nor even the Romans themselves, as did Messalina first and later Agrippina;--at present their chief is Nero, in name a man, in fact a woman, as is shown by his singing, his playing the cithara, his adorning himself:--but ruling as I do men of Britain that know not how to till the soil or ply a trade yet are thoroughly versed in the arts of war and hold all things common, even children and wives; wherefore the latter possess the same valor as the males: being therefore queen of such men and such women I supplicate and pray thee for victory and salvation and liberty against men insolent, unjust, insatiable, impious,--if, indeed we ought to term those creatures men who wash in warm water, eat artificial dainties, drink unmixed wine, anoint themselves with myrrh, sleep on soft couches with boys for bedfellows (and past their prime at that), are slaves to a zither-player, yes, an inferior zither-player. Wherefore may this Domitia-Nero
woman
reign no more over you or over me: let the wench sing and play the despot over the Romans. They surely deserve to be in slavery to such a being whose tyranny they have patiently borne already this long time. But may we, mistress, ever look to thee alone as our head."
7
After an harangue of this general nature Buduica led her army against the Romans. The latter chanced to be without a leader for the reason that Paulinus their commander had gone on an expedition to Mona, an island near Britain. This enabled her to sack and plunder two Roman cities, and, as I said, she wrought indescribable slaughter. Persons captured by the Britons underwent every form of most frightful treatment. The conquerors committed the most atrocious and bestial outrages. For instance, they hung up naked the noblest and most distinguished women, cut off their breasts and sewed them to their mouths, to make the victims appear to be eating them. After that they impaled them on sharp skewers run perpendicularly the whole length of the body. All this they did to the accompaniment of sacrifices, banquets, and exhibitions of insolence in all of their sacred places, but chiefly in the grove of Andate,--that being the name of their personification of Victory, to whom they paid the most excessive reverence.
8
It happened that Paulinus had already brought Mona to terms; hence on learning of the disaster in Britain he at once set sail thither from Mona. He was unwilling to risk a conflict with the barbarians immediately, for he feared their numbers and their frenzy; therefore he was for postponing the battle to a more convenient season. But as he grew short of food and the barbarians did not desist from pressing him hard, he was compelled, though contrary to his plan, to enter into an engagement with them. Buduica herself, heading an army of about twenty-three myriads of men, rode on a chariot and assigned the rest to their several stations. Now Paulinus could not extend his phalanx the width of her whole line, for, even if the men had been drawn up only one deep, they would not have stretched far enough, so inferior were they in numbers: nor did he dare to join battle with one compact force, for fear he should be surrounded and cut down. Accordingly, he separated his army into three divisions in order to fight at several points at once, and he made each of the divisions so strong that it could not easily be broken through. While ordering and arranging his men he likewise exhorted them, saying:
9
"Up, fellow-soldiers! Up, men of Rome! Show these pests how much even in misfortune we surpass them. It is a shame for you now to lose ingloriously what but a short while ago you gained by your valor. Often have we ourselves and also our fathers with far fewer numbers than we have at the present conquered far more numerous antagonists. Fear not the host of them or their rebellion: their boldness rests on nothing better than headlong rashness unaided by arms and exercise. Fear not because they have set on fire a few cities: they took these not by force nor after a battle, but one was betrayed and the other abandoned. Do you now exact from them the proper penalty for these deeds, that so they may learn by actual experience what they undertook when they wronged such men as us."
10
After speaking these words to some he came to a second group and said: "Now is the occasion, now, fellow-soldiers, for zeal, for daring. If to-day you prove yourselves brave men, you will recover what has slipped from your grasp. If you overcome this enemy, no one else will any longer withstand us. By one such battle you will both make sure of your present possessions and subdue whatever is left. All soldiers stationed anywhere else will emulate you and foes will be terror-stricken. Therefore, since it is in your own hands either to rule fearlessly all mankind, both the nations that your fathers left under your control and those which you yourselves have gained in addition, or else to be bereft of them utterly, choose rather to be free, to rule, to live in wealth, to enjoy prosperity, than through indolence to suffer the reverse of these conditions."
11
After making an address of this sort to the group in question, he came up to the third division and said also to them: "You have heard what sort of acts these wretches have committed against us, nay more, you have even seen some of them. Therefore choose either yourselves to suffer the same treatment as previous victims and furthermore to be driven entirely out of Britain, or else through victory to avenge those that perished and also to give to the rest of mankind an example of mild clemency toward the obedient, of necessary severity toward the rebellious. I entertain the highest hopes of victory for our side, counting on the following factors: first, the assistance of the gods; they usually cooperate with the party that has been wronged: second, our inherited bravery; we are Romans and have shown ourselves superior to all mankind in various instances of valor: next, our experience; we have defeated and subdued these very men that are now arrayed against us: last, our good name; it is not worthy opponents but our slaves with whom we are coming in conflict, persons who enjoyed freedom and self-government only so far as we allowed it. Yet even should the outcome prove contrary to our hope,--and I will not shrink from mentioning even this contingency,--it is better for us to fall fighting bravely than to be captured and impaled, to see our own entrails cut out, to be spitted on red hot skewers, to perish dissolved in boiling water, when we have fallen into the power of creatures that are very beasts, savage, lawless, godless. Let us therefore either beat them or die on the spot. Britain shall be a noble memorial to us, even though all subsequent Romans should be driven from it; for in any case our bodies shall forever possess the land."
12
At the conclusion of exhortations of this sort and others like them he raised the signal for battle. Thereupon they approached each other, the barbarians making a great outcry intermingled with menacing incantations, but the Romans silently and in order until they came within a javelin's throw of the enemy. Then, while the foe were advancing against them at a walk, the Romans started at a given word and charged them at full speed, and when the clash came easily broke through the opposing ranks; but, as they were surrounded by the great numbers, they had to be fighting everywhere at once. Their struggle took many forms. In the first place, light-armed troops might be in conflict with light-armed, heavy-armed be arrayed against heavy-armed, cavalry join issue with cavalry; and against the chariots of the barbarians the Roman archers would be contending. Again, the barbarians would assail the Romans with a rush of their chariots, knocking them helter-skelter, but, since they fought without breastplates, would be themselves repulsed by the arrows. Horseman would upset foot-soldier, and foot-soldier strike down horseman; some, forming in close order, would go to meet the chariots, and others would be scattered by them; some would come to close quarters with the archers and rout them, whereas others were content to dodge their shafts at a distance: and all these things went on not at one spot, but in the three divisions at once. They contended for a long time, both parties being animated by the same zeal and daring. Finally, though late in the day, the Romans prevailed, having slain numbers in the battle, beside the wagons, or in the wood: they also captured many alive. Still, not a few made their escape and went on to prepare to fight a second time. Meanwhile, however, Buduica fell sick and died. The Britons mourned her deeply and gave her a costly burial; but, as they themselves were this time really defeated, they scattered to their homes.--So far the history of affairs in Britain.
A.D. 62 (a.u. 815)
13
In Rome Nero had before this sent away Octavia Augusta, on account of his concubine Sabina, and subsequently he put her to death. This he did in spite of the opposition of Burrus, who tried to prevent his sending her away, and once said to him: "Well, then, give her back her dowry" (by which he meant the sovereignty). Indeed, Burrus used such unmitigated frankness that on one occasion, when he was asked by the emperor a second time for an opinion on matters regarding which he had already made clear his attitude, he answered bluntly: "When I have once had my say about anything, don't ask me again." So Nero disposed of him by poison. He also appointed to command the Pretorians a certain Ofonius Tigillinus, who outstripped all his contemporaries in licentiousness and bloodiness. [It was he who won Nero away from them and made light of his colleague Rufus. [
13
] ] To him the famous sentence of Pythias is said to have been directed. She had proved the only exception when all the other attendants of Octavia had joined Sabina in attacking their mistress, despising the one because she was in misfortune and toadying to the other because her influence was strong. Pythias alone had refused though cruelly tortured to utter lies against Octavia, and finally, as Tigillinus continued to urge her, she spat in his face, saying:
"My mistress's privy parts are cleaner, Tigillinus, than your mouth."
14
The troubles of his relatives Nero turned into laughter and jest. For instance, after killing Plautus [
14
] he took a look at his head when it was brought to him and remarked: "I didn't know he had such a big nose," as much as to say that he would have spared him, had he been aware of this fact beforehand. And though he spent practically his whole existence in tavern life, he forbade others to sell in taverns anything boiled save vegetables and pea-soup. He put Pallas out of the way because the latter had accumulated great wealth that could be counted by the ten thousand myriads. Likewise he was very liable to peevishness that showed in his behavior, and at such times he would not speak a word to his servants or freedmen but write on tablets whatever he wanted as well as any orders that he had to give them.
A.D. 63 (a.u. 816)
15
Indeed, when many of those who had gathered at Antium perished, Nero made that, too, an occasion for a festival.A certain Thrasea gave his opinion to the effect that for a senator the extreme penalty should be exile.
A.D. 64 (a.u. 817)
To such lengths did Nero's self-indulgence go that he actually drove chariots in public. Again, one time after the slaughter of beasts he straightway brought water into the theatre by means of pipes and produced a sea-fight: then he let the water out again and arranged a gladiatorial combat. Last of all he flooded the place once more and gave a costly public banquet. The person who had been appointed director of the banquet was Tigillinus, and a large and complete equipment had been furnished. The arrangements made were as follows. In the center and resting on the water were placed the great wooden wine vessels, over which boards had been fastened. Round about it had been built taverns and booths. Thus Nero and Tigillinus and their fellow-banqueters, being in the center, held their feast on purple carpets and soft mattresses, while all the other people caroused in the taverns. These also entered the brothels, where unrestrictedly they might enjoy absolutely any woman to be found there. Now the latter were some of the most beautiful and distinguished in the city, both slaves and free, some hetaerae, some virgins, some wives,--not merely, that is to say, public wenches, but both girls and women of the very noblest families. Every man was given authority to have whichever one he wished, for the women were not allowed to refuse any one. Consequently, the multitude being a regular rabble, they drank greedily and reveled in wanton conduct. So a slave debauched his mistress in the presence of his master and a gladiator ravished a girl of noble family while her father looked on. The shoving and striking and uproar that went on, first on the part of those who were going in and second on the part of those who stood around outside, was disgraceful. Many men met their death in these encounters, and of the women some were strangled and some were seized and carried off.
16
After this Nero had the wish (or rather it had always been a fixed purpose of his) to make an end of the whole city and sovereignty during his lifetime. Priam he deemed wonderfully happy in that he had seen his country perish at the same moment as his authority. Accordingly he sent in different directions men feigning to be drunk or engaged in some indifferent species of rascality and at first had one or two or more blazes quietly kindled in different quarters: people, of course, fell into the utmost confusion, not being able to find any beginning of the trouble nor to put any end to it, and meanwhile they became aware of many strange sights and sounds. For soon there was nothing to be observed but many fires as in a camp, and no other phrases fell from men's lips but "This or that is burning "; "Where?"; "How?"; "Who set it?"; "To the rescue!" An extraordinary perturbation laid hold on all wherever they might be, and they ran about as if distracted, some in one direction and some in another. Some men in the midst of assisting their neighbors would learn that their own premises were on fire. Others received the first intimation of their own possessions being aflame when informed that they were destroyed. Persons would run from their houses into the lanes with some idea of being of assistance from the outside, or again they would dash into the dwellings from the streets, appearing to think they could accomplish something inside. The shouting and screaming of children, women, men, and graybeards all together were incessant, so that one could have no consciousness nor comprehension of anything by reason of the smoke and shouting combined. On this account some might be seen standing speechless, as if dumb. All this time many who were carrying out their goods and many more who were stealing what belonged to others kept encountering one another and falling over the merchandise. It was not possible to get anywhere, nor yet to stand still; but people pushed and were pushed back, they upset others and were themselves upset, many were suffocated, many were crushed: in fine, no evil that can possibly happen to men at such a crisis failed to befall them. They could not with ease find even any avenue of escape, and, if any one did save himself from some immediate danger, he usually fell into another one and was lost.
17
This did not all take place on one day, but lasted for several days and nights together. Many houses were destroyed through lack of some one to defend them and many were set on fire in still more places by persons who presumably came to the rescue. For the soldiers (including the night watch), having an eye upon plunder, instead of extinguishing any blaze kindled greater conflagrations. While similar scenes were being enacted at various points a sudden wind caught the fire and swept it over whatever remained. Consequently no one concerned himself any longer about goods or houses, but all the survivors, standing in a place of safety, gazed upon what seemed to be many islands and cities burning. There was no longer any grief over individual losses, for it was swallowed up in the public lamentation, as men reminded one another how once before most of their city had been similarly laid waste by the Gauls.
18
While the whole population was in this state of mind and many crazed by the disaster were leaping into the blaze itself, Nero mounted to the roof of the palace, where nearly the whole conflagration could be taken in by a sweeping glance, and having assumed the lyrist's garb he sang the Taking (as he said) of Ilium, which, to the ordinary vision, however, appeared to be the Taking of Rome.
The calamity which the city at this time experienced has no parallel before or since, except in the Gallic invasion. The whole Palatine hill, the theatre of Taurus, and nearly two-thirds of the remainder of the city were burned and countless human beings perished. The populace invoked curses upon Nero without intermission, not uttering his name but simply cursing those who had set the city on fire: and this was especially the case because they were disturbed by the memory of the oracle chanted in Tiberius's day. These were the words:--
"Thrice three hundred cycles of tireless years being ended, Civil strife shall the Romans destroy." [15]
And when Nero by way of encouraging them reported that these verses were nowhere to be found, they changed and went to repeating another oracle, which they averred to be a genuine Sibylline production, namely:--
"Last of the sons of Aeneas a matricide shall govern."
And so it proved, whether this was actually revealed beforehand by some divination or whether the populace now for the first time gave it the form of a divine saying adapted to existing circumstances. For Nero was indeed the last emperor of the Julian line descended from Aeneas.
He now began to collect vast sums from both individuals and nations, sometimes using compulsion, with the conflagration for his excuse, and sometimes obtaining it by "voluntary" offers; and the mass of the Romans had the food supply fund withdrawn.
19
While he was so engaged, he received news from Armenia and soon after a laurel wreath in honor of victory. The scattered bodies of soldiery in that region had been united by Corbulo, who trained them sedulously after a period of neglect, and then by the very report of his coming had terrified both Vologaesus, king of Parthia, and Tiridates, chief of Armenia. He resembled the primitive Romans in that besides coming of a brilliant family and besides possessing much strength of body he was still further gifted with a shrewd intelligence: and he behaved with great bravery, with great fairness, and with great good faith toward all, both friends and enemies. For these reasons Nero had despatched him to the scene of war in his own stead and had entrusted to him a larger force than to anybody else, being equally assured that the man would subdue the barbarians and would not revolt against him. And Corbulo proved neither of these assumptions false.
All other men, however, had it as a particular grievance against him that he kept faith with Nero. They were very anxious to get him as emperor in place of the actual despot, and this conduct of his seemed to them his only defect.
20
Corbulo, accordingly, had taken Artaxata without a struggle and had razed the city to the ground. This exploit finished, he marched in the direction of Tigranocerta, sparing all the districts that yielded themselves but devastating the lands of all such as resisted him. Tigranocerta submitted to him voluntarily, and he performed other brilliant and glorious deeds, as a result of which he induced the formidable Vologaesus to accept terms that accorded with the Roman reputation. [For Vologaesus, on hearing that Nero had assigned Armenia to others and that Adiabene was being ravaged by Tigranes, made preparations himself to go on a campaign into Syria against Corbulo, but sent into Armenia Monobazus, king of Adiabene, and Monaeses, a Parthian. These two had shut up Tigranes in Tigranocerta. But since they did not succeed in harming him at all by their siege and as often as they tried conclusions with him were repulsed by both the native troops and the Romans that were in his army, and since Corbulo guarded Syria with extreme care, Vologaesus recognized the hopelessness of his attempt and disbanded his forces. Then he sent to Corbulo and obtained peace on condition that he send a new embassy to Nero, raise the siege, and withdraw his soldiers from Armenia. Nero made him no immediate nor speedy nor definite reply, but despatched Lucius Caesennius Paetus to Cappadocia to see to it that there should be no Armenian uprising.]