Complete Works of Eutropius Read online

  2 Lying on the river Melas, above the Hellespont, near the Propontis. — Madame Dacier.

  3 74 BC.

  4 71 BC.

  5 Burziaonem. Thus stands the word in the editions of Havercamp, Verheyk, and Tzschucke; but none of them think it right. Cellarius conjectured Bizonen, Bizw&nh being mentioned by Strabo, lib. vii. as a city between Apollonia and Calatis; and no other critic has found anything better to offer.

  6 See Justin, xlii. 3.

  7 The Iberians are mentioned as a people bordering on the Albani by Plutarch, Lucull. c. 26, and by Florus, iii. 5.

  8 Qui nunc Sequani appellantur. Between the Sequani and Helvetii was the lofty mount Jura, according to the description given of their position by Caesar, B. G. i. 2. If what Eutropius says is true, the change of name must have arisen from the intercourse of the two people. See Cellarius Geog. Ant. ii. 3, 50. — Tzschucke.

  9 Something more than £320,000. [Note that H.W.Bird gives a figure of forty million sesterces — RP]

  10 Romani populi fortuna mutata est. The fortune of the Roman people is their condition and state. The phrase fortuna mutari, or immutari, is used chiefly when the state of things is changed for the worse. See Call. Cat. c. 2; Jug. c. 17; Vell. Pat. ii. 57, 118. — Grunerus

  11 Generally called Pharsalus; but the name Palaeopharsalus, that is, Old Pharsalus, is used by Orosius, vi. 15, by Strabo, lib. xvii., and by the Greek translator of Eutropius.

  BOOK VII

  Wars that followed on the death of Julius Caesar, I. — Antony flees to Lepidus, and is reconciled to Octavianus; their triumvirate, II. — Proceedings and deaths of Brutus and Cassius; division of the empire between Antony and Octavianus, III. — War with Sextus Pompey, IV. — Successes of Agrippa in Aquitania; Ventidius Bassus conquers the Parthians, V. — Death of Sextus Pompey; marriage of Antony and Cleopatra; unsuccessful expedition of Antony into Parthia, VI. — War between Octavianus and Antony; deaths of Antony and Cleopatra; Egypt added to the Roman empire, VII. — Octavianus becomes sole ruler under the name of Augustus, VIII. — His wars and victories, IX. X. — Character and acts of Tiberius, XI. — Of Caligula, XII. — Of Claudius, who subjugates Britain, XIII. — Of Nero, under whom two new provinces are made, Pontus Polemoniacus and Alpes Cottiae, XIV. XV. — Of Galba, XVI. — Of Otho, XVII. — Of Vitellius, XVIII. — Of Vespasian, under whom Judaea was added to the Roman dominions, with the provinces Achaia, Lycia, Rhodes, Samos, Thracia, Cilicia, Comagena, XIX. XX. — Of Titus, XXI. XXII. — Of Domitian, XXIII.

  I

  After the assassination of Caesar, in about the seven hundred and ninth year of the city, the civil wars were renewed; for the senate favoured the assassins of Caesar; and Antony, the consul, being of Caesar’s party, endeavoured to crush them in a civil war. The state therefore being thrown into confusion, Antony, perpetrating many acts of violence, was declared an enemy by the senate. The two consuls, Pansa and Hirtius, were sent in pursuit of him, together with Octavianus, a youth of eighteen years of age, the nephew of Caesar, 1whom by his will he had appointed his heir, directing him to bear his name; this is the same who was afterwards called Augustus, and obtained the imperial dignity. These three generals therefore marching against Antony, defeated him. It happened, however, that the two victorious consuls lost their lives; and the three armies in consequence became subject to Caesar only.

  II

  Antony, being routed, and having lost his army, fled to Lepidus, who had been master of the horse to Caesar, and was at that time in possession of a strong body of forces, by whom he was well received. By the mediation of Lepidus, Caesar shortly after made peace with Antony, and, as if with intent to avenge the death of his father, by whom he had been adopted in his will, marched to Rome at the head of an army, and forcibly procured his appointment to the consulship in his twentieth year. In conjunction with Antony and Lepidus he proscribed the senate, and proceeded to make himself master of the state by arms. By their acts, Cicero the orator, and many others of the nobility, were put to death.

  III

  In the meantime Brutus and Cassius, the assassins of Caesar, raised a great war; for there were several armies in Macedonia and the East, of which they took the command. Caesar Octavianus Augustus, therefore, and Mark Antony, proceeding against them (for Lepidus remained for the defence of Italy), came to an engagement at Philippi, a city of Macedonia. In the first battle Antony and Caesar were defeated, but Cassius, the leader of the nobility, fell; in the second they defeated and killed Brutus, and very many of the nobility who had joined them in the war; and the republic was divided among the conquerors, so that Augustus had Spain, the Gauls, and Italy; Antony, Asia, Pontus, and the East. But the consul Lucius Antonius, the brother of him who had fought with Caesar against Brutus and Cassius, kindled a civil war in Italy; and being defeated near Perusia, a city of Tuscany, was taken prisoner, but not put to death.

  IV

  In the meantime a war of a serious nature was excited in Sicily by Sextus Pompey, the son of Cnaeus Pompey the Great, those that survived of the party of Brutus and Cassius flocking to join him from all parts. The war against Sextus Pompey was carried on by Gassar Augustus Octavianus and Mark Antony. A peace was at length concluded.

  V

  About that time Marcus Agrippa met with great success in Aquitania; also Lucius Ventidius Bassus defeated the Persians, who were making incursions into Syria, in three engagements. He killed Pacorus, the son of king Orodes, on that very day on which Orodes, the king of the Persians, had before put Crassus to death by the hands of his general Surena. He was the first who celebrated a most legitimate triumph at Rome over the Parthians.

  VI

  In the meantime Sextus Pompey violated the peace, and, being defeated in a sea-fight, fled to Asia, and was there put to death.

  Antony, who was master of Asia and the East, having divorced the sister of Caesar Augustus Octavianus, married Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. He also fought in person against the Persians, and defeated them in the first encounters; but on his return suffered greatly from famine and pestilence; and as the Parthians pressed on him in his retreat, he retired from before them just as if he had been defeated.

  VII

  He also excited a great civil war, at the instigation of his wife Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, who aspired with a womanish ambition to reign at Rome. He was defeated by Augustus in the remarkable and celebrated sea-fight at Actium, a place in Epirus; whence he fled into Egypt, and there, as his circumstances grew desperate, since all went over to Augustus, committed suicide. Cleopatra applied to herself an asp, and perished by its venom. Egypt was added to, the Roman empire by Octavianus Augustus, and Cnaeus Cornelius Gallus appointed governor of it; he was the first Roman judge that Egypt had.

  VIII

  Having thus brought wars to an end throughout the world, OCTAVIANUS AUGUSTUS returned to Rome in the twelfth year after he had been elected consul. From that period he held the government as sole ruler for forty-four years, for during the twelve previous years he had held it in conjunction with Antony and Lepidus. Thus from the beginning of his reign to the end were fifty-six years. He died a natural death in his eighty-sixth year, at the town of Atella in Campania. and his remains are interred at Rome in the Campus Martius. He was a man who was considered in most respects, and not without reason, to resemble a divinity, for scarcely ever was there any one more successful than he in war, or more prudent in peace. During the forty-four years that he held the government alone, he conducted himself with the greatest courtesy, being most liberal to all, and most faithful to his friends, whom he raised to such honours, that he placed them almost on a level with his own dignity.

  IX

  At no period was the Roman state more flourishing; for, to say nothing of the civil wars, in which he was unconquered, he added to the Roman empire Egypt, Cantabria, Dalmatia, often before conquered but only then entirely subdued, Pannonia, Aquitania, Illyricum, Rhaetia, the Vindelici and Salassi on the Alps, and all the maritime cities
of Pontus, among which the two most noble were Bosporus and Panticapaeon. He also conquered the Dacians in battle; put to the sword numerous forces of the Germans; and drove them beyond the river Elbe, which is in the country of the barbarians far beyond the Rhine. This war however he carried on by the agency of his step-son Drusus, as he had conducted the Pannonian war by that of his other step-son Tiberius, in which he transplanted forty thousand prisoners from Germany, and settled them in Gaul on the bank of the Rhine. He recovered Armenia from the Parthians; the Persians gave him hostages, which they had given to no one before; and also restored the Roman standards, which they had taken from Crassus when he was defeated.

  X

  The Scythians and Indians, to whom the Roman name was before unknown, sent him presents and ambassadors. Galatia also was made a province under his reign, having before been an independent kingdom, and Marcus Lollius was the first that governed it, in quality of praetor. So much was he beloved even by the barbarians, that kings, allies of the Roman people, founded cities in his honour, to which they gave the name of Caesarea, as one in Mauritania, built by King Juba, and another in Palestine, which is now a very celebrated city. Many kings, moreover, left their own dominions, and, assuming the Roman dress, that is, the toga, ran by the side of his carriage or his horse. At his death he was styled a divinity. He left the state in a most prosperous condition to his successor Tiberius, who had been his step-son, afterwards his son-in-law, and lastly his son by adoption.

  XI

  TIBERIUS distinguished his reign by great indolence, excessive cruelty, unprincipled avarice, and abandoned licentiousness. He fought on no occasion in person; the wars were carried on by his generals. Some kings, whom he induced to visit him by seducing allurements, he never sent back; among them was Archelaus of Cappadocia, whose kingdom also he reduced to the form of a province, and directed that its principal city should be called after his own name; and, having been before called Mazaca, it is now termed Caesarea. He died in Campania, in the three and twentieth year of his reign, and the eighty-third of his age, to the great joy of all men.

  XII

  To him succeeded CAIUS CAESAR, surnamed CALIGULA, the grandson of Drusus, the step-son of Augustus, and grand-nephew2 of Tiberius himself, a most wicked and cruel prince, who effaced even the memory of Tiberius’s enormities. He undertook a war against the Germans; but, after entering Suevia, made no effort to do anything. He committed incest with his sisters, and acknowledged a daughter that he had by one of them. While tyrannizing over all with the utmost avarice, licentiousness, and cruelty, he was assassinated in the palace, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, in the third year, tenth month, and eighth day of his reign.

  XIII

  After him reigned CLAUDIUS, the uncle of Caligula, and son of that Drusus who has a monument at Moguntiacum, whose grandson Caligula also was. His reign was of no striking character; he acted, in many respects, with gentleness and moderation, in some with cruelty and folly. He made war upon Britain, which no Roman since Julius Caesar had visited; and, having reduced it through the agency of Cnaeus Sentius and Aulus Plautius, illustrious and noble men, he celebrated a magnificent triumph. Certain islands also, called the Orcades, situated in the ocean, beyond Britain, he added to the Roman empire, and gave his son the name of Britannicus. So condescending, too, was he towards some of his friends, that he even attended Plautius, a man of noble birth, who had obtained many signal successes in the expedition to Britain, in his triumph, and walked at his left hand when he went up to the Capitol. He lived to the age of sixty-four, and reigned fourteen years; and after his death was consecrated3 and deified.

  XIV

  To him succeeded NERO, who greatly resembled his uncle Caligula, and both disgraced and weakened the Roman empire; he indulged in such extraordinary luxury and extravagance, that, after the example of Caius Caligula, he even bathed in hot and cold perfumes, and fished with golden nets, which he drew up with cords of purple silk. He put to death a very great number of the senate. To all good men he was an enemy. At last he exposed himself in so disgraceful a manner, that he danced and sung upon the stage in the dress of a harp-player and tragedian. He was guilty of many murders, his brother, wife, and mother, being put to death by him. He set on fire the city of Rome, that he might enjoy the sight of a spectacle such as Troy formerly presented when taken and burned.

  In military affairs he attempted nothing. Britain he almost lost; for two of its most noble towns4 were taken and levelled to the ground under his reign. The Parthian’s took from him Armenia, and compelled the Roman legions to pass under the yoke. Two provinces however were formed under him; Pontus Polemoniacus, by the concession of King Polemon; and the Cottian Alps, on the death of King Cottius.

  XV

  When, having become detestable by such conduct to the city of Rome, and being deserted at the same time by every one, and declared an enemy by the senate, he was sought for to be led to punishment (the punishment being, that he should be dragged naked through the streets, with a fork placed under his head,5 be beaten to death with rods, and then hurled from the Tarpeian rock), he fled from the palace, and killed himself in a suburban villa of one of his freed-men, between the Salarian and Nomentane roads, at the fourth milestone from the city. He built those hot baths at Rome, which were formerly called the Neronian, but now the Alexandrian. He died in the thirty-second year of his age, and the fourteenth year of his reign; and in him all the family of Augustus became extinct.

  XVI

  To Nero succeeded SERVIUS GALBA, a senator of a very ancient and noble family, elected emperor when in his seventy-third year by the Spaniards and Gauls, and soon after readily acknowledged by the whole army; for his life, though but that of a private person,6 had been distinguished by many military and civil exploits, having been often consul, often proconsul, and frequently general in most important wars. His reign was short, but had a promising commencement, except that he seemed to incline too much to severity. He was killed however by the treachery of Otho, in the seventh month of his reign, in the forum at Rome, and buried in his gardens, which are situated in the Aurelian way, not far from the city.

  XVII

  OTHO, after Galba was killed, took possession of the government, a man of a nobler descent on the mother’s than the father’s side, but obscure on neither. In private life he was effeminate, and an intimate of Nero; in his government he could give no evidence of his disposition; for Vitellius, about the same time that Otho had slain Galba, having been also chosen emperor by the German armies, Otho, having commenced a war against him, and having sustained a defeat in a slight skirmish near Bebriacum in Italy, voluntarily, though he had still powerful forces remaining, put an end to his life, in spite of the entreaties of his soldiers that he would not so soon despair of the issue of the war; saying, “that he was not of sufficient importance that a civil war should be raised on his account.” He perished thus voluntarily in the thirty-eighth year of his age, and on the ninety-fifth day of his reign.

  XVIII

  VITELLIUS next obtained the imperial dignity, of a family rather honourable than noble, for his father was not of very high birth, though he had filled three regular consulships. He reigned most disgracefully, being distinguished by the greatest cruelty, but especially by gluttony and voraciousness, since he is reported to have often feasted four or five times a day. A most remarkable supper at least has been recorded, which his brother Vitellius set before him, and in which, besides other expensive dainties, two thousand fishes and seven thousand birds are said to have been placed on the table.

  Being anxious to resemble Nero, and aiming so openly at this that he even paid respect to his remains, which had been meanly buried, he was slain by the generals of the emperor Vespasian, Vitellius having previously put to death Sabinus, Vespasian’s brother, and burned his corpse at the same time with the Capitol. When killed, he was dragged naked, with great ignominy, through the public streets of the city, with his hair erect, and his head raised by mea
ns of a sword placed under his chin, and pelted with dung on the face and breast by all that came in the way; at last his throat was cut, and he was thrown into the Tiber, and had not even the common rites of burial. He perished in the fifty-seventh year of his age, in the eighth month and first day of his reign.

  XIX

  To him succeeded VESPASIAN, who had been chosen emperor in Palestine, a prince indeed of obscure birth, but worthy to be compared with the best emperors, and in private life7 greatly distinguished, as he had been sent by Claudius into Germany, and afterwards into Britain, and had contended two and thirty times with the enemy; he had also added to the Roman empire two very powerful nations,8 twenty towns, and the Isle of Wight on the coast of Britain. At Rome he acted with the greatest forbearance during his government; though he was rather too eager after money; not however that he deprived any one of it unjustly, and even when he had collected it with the greatest diligence and anxiety, he was in the habit of distributing it most readily, especially to the indigent; nor was the liberality of any prince before him greater or more judicious: he was also of a most mild and amiable disposition, insomuch that he never willingly inflicted a severer penalty than banishment, even on persons convicted of treason against himself.

  Under this prince Judaea was added to the Roman empire, and Jerusalem, the most celebrated city of Palestine. He also reduced to the form of provinces Achaia, Lycia, Rhodes, Byzantium, Samos, which had been free till this period; together with Thrace, Cilicia, and Comagena, which had been governed by their respective kings in alliance with the Romans.