Читать книгу The Best of the World's Classics (All 10 Volumes) - Henry Cabot Lodge - Страница 108

[101] "If by eloquence is meant the ability to persuade, then Tacitus," according to Cruttwell, "is the most eloquent historian that ever existed." His portraits, especially those of Tiberius and Nero, have been severely criticized by French and English writers, but while his verdicts have been shaken, they have not been reversed. The world still fails to doubt their substantial reality. Tacitus, adds Cruttwell, has probably exercised upon readers a greater power than any other writer of prose whom Rome produced.

[102] From Book I of the "Annals." The Oxford translation revised.

[103] Marcellus was the son of Octavia by her husband C. Claudius Marcellus. He married Julia, a daughter of Augustus.

[104] Agrippa was the leading administrative mind under Augustus, with whom he had served in the Civil War and in the battle Actium. The Pantheon, the only complete building of Imperial Rome that still survives, was finished and dedicated by him. He married as his third wife Julia, the widow of Marcellus.

[105] Nola lay sixteen miles northeast of Naples. The reference is to Drusus, son of Tiberius, and to Germanicus, at that time commanding on the Rhine.

[106] From Book III of the "Annals." The Oxford translation revised.

[107] This Agrippina was the daughter of Agrippa and Julia. She married Germanicus, became the mother of Caligula, and was a woman of lofty character, who died by voluntary starvation after having been exiled by Tiberius.

[108] It has been conjectured that the two children of Germanicus here referred to were Caligula, who had gone to the East with his father, and Julia, who was born in Lesbos.

[109] These children were Nero, Drusus, Agrippina and Drusilla.

[110] Not the Emperor of that name, who was not born until 121 a.d.

[111] Mother of Tiberius by a husband whom she had married before she married Augustus.

[112] Julia, daughter of Julius Cæsar by his wife Cornelia.

[113] From Book XV of the "Annals." The Oxford translation revised.

[114] Caius Piso, lender of an unsuccessful conspiracy against Nero in 65. Other famous Romans of the name of Piso are Lucius, censor, consul and author; another Lucius whose daughter was married to Julius Cæsar; and Cneius, governor of Syria, who was accused of murdering Germanicus.

[115] Poppæa Sabina, who once was the wife of Otho and mistress of Nero. She was afterward divorced from Otho and married to Nero in 62 a.d. She died from the effects of a kick given by Nero.

[116] From Book XV at the "Annals." The Oxford translator revised.

[117] Nero.

[118] Suetonius relates that, when some one repeated to Nero the line "When I am dead, let fire devour the world," he replied, "Let it be whilst I am living." That author asserts that Nero's purpose sprung in part from his dislike of old buildings and narrow streets. During the progress of the fire several men of consular rank met Nero's domestic servants with torches and combustibles which they were using to start fires, but did not dare to stay their hands. Livy asserts that, after it was destroyed by the Gauls, Rome had been rebuilt with narrow winding streets.

[119] A city in the central Apennines, six miles from Lake Fucinus.

[120] Near the Esquiline.

[121] The house, gardens, baths and the Pantheon of Agrippa are here referred to. Nero's gardens were near the Vatican.

[122] The palace of Numa, on the Palatine hill, had been the mansion of Augustus.

[123] Carlyle, in his essay on Voltaire, refers to this passage as having been "inserted as a small, transitory, altogether trifling circumstance, in the history of such a potentate as Nero"; but it has become "to us the most earnest, sad and sternly significant passage that we know to exist in writing."

[124] Claudius already had expelled the Jews from Rome and included in their number the followers of Christ. But his edict was not specifically directed against the Christians. Nero was the first emperor who persecuted them as professors of a new faith.

[125] From Book III of the "History." The Oxford translation revised. Pliny, Josephus and Dio all agree that the Capitol was set on fire by the followers of Vitellius.

[126] Porsena did not actually get into Rome, being induced to raise the siege when only at its gates.

[127] The capture of Rome by the Gauls under Brennus took place in 390 B.C. The destruction of the Capitol in the first Civil War occurred in 83 b.c., during the consulship of Lucius Scipio and Caius Norbaius. The fire was not started as an act of open violence, however, but by clandestine incendiaries.

[128] From Book III of the "History." The Oxford translation revised. Near Cremona had been fought the first battle of Bedriacum by the armies of Vitellius and Otho, rivals for the imperial throne, Otho being defeated. A few months later on the same field the army of Vitellius was overthrown by Vespasian, who succeeded him as emperor. Vitellius retired to Cremona, which was then placed under siege by Vespasian, and altho strongly fortified, captured.

[129] Antonius Primus, the chief commander of Vespasian's forces.

[130] The modern Brescia.

[131] According to Josephus 30,000 of the Vitellians perished and 4,500 of the followers of Vespasian.

[132] From the Oxford translation revised.

[133] Caligula, not Caius Julius Cæsar, is here referred to, he also having borne the name of Caius.

[134] Now Marseilles, founded by Phœnicians, who introduced, there a degree of Greek culture which long made the city famous.

[135] A brother of the Emperor Otho.

[136] Agricola was Consul in 77 a.d., and had for colleague Domitian, afterward Emperor.