Tiberius (10 page)

So that if Romans turned to torture to get the truth, it should not be surprising. It was economical to use pain to secure truth. Pain was a commodity of which they had more than enough; why should they not get something out of it?

In the trial of Libo it would have been very simple, then, and not at all immoral, to torture his slaves for evidence.

However, the Romans were not blind and it had become a custom, then a law, that a man's slaves could not be tortured to compel testimony against him. They could be tortured for any other purpose, certainly. Why not? But the law was clear. Libo's slaves would be the best witnesses against him, slaves being everywhere and seeing everything, but the law had to be upheld.

Very well. Tiberius would not flout the law.

It did occur to him, though, that there was a way out
the state buy Libo's slaves from him. Once Libo had passed title they were no longer his, and affairs could proceed. It was done.

As soon as the state owned them, Libo's ex-slaves were stretched on the rack. Or burned, or cut, or whipped; but the rack was a favorite method of torture in such cases because of its efficient provision against suicide. A man disjointed on the rack had not the strength to kill himself. Thus he could be interrogated indefinitely with a minimum expense for guards.

It was all too much for Libo; and he killed himself. Too bad, said Tiberius solemnly, and swore that his intention had been to pardon the youth for his folly; but all the same he continued the trial. After all, it was not merely the life of Libo that was at stake. If he were convicted, his estates would be forfeit to the state; it would not be thrifty to stop the trial just when the prospects for helping out the budget looked so good.

In the year 17
a.d
. Tiberius recalled Germanicus to Rome. The legions were quieter now, he told his adopted son in a letter, and Rome wanted to give him the triumph he deserved. Besides, leave some laurels for Drusus to win!

Germanicus obeyed, returned to Rome, received his honors. There was no mistaking the love the cheering throng gave him. The dour Tiberius studied the crowd and was not pleased; perhaps it had been a mistake to bring Germanicus back to Rome, where adulation might inspire ambition in him. If he was not already ambitious. Tiberius cast around for a new post for Germanicus, found it in the Near East. The young Caesar was ordered cut to settle the troubles of uneasy tribes and, to make sure that whatever honors he won would be diluted, Tiberius sent along a helper with nearly equal rank.

His name was Cneius Piso, and perhaps he was more than helper. Perhaps he was also Germanicus' murderer.

For Germanicus died. There was a comet in the sky and the wise men knew it portended a death. It was Germanicus' comet.

The body of the dead young man was borne somberly back to Rome, and everywhere it was met with lamentations and ceremonies. Germanicus had a hundred funerals. In every town the people came out in black, burning offerings, weeping and wailing. Long before his ashes reached Rome, Piso was accused of his murder.

Probably he was guilty—more than that, he was certainly guilty under Roman law. The only doubt lies in a sort of technicality. Piso plotted to
poison Germanicus, and Germani
cus died. The evidence was sure, not tortured slaves but physical proof, absolutely unquestionable to Romans.

Yet in us it might raise strong questions. The evidence was such things as moldering corpses, stolen from their graves and used in magical rites; the name of Germanicus, written in a magical way on tablets of lead; records of incantations; blood-smeared cinders, the proof of secret sacrifices—everything, that is to say, except what might really kill a man.

Poisoning to the Romans was not the simple science the Borgias later brought to perfection. The Egyptians were wiser; before Cleopatra settled on the asp, she had conducted weeks of careful experiments on slaves, one chemical poison after another, one venomous bite after another; the slaves that died most easily and quickly were those bitten by snakes, she observed; thus the asp. Romans were more prone to spells and incantations. A grain of salt might kill a man if the grain were magical. That was what Piso tried, magical poisons, sorcerer's tricks in no way different from voodoo or hex. (But we know that voodoo victims also die.) When the murdered man was cremated his heart would not burn. It was found un-scorched in his ashes; and it was a scientific fact, which everyone knew, that the heart of a poison victim did not burn.

It was evidence enough to convict Piso.

Piso knew it. Like Libo, he waited to make sure the trial was going against him, and then he retired, worried and hopeless, to his room. He closed the door, wrote a note; the next morning he was found dead. The sword that cut his throat was lying beside him.

Roman scandal instantl
y conjectured that Piso was not a suicide, that the sword had been wielded by someone anxious to shut his mouth forever.

Tiberius paid no attention to that sort of gossip. (Perhaps because one of the two most frequently mentioned suspects was his chief assistant, Sejanus.
The other was himself.) As with
Libo, Tiberius soberly continued the trial, and soberly confiscated the dead man's estates; but the questions about Piso's death and the reasons for Germanicus' murder were never answered at that trial. They have not been answered to date.

XI

Vipsania died. In Africa a rebellious chief, Tacfarinas, was giving the Empire fits. In Rome the commons muttered over the death of Germanicus and then, paradoxically, over the death of his murderer. Tiberius had his hands full.

It was too bad about Vipsania but, really, she had been out of Tiberius' life for thirty years; it was only that with her death the last thing he had ever loved was irretrievably gone. Tacfarinas was a nearer problem. In the African mountains he defied the Roman legions, hid from them when he chose, fought them when he thought he could win. He ambushed a Roman cohort near the river Pagyda,
and it was not bad enough that
they were defeated—the African made them flee in panic. Tiberius scowled. His officers took a leaf from the imperial book and had the beaten troops lined up. Every tenth man was flogged to death,
pour encourager les autres.
Reinforced and angered, the Romans marched against Tacfarinas again, but he got away.

A Jewish problem arose in Rome. Four
outcast Jews, driven out of Jud
ea and living by their wits in Rome, found themselves a fat young partridge in the person of a Roman matron, Fulvia. She had a great deal of money and she was religiously unfulfilled; she thought she would like to become a Jew and worship one God; the four scoundrels were glad to accommodate her. Once converted, Fulvia was quite agreeable to their suggestion of sending gold, precious fabrics and other treasures to the Temple in Jerusalem, especially as they agreed to transport the gifts for her.

They were thieves, and foolish enough to make a show of their booty. The woman's husband complained to Tiberius.

Tiberius did not like foreign religions in the first place. The Greek and Egyptian gods were bad enough. Jehovah was worse. The Jews dared declare Him
the
God, the sole deity in the universe. Clearly this was to say that the Roman gods were frauds and their worshippers dupes; and whatever Tiberius' private views, he was Chief Pontiff of the Olympian religion in his public self.

Thousands of Jews lived in Rome. There had been a large Jewish colony for centuries. Though Jews had not the rights of citizens, they were not slaves; they were clever in commerce and unambitious for power and, as they had always supported the Caesars, they were allowed to manage as best they could.

Tiberius took the advice of his Pretorian commander, Sejanus, who saw nothing wrong in punishing ten thousand Jews for the crime committed by four. Fulvia's husband had had no such intention when he made his complaint, but the matter was out of his hands now. Four thousand Jews were drafted into the army and sent on a useless mission to Sardinia. The climate was bad, mosquitoes were everywhere, malaria was sure to strike them down. Within a year they died, as Sejanus had planned. The others in Rome's Jewish colony were banished out of the city entirely; and the commons had something to talk about besides the death of Germanicus and Piso.

Tiberius was nearly sixty now, an old rock of a man, proud, cantankerous, and powerful.

Perhaps the expulsion of the Jews was the first really cruel, wrong thing he did as Emperor. He did it on the advice of Sejanus, that supple courtier, and later he tried to blame Sejanus for it entirely. That was false. The blame was all Tiberius'. He was the Emperor, and if he listened to bad advice, or gave power to as bad a man as Sejanus, it was his decision and his power all the same.

Tiberius was not failing in his bodily strength, but he was lonely and he began to seek new pleasures. Work was not the joy it might have been. So much of it had to be devoted to fiddling little enterprises hardly worthy of his time. There were abuses of the right of temple sanctuary in the provinces, criminals and impudent slaves claiming immunity because they had managed to touch a sacred statue, and laughing at the law; Tiberius undertook a study of the old decrees of five centuries to learn how to withdraw the privilege of sanctuary when it was abused. A law of Augustus,
Lex Pappia,
had become a nuisance. The law insisted that Roman nobles marry and have children. Augustus' intention was to keep the old Roman families alive; but Roman childbearing would not be legislated. Hundreds of the greatest Romans lived in the shadow of this law, their civic rights restricted, their fortunes ripe for confiscation under its penalties.

The United States has countle
ss laws on the books as foolish
and dangerous as
Lex Pappia,
but as they are not enforced they do little harm. Rome could not have a law that was a dead letter. Roman prosecutors were not paid servants of the state, able to ignore an act that forbade kissing one's wife on Sunday. In Rome any citizen could act as prosecutor. A law that provided for money fines and confiscation would never lapse from disuse. The citizen who saw his duty to prosecute and did so was entitled to a reward—one-fourth of everything confiscated. The Roman hit-or-miss legal system relied entirely on such volunteers; they were called
"delatores"
and the act of delation—of bringing a charge against a wealthy man—became a lucrative profession.

The accuser had everything to gain by hanging any wretch he could find. The richer the victim, the fatter the prize.
Lex Pappia
produced scores of victims. Almost any wealthy senator who had fewer than three children could be hauled up on charges under it!

Tiberiue could not allow this but could not prevent it as long as the law stood, so he changed it. All he changed, however, was
Lex Pappia.
The
delatores
remained. They cast about for a new'law under which to bring their charges, and discovered the law of treason.

The treason law was called
Lex maiestatis
and, as it conveniently defined treason to include the crimes of holding the state and the Emperor up to ridicule or slander, it gave employment to many.

Money drove many of the
delatores,
ambition inspired others. For a Roman citizen to prosecute successfully a great man was to win huge prestige. The scalp of even a minor magistrate was a fine trophy for an ambitious youngster. It gave him community standing that only decades of hard work might equal, and in a fraction of the time.

Tiberius saw the danger of delation and tried to prevent it. He made the penalty for an unsuccessful prosecution as severe for the prosecutor as a successful one was for the defendant. Then he stopped. The acid in his heart began to burn away such considerations. The
delatores
took courage and flourished, knowing the Emperor would not oppose them.

It was a sickness of the will that began to strike Tiberius now. All his life he had been turning inward—away from the mother who left him, away from the wife he had to give up, away from the brother who died. As he could not have happiness, he began to seek pleasure. Pleasure was the conversation of wise astrologers like Thrasyllus; pleasure was also more athletic and more personal. Tiberius had never been a monk. Why should he be? Sex with women was the inalienable privilege of every Roman male, as long as the women were concubines, courtesans, or slaves. Sex with men and boys had such mighty precedents as Julius Caesar and Augustus. Tiberius' appreciation of money did not hamper him in providing comforts for his palace, however much it might discourage his waging wars. He began to live more for the evenings and less for the days of work.

His only blood relative, th
e son named Drusus Junior, was
partial to pleasures too. He inherited no talent for work from his father, nor any love for learning. He liked gladiatorial shows, and hated his father's penurious refusal to give them. He loved the sight of death. If he could not see gladiators dying by the sword, he would watch an execution; if no execution was handy, he would hunt to kill wild animals, or fish. His morals were terrible by our standards, but what really kept Tiberius from loving his son was that he was a lout.