Tacitus: Annals: Book 5 [10]
The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: Annals Book 5 [10]
10. About the same time Asia and Achaia were alarmed by a prevalent but short-lived
rumour that Drusus, the son of Germanicus, had been seen in the Cyclades and
subsequently on the mainland. There was indeed a young man of much the same
age, whom some of the emperor's freedmen pretended to recognise, and to whom
they attached themselves with a treacherous intent. The renown of the name attracted
the ignorant, and the Greek mind eagerly fastens on what is new and marvellous.
The story indeed, which they no sooner invented than believed, was that Drusus
had escaped from custody, and was on his way to the armies of his father, with
the design of invading Egypt or Syria. And he was now drawing to himself a multitude
of young men and much popular enthusiasm, enjoying the present and cherishing
idle hopes of the future, when Poppaeus Sabinus heard of the affair. At the
time he was chiefly occupied with Macedonia, but he also had the charge of Achaia.
So, to forestall the danger, let the story be true or false, he hurried by the
bays of Torone and Thermae, then passed on to Euboea, an island of the Aegaean,
to Piraeus, on the coast of Attica, thence to the shores of Corinth and the
narrow Isthmus, and having arrived by the other sea at Nicopolis, a Roman colony,
he there at last ascertained that the man, when skilfully questioned, had said
that he was the son of Marcus Silanus, and that, after the dispersion of a number
of his followers' he had embarked on a vessel, intending, it seemed, to go to
Italy. Sabinus sent this account to Tiberius, and of the origin and issue of
the affair nothing more is known to me.
11. At the close of the year a long growing feud between the consuls broke
out. Trio, a reckless man in incurring enmities and a practised lawyer, had
indirectly censured Regulus as having been half-hearted in crushing the satellites
of Sejanus. Regulus, who, unless he was provoked, loved quietness, not only
repulsed his colleague's attack, but was for dragging him to trial as a guilty
accomplice in the conspiracy. And though many of the senators implored them
to compose a quarrel likely to end fatally, they continued their enmity and
their mutual menaces till they retired from office.
Next: Book 6 [1]
