Agrippa’s Chains and Crown

A little before the death of King Herod, Agrippa was living at Rome. He was brought up with Drusus, the son of the emperor Tiberius, and was his constant companion, and he won the friendship of Antonia, the wife of Drusus the Great, for his mother Berenice was held in high esteem by her and had asked her to advance her son. Agrippa was by nature high-minded and lavish in the gifts he made, but while his mother was alive this bent of his did not show itself, for he wished to avoid her anger at such extravagance. But when Berenice died and he was left to his own management, he spent a great deal extravagantly on his daily way of life, and a great deal on immoderate gifts, chiefly to Caesar’s freedmen, to win their support, so that in a short time he was reduced to poverty and could no longer live at Rome. Tiberius, too, forbade the friends of his dead son to come into his sight, because seeing them reminded him of his son and renewed his grief. [a]

For these reasons Agrippa left Rome and sailed to Judea, but in a bad way, downcast at the loss of the money he once had, and because he had nothing to pay his creditors, who were many and gave him no room for escape. He did not know what to do. So, ashamed of his present condition, he withdrew to a tower at Malatha in Idumea and thought of killing himself. But his wife Cypros saw what he intended and tried every means to turn him from such a course. She sent a letter to his sister Herodias, who was now the wife of Herod the tetrarch, telling her of Agrippa’s present intention and of the necessity that drove him to it. She asked her, as his kinswoman, to help him and to get her husband to do the same, since she could see how Cypros herself was easing her husband’s troubles as much as she could, though she did not have the same wealth to do it with. So they sent for him, gave him Tiberias to live in, set aside a sum of money for his support, and honored him with the office of market overseer of Tiberias. [c]

Yet Herod did not keep to this resolve of supporting him for long, though even that support was not enough for him. For once, when they were at a feast at Tyre and had been drinking, and insults were flying back and forth, Agrippa thought it not to be borne when Herod taunted him with his poverty and with owing his daily bread to him. So he went to Flaccus, a former consul, who had been a very great friend of his at Rome in earlier days and was now governor of Syria.

Flaccus received him kindly, and he lived with him. Flaccus also had with him there Aristobulus, who was Agrippa’s brother but at odds with him. Yet their hostility to each other did not prevent Flaccus’s friendship with both, and both were treated honorably by him. Still, Aristobulus did not let up in his ill will toward Agrippa until at last he had brought him into disfavor with Flaccus. The occasion of this estrangement was as follows. The people of Damascus were in dispute with the Sidonians about their borders. When Flaccus was about to hear the case between them, they learned that Agrippa had great influence with him, so they asked him to take their side and promised him a great deal of money for the favor. So he worked hard for the Damascenes as far as he could. But Aristobulus got word of this promise of money and accused him of it before Flaccus. When on thorough examination it plainly proved to be so, Flaccus struck Agrippa from the number of his friends. [d]

So he was reduced to the utmost need and came to Ptolemais. Not knowing where else to make a living, he thought of sailing to Italy; but since he was held back by want of money, he asked Marsyas, his freedman, to find some way of getting him as much as he needed for the purpose by borrowing it from someone. So Marsyas asked Protus, a freedman of Berenice, Agrippa’s mother, who by the terms of her will had been left to Antonia, to lend the money on Agrippa’s own bond and security. But Protus accused Agrippa of having cheated him out of certain sums, and so forced Marsyas, when he drew up the bond for twenty thousand Attic drachmae, to accept twenty-five hundred drachmae less than he asked for. Marsyas agreed to this, because he could not help it.

On receiving this money, Agrippa came to Anthedon, took ship, and was about to set sail. But Herennius Capito, the procurator of Jamnia, sent a band of soldiers to demand from him three hundred thousand drachmae of silver that he owed to Caesar’s treasury from his time at Rome, and so forced him to stay. Agrippa pretended he would do as he was told, but when night came he cut his cables, put to sea, and sailed to Alexandria. There he asked Alexander the alabarch to lend him two hundred thousand drachmae. Alexander said he would not lend it to him, but would not refuse it to Cypros, for he greatly admired her love for her husband and her other virtues. So she undertook to repay it. Alexander then paid them five talents at Alexandria and promised to pay them the rest of the sum at Dicaearchia; he did this for fear that Agrippa would quickly spend it. So Cypros sent her husband off to go on with his voyage to Italy, while she and her children went back to Judea.

Agrippa reached Puteoli and from there wrote a letter to Tiberius Caesar, who was then living on Capri, telling him that he had come so far in order to wait on him and pay him a visit, and asking leave to cross over to Capri. Tiberius made no difficulty, and wrote back in an obliging way in other respects too, saying that he was glad of his safe return and inviting him to Capri. When he came, Tiberius did not fail to treat him as kindly as he had promised in his letter. But the next day a letter came to Caesar from Herennius Capito, informing him that Agrippa had borrowed three hundred thousand drachmae and had not paid it at the time appointed, and that when it was demanded of him he had run away like a fugitive from the places under Capito’s authority, and put it out of his power to recover the money. When Caesar read this letter he was much troubled at it, and ordered that Agrippa be kept from his presence until he had paid the debt. [i]

Agrippa was not at all daunted by Caesar’s anger. He begged Antonia, the mother of Germanicus and of Claudius, who was afterward Caesar himself, to lend him the three hundred thousand drachmae so that he would not lose Tiberius’s friendship. Out of regard for the memory of his mother Berenice, for the two women had been very close, and because he and Claudius had been brought up together, she lent him the money; and once this debt was paid, nothing stood in the way of Tiberius’s friendship toward him. After this Tiberius Caesar commended his grandson to him and ordered that Agrippa always accompany him when he went out. But after his kind reception by Antonia, Agrippa turned to paying his respects to Gaius, who was her grandson and was held in very high regard because of the goodwill people bore his father. Now there was a certain Thallus, a Samaritan by birth and a freedman of Caesar’s, from whom he borrowed a million drachmae. With this he repaid Antonia the debt he owed her, and by spending the rest in courting Gaius he became a man of great influence with him.

When the friendship between Agrippa and Gaius had grown very close, some words passed between them about Tiberius once when they were riding in a chariot together. Agrippa prayed, for the two of them sat by themselves, that Tiberius might soon leave the stage and give up the government to Gaius, who was in every way more worthy of it. Eutychus, Agrippa’s freedman, who was driving the chariot, heard these words and at the time said nothing of them. But when Agrippa accused him of stealing some of his clothes, which was certainly true, he ran away from him. When he was caught and brought before Piso, the governor of the city, and was asked why he had run away, he replied that he had something to tell Caesar that concerned his safety and preservation. So Piso put him in chains and sent him to Capri. [l]

But Tiberius, as was his custom, kept him in chains, for he was a delayer of business if ever any king or tyrant was. He did not admit ambassadors promptly, and he sent no successors to the governors or procurators of provinces who had once been sent, unless they died. That was also why he was so slow to hear the cases of prisoners. When his friends asked him the reason for his delay in such matters, he said that he put off hearing ambassadors so that, if he dismissed them quickly, other ambassadors would not be appointed and come back on him, and he would bring on himself the trouble of receiving and dismissing them in public. He let the governors who had once been sent to their posts stay there long, he said, out of regard for the subjects under them. For all governors are naturally inclined to get as much as they can, and those who are not to settle there but to stay a short time, uncertain when they will be removed, drive themselves the harder to fleece the people. But if their term is prolonged, they are at last glutted with plunder, having gotten a vast amount, and so in the end they become less keen in their pillaging. If successors are sent quickly, however, the poor subjects, who are exposed to them as prey, will not be able to bear the new ones, since these will not have had the time their predecessors had to fill themselves and so grow less eager for more; and this because they are removed before they have had time.

He gave them an example to show what he meant. A swarm of flies had settled on the sores of a man who had been wounded. One of the bystanders pitied his misfortune and, thinking he could not drive the flies away himself, was about to drive them off for him. But the man begged him to leave them alone. The other asked him the reason for such a strange course, refusing relief from his present misery, and he answered, “If you drive these flies away, you will hurt me worse. These are already full of my blood, so they do not crowd me or torment me as much as before, but are somewhat slacker; while the fresh ones that come almost starved, and find me already worn out, will be the death of me.” “That is why I myself take care not to keep sending new governors to my subjects, who are already sufficiently worn down by many oppressions. Like these flies, they would only distress them further; and besides their natural desire for gain, they would have this added spur to it, that they expect soon to be deprived of the pleasure they take in it.”

As further proof of what I say about the dilatory nature of Tiberius, I appeal to his practice itself. Although he was emperor for twenty-two years, he sent only two procurators in all to govern the Jewish nation, Gratus and his successor in the government, Pilate. Nor did he act one way toward the Jews and another toward the rest of his subjects. He further told his friends that he delayed even in hearing the cases of prisoners because immediate death for those who must be condemned to die would relieve their present miseries, while such wicked wretches deserved no such favor; whereas, worn down by the calamity pressing on them, they would suffer greater misery.

That was why Eutychus could not get a hearing but was kept in prison. Some time later, however, Tiberius came from Capri to Tusculanum, which is about twelve miles from Rome. Agrippa then asked Antonia to obtain a hearing for Eutychus, whatever might come of the charge he was bringing against him. Now Antonia was greatly esteemed by Tiberius on every account: for the dignity of her relationship to him, since she had been the wife of his brother Drusus, and for her outstanding chastity. For though she was still a young woman, she remained a widow and refused all other marriages, although Augustus had ordered her to marry someone else, and all along she kept her reputation free from reproach. [n]

She had also been Tiberius’s greatest benefactor when a very dangerous plot was laid against him by Sejanus, a friend of his who then held the greatest power, because he was general of the army. Many members of the senate and many of the freedmen had joined him, the soldiers had been corrupted, and the plot had gone very far. Sejanus would certainly have gained his end, had not Antonia’s daring been more wisely managed than Sejanus’s malice. When she discovered his designs against Tiberius, she wrote him an exact account of the whole, gave the letter to Pallas, the most faithful of her servants, and sent him to Tiberius at Capri. When Tiberius learned of it, he killed Sejanus and his fellow conspirators. So Tiberius, who had held her in great esteem before, now regarded her with still greater respect and relied on her in everything.

So when Tiberius was asked by this Antonia to examine Eutychus, he answered, “If Eutychus has falsely accused Agrippa in what he has said about him, he has had punishment enough from what I have already done to him. But if on examination the accusation proves true, let Agrippa take care that in his desire to punish his freedman he does not rather bring punishment on himself.” When Antonia told Agrippa this, he pressed all the harder for the matter to be examined. So Antonia, since Agrippa kept urging her continually to ask this favor, took the following opportunity. Once, when Tiberius was lying at his ease in his litter and being carried about, with Gaius, her grandson, and Agrippa walking ahead of him after their midday meal, she walked beside the litter and asked him to call Eutychus and have him examined. He replied, “Antonia, the gods are my witnesses that I am led to do what I am about to do not by my own inclination, but because I am forced to it by your requests.”

With that he ordered Macro, who had succeeded Sejanus, to bring Eutychus to him, and he was brought without delay. Then Tiberius asked him what he had to say against a man who had given him his freedom. He said, “My lord, this Gaius, and Agrippa with him, were once riding in a chariot, and I was sitting at their feet. Among other talk that passed, Agrippa said to Gaius, ‘Oh, that the day would come when this old fellow dies and names you ruler of the inhabited world! For then this Tiberius, his grandson, would be no hindrance, but would be put out of the way by you, and the world would be happy, and I happy too.’”

Tiberius took these to be truly Agrippa’s words. He also bore a grudge against Agrippa because, when he had ordered him to pay his respects to Tiberius, his grandson and the son of Drusus, Agrippa had not paid him that respect but had disobeyed his orders and transferred all his attention to Gaius. So he said to Macro, “Bind this man.” But Macro, not knowing clearly which of them he meant, and not expecting him to order any such thing done to Agrippa, held back and came to ask more exactly what he had said. When Caesar had gone around the hippodrome, he found Agrippa standing there. “Macro,” he said, “this is certainly the man I meant to have bound.” And when Macro still asked, “Which of these is to be bound?” he said, “Agrippa.”

At this Agrippa began to plead for himself, reminding him of his son, with whom he had been brought up, and of the younger Tiberius, whom he had helped to raise. But it was all to no purpose, for they led him away in chains still wearing his purple clothes. The weather was very hot, and they had had little wine with their meal, so that he was very thirsty. He was also in great distress and took this treatment of him very hard. So when he saw one of Gaius’s slaves, named Thaumastus, carrying some water in a vessel, he asked him for a drink. The servant gave him some water, and he drank eagerly and said, “Boy, this service of yours to me will be to your advantage. If I once get free of these chains, I will soon obtain your freedom from Gaius, for you have not failed to serve me now that I am in chains, just as you would have done in my former state and dignity.” Nor did he deceive him in what he promised, but repaid him for what he had done. For when Agrippa afterward came to the kingdom, he took particular care of Thaumastus, obtained his freedom from Gaius, and made him steward over his own estate. When he died, he left him to his son Agrippa and his daughter Berenice to serve them in the same capacity. The man grew old in that honorable post and died in it. But all this happened a good while later.

Now Agrippa stood in chains in front of the palace, leaning against a tree in his grief, with many others who were also in chains. A bird settled on the tree against which Agrippa was leaning; the Romans call this bird bubo. One of the prisoners, a German by nation, saw him and asked a soldier who that man in purple was. When he was told that his name was Agrippa, that he was a Jew by nation and one of the leading men of that nation, he asked the soldier to whom he was chained to let him come nearer to speak with him, for he wanted to ask him about some things concerning his country. When he had obtained leave and stood near him, he spoke to him through an interpreter: “This sudden change in your condition, young man, grieves you, since it brings on you a great misfortune of many kinds; nor will you believe me when I foretell how you will escape this misery you are now under, and how divine Providence will provide for you. Know, then, and I call to witness the gods of my own country as well as the gods of this place, who have assigned these chains to us, that nothing I am about to say about your affairs is said for the pleasure of idle talk, or in an attempt to cheer you without cause. For predictions of that kind, when they fail, make the grief at the last, when it comes in earnest, more bitter than if the person had never heard any such thing. Still, though I run a risk myself, I think it right to declare to you the prediction of the gods. [p]

“You cannot remain long in these chains. You will soon be freed from them and raised to the highest dignity and power, and you will be envied by all who now pity your hard fortune. You will be happy until your death, and will leave your happiness to the children you will have. But remember: when you see this bird again, you will then live only five days more. This will be brought about by that God who has sent this bird here as a sign to you. And I cannot think it right to hide from you what I foreknow about you, so that, knowing beforehand what happiness is coming to you, you may think little of your present misfortunes. But when this happiness actually comes to you, do not forget the misery I am in myself, but try to set me free.” When the German had said this, Agrippa laughed at him as much then as he afterward found him worthy of admiration.

Now Antonia took Agrippa’s misfortune to heart. But she thought it very difficult to speak to Tiberius on his behalf, and indeed quite hopeless as far as success went. Still, she obtained from Macro that the soldiers guarding him should be of a gentle nature, that the centurion over them, who was to be chained to him, should be of the same disposition, that he might have leave to bathe every day, that his freedmen and friends might come to him, and that other things for his comfort might be allowed him. So his friend Silas came in to see him, and two of his freedmen, Marsyas and Stoecheus, brought him the kinds of food he liked and took great care of him. They also brought him clothes, on the pretense of selling them, and at nightfall they laid them under him, with the soldiers’ help, as Macro had ordered beforehand. This was Agrippa’s condition for six months, and this was how his affairs stood.

After returning to Capri, Tiberius fell ill. At first his illness was mild, but as it grew worse he had little or no hope of recovery. So he told Euodus, the freedman he respected most of all, to bring the children to him, for he wanted to talk with them before he died. At that time he had no sons of his own living, for Drusus, his only son, was dead; but Drusus’s son Tiberius, surnamed Gemellus, was still alive. There was also Gaius, the son of Germanicus, who was his brother’s son. Gaius was now grown up. He had received a liberal education and had profited from it, and he was esteemed and favored by the people because of the excellent character of his father Germanicus. [s]

Germanicus had won the highest honor among the people by the steadiness of his virtuous conduct, by his easy and pleasant manner with ordinary people, and because his high rank did not keep him from mixing with them all as if they were his equals. By this behavior he was greatly esteemed not only by the people and the senate but by every one of the nations subject to the Romans. Some were won over, when they came to him, by the graciousness of their reception, and others in the same way by the report of those who had been with him. When he died, all men mourned him, not with the kind of mourning made to flatter rulers, where people only counterfeit sorrow, but with real grief, everyone grieving at his death as if they had lost someone close to them. And so easy had his dealings with people been that it turned greatly to his son’s advantage with all. Among others, the soldiers were so devoted to him that they counted it a thing worth choosing, if need be, to die themselves if only Gaius might come to power.

When Tiberius had ordered Euodus to bring the children to him the next morning, he prayed to the gods of his country to show him a clear sign which of them should succeed to the government. He very much wished to leave it to his son’s son, but he relied more on what God would foreshow about them than on his own opinion and wishes. So he made this the omen: the government would be left to whichever of them came to him first the next day. Having decided this within himself, he sent to his grandson’s tutor and ordered him to bring the boy to him early in the morning, supposing that God would allow him to be made emperor. But God overruled his intention. For while Tiberius was arranging matters this way, as soon as it was day he told Euodus to call in whichever of the children was there ready. Euodus went out and found Gaius at the door, for the young Tiberius had not yet come but was waiting for his breakfast. Euodus knew nothing of what his master intended, so he said to Gaius, “Your father is calling you,” and brought him in. [t]

As soon as Tiberius saw Gaius, and not before, he reflected on the power of God, and how the ability to bestow the government on whom he pleased had been entirely taken from him, so that he could not carry out what he had intended. He bitterly lamented that his power to confirm what he had planned had been taken away, and that his grandson Tiberius was to lose by this fate not only the Roman empire but his own safety as well. For his life would now depend on those more powerful than he, who would find it unbearable that a kinsman should live among them, so that his kinship would not protect him; he would be feared and hated by the one holding supreme power, partly because he stood next to the empire, and partly because he would always be scheming to get the government, both to save himself and to be at the head of affairs.

Now Tiberius had been much given to astrology and the casting of horoscopes, and all his life he had had more success with it than those who made it their profession. Once, when he saw Galba coming in to him, he told his closest friends that here came a man who would one day hold the dignity of the Roman empire. So this Tiberius was more devoted to every kind of diviner than any other Roman emperor, because he had found that they told him the truth about his own affairs. And now he was in great distress at what had happened, and deeply grieved at the destruction of his son’s son, which he foresaw. He reproached himself for having used such a method of divination beforehand, when he could have died without grief in ignorance of the future; instead he was now tormented by foreknowing the misfortune of those dearest to him, and must die under that torment. Though he was shaken by this unexpected turn of the government to one for whom he had not intended it, he spoke thus to Gaius, unwillingly and against his own inclination: “My child, although Tiberius is more nearly related to me than you are, I, by my own decision and the agreeing vote of the gods, give and put into your hand the Roman empire. I ask you never to forget, when you come to it, either my kindness to you, who set you in so high a dignity, or your kinship with Tiberius. As you know that I am, together with the gods and after them, the giver of such great good fortune to you, so I ask you to repay my readiness to help you, and to take care of Tiberius because he is so closely related to you. Besides this, you must know that while Tiberius lives he will be a safeguard to you, both for the empire and for your own preservation; but if he dies, that will be only the prelude to your own misfortunes. For to be alone under the weight of such vast affairs is very dangerous, and the gods will not let deeds done unjustly, against the law that directs men to act otherwise, go unpunished.” This was the speech Tiberius made. It did not persuade Gaius to act accordingly, though he promised he would. When he was settled in the government, he did away with this Tiberius, as the other Tiberius had foretold; and he himself was killed not long afterward by a secret plot laid against him.

So when Tiberius had appointed Gaius as his successor, he lived only a few days more and then died, having held the government twenty-two years, five months and three days. Gaius was the fourth emperor. [v]

When the Romans learned that Tiberius was dead, they rejoiced at the good news but did not dare to believe it. It was not that they were unwilling for it to be true, for they would have given huge sums of money to have it so; but they were afraid that if they showed their joy and the news proved false, their joy would become known and they would be accused for it and ruined. For this Tiberius had brought a vast number of miseries on the best families of Rome. He was easily inflamed to anger in every case, and of such a temper that his anger could not be turned back until he had carried it out, even when he had conceived a hatred of men without reason. He was by nature savage in all the sentences he passed, and made death the penalty for the slightest offenses. So when the Romans heard the rumor of his death, glad as they were, they were held back from enjoying that pleasure by dread of the miseries they foresaw would follow if their hopes proved ill-founded.

Now Marsyas, Agrippa’s freedman, as soon as he heard of Tiberius’s death, came running to tell Agrippa the news. Finding him going out to the bath, he gave him a nod and said in the Hebrew language, “The lion is dead.” Agrippa understood his meaning and, overjoyed at the news, said, “Every kind of thanks and happiness be yours for this news of yours! Only I wish that what you say may prove true.”

Now the centurion who had been set to guard Agrippa, when he saw how hurriedly Marsyas had come and what joy Agrippa took in what he said, suspected that his words meant some great change in affairs, and asked them what had been said. At first they turned the conversation aside, but when he pressed further, Agrippa told him outright, for he had already become his friend. So the centurion joined in the pleasure this news brought, since it would mean good fortune for Agrippa, and gave him a dinner. But as they were feasting and the cups were going around, someone came who said that Tiberius was still alive and would return to the city in a few days. At this news the centurion was greatly alarmed, because he had done what might cost him his life by entertaining a prisoner so joyfully, and that on the news of Caesar’s death. So he pushed Agrippa off the couch on which he was reclining and said, “Do you think you can cheat me with a lie about the emperor and go unpunished? Will you not pay for this malicious report of yours with your head?” With that he ordered Agrippa to be chained again, for he had loosed him before, and kept a stricter guard over him than before; and Agrippa spent that night in that miserable state.

But the next day the rumor grew in the city and confirmed that Tiberius was certainly dead, so that people now dared to talk about it openly and freely; some even offered sacrifices on that account. Several letters also came from Gaius: one to the senate, informing them of the death of Tiberius and of his own accession to the government, and another to Piso, the governor of the city, telling him the same. He also ordered that Agrippa be moved out of the camp to the house where he had lived before he was imprisoned, so that he was now free of fear about his own affairs; for though he was still in custody, it was now custody with ease.

As soon as Gaius had come to Rome, bringing Tiberius’s body with him, and had given him a magnificent funeral according to the laws of his country, he was very much inclined to set Agrippa free that very day. But Antonia prevented him, not out of any ill will toward the prisoner, but out of regard for Gaius’s good name, lest people should think he received the death of Tiberius with pleasure, if he at once released a man Tiberius had put in chains. Still, not many days passed before he sent for him to his house, had him shaved, and had him change his clothes. Then he put a diadem on his head and appointed him king of the tetrarchy of Philip. He also gave him the tetrarchy of Lysanias, and exchanged his iron chain for a golden one of equal weight. He also sent Marullus to Judea as commander of the cavalry.

In the second year of the reign of Gaius Caesar, Agrippa asked leave to sail home and settle the affairs of his government, promising to come back when he had put the rest in order as it should be. So, with the emperor’s permission, he came into his own country and appeared to them all, unexpectedly, as a king. He thereby showed those who saw him the power of fortune, when they compared his former poverty with his present happy prosperity. So some called him a fortunate man, and others could hardly believe that things had changed so much for the better with him. [z]