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GERMANICUS

I

TO HIS MUTINOUS TROOPS^[1]

(14 A.D.)

Born in 15 B.C., died in 19 A.D.; son of Drusus and nephew of Tiberius; conducted three campaigns in Germany; died at Antioch, where he commanded the Eastern provinces; believed to have been poisoned at the instance of Tiberius.

 

To me, nor wife, nor son, are dearer than my father^[2] and the commonwealth. But as for my father, he will be protected by his own majesty; and the Roman empire by her other armies. As for my wife and children, whom for your glory I could freely sacrifice, I now remove them from your rage, that whatever dire purpose you may have conceived toward them, my blood alone may flow to satiate your fury; and that the murder of the great-grandson of Augustus, the murder of the daughter-in-law of Tiberius, may not augment your guilt. For, during these last days, what has been unattempted by you? What unviolated? To this audience what name shall I

 

1. Delivered at his camp on the lower Rhine in 14 A.D. on hearing of the death of Augustus and the accession of Tiberius. Reported by Tacitus. The Revised Oxford translation.
2. That is, Tiberius, who, by order of Augustus, had adopted Germanicus.

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