MESSALINA believed that Valerius Asiaticus, who had been twice consul, was one of Poppaea's old lovers.At the same time she was looking greedily at the gardens which Lucullus had begun and which Asiaticus was now adorning with singular magnificence, and so she suborned Suilius to accuse both him and Poppaea.With Suilius was associated Sosibius, tutor to Britannicus, who was to give Claudius an apparently friendly warning to beware of a power and wealth which threatened the throne.Asiaticus, he said, had been the ringleader in the murder of a Caesar, and then had not feared to face an assembly of the Roman people, to own the deed, and challenge its glory for his own.Thus grown famous in the capital, and with a renown widely spread through the provinces, he was planning a journey to the armies of Germany.Born at Vienna, and supported by numerous and powerful connections, he would find it easy to rouse nations allied to his house.Claudius made no further inquiry, but sent Crispinus, commander of the Praetorians, with troops in hot haste, as though to put down a revolt.Crispinus found him at Baiae, loaded him with chains, and hurried him to Rome.
No hearing before the Senate was granted him.It was in the emperor's chamber, in the presence of Messalina, that he was heard.
There Suilius accused him of corrupting the troops, of binding them by bribes and indulgences to share in every crime, of adultery with Poppaea, and finally of unmanly vice.It was at this last that the accused broke silence, and burst out with the words, "Question thy own sons, Suilius;they will own my manhood." Then he entered on his defence.Claudius he moved profoundly, and he even drew tears from Messalina.But as she left the chamber to wipe them away, she warned Vitellius not to let the man escape.She hastened herself to effect Poppaea's destruction, and hired agents to drive her to suicide by the terrors of a prison.Caesar meanwhile was so unconscious that a few days afterwards he asked her husband Scipio, who was dining with him, why he sat down to table without his wife, and was told in reply that she had paid the debt of nature.
When Claudius began to deliberate about the acquittal of Asiaticus, Vitellius, with tears in his eyes, spoke of his old friendship with the accused, and of their joint homage to the emperor's mother, Antonia.He then briefly reviewed the services of Asiaticus to the State, his recent campaign in the invasion of Britain, and everything else which seemed likely to win compassion, and suggested that he should be free to choose his death.Claudius's reply was in the same tone of mercy.Some friends urged on Asiaticus the quiet death of self-starvation, but he declined it with thanks.He took his usual exercise, then bathed and dined cheerfully, and saying that he had better have fallen by the craft of Tiberius or the fury of Caius Caesar than by the treachery of a woman and the shameless mouth of Vitellius, he opened his veins, but not till he had inspected his funeral pyre, and directed its removal to another spot, lest the smoke should hurt the thick foliage of the trees.So complete was his calmness even to the last.
The senators were then convoked, and Suilius proceeded to find new victims in two knights of the first rank who bore the surname of Petra.The real cause of their destruction was that they had lent their house for the meetings of Mnester and Poppaea.But it was a vision of the night that was the actual charge against one of them.He had, it was alleged, beheld Claudius crowned with a garland of wheat, the ears of which were turned downwards, and, from this appearance, he foretold scanty harvests.Some have said that it was a vine-wreath, of which the leaves were white, which he saw, and that he interpreted it to signify the death of the emperor after the turn of autumn.It is, however, beyond dispute that in consequence of some dream, whatever it was, both the man and his brother perished.
Fifteen hundred thousand sesterces and the decorations of the praetorship were voted to Crispinus.Vitellius bestowed a million on Sosibius, for giving Britannicus the benefit of his teaching and Claudius that of his counsels.I may add that when Scipio was called on for his opinion, he replied, "As I think what all men think about the deeds of Poppaea, suppose me to say what all men say." Agraceful compromise this between the affection of the husband and the necessities of the senator.
Suilius after this plied his accusations without cessation or pity, and his audacity had many rivals.By assuming to himself all the functions of laws and magistrates, the emperor had left exposed everything which invited plunder, and of all articles of public merchandise nothing was more venal than the treachery of advocates.
Thus it happened that one Samius, a Roman knight of the first rank, who had paid four hundred thousand sesterces to Suilius, stabbed himself in the advocate's house, on ascertaining his collusion with the adversary.Upon this, following the lead of Silius, consul-elect, whose elevation and fall I shall in due course relate, the senators rose in a body, and demanded the enforcement of the Cincian law, an old enactment, which forbade any one to receive a fee or a gift for pleading a cause.
When the men, at whom this strong censure was levelled, loudly protested, Silius, who had a quarrel with Suilius, attacked them with savage energy.He cited as examples the orators of old who had thought fame with posterity the fairest recompense of eloquence.