Within the narrative for a.d. 32, Tacitus recreates a spirited speech delivered before the Senate by the eques Marcus Terentius (Ann. 6.8).Footnote 1 Although Terentius is not known beyond this episode, this is his moment in the sun. Here, Tacitus illuminates for posterity the principled actions of a brave man candidly defending himself because (like many others) he had previously been a ‘friend’ of Sejanus. Yet, whereas most had frantically tried to distance themselves from their previous association with Sejanus, now disgraced and dead after his dramatic downfall (18 October a.d. 31), Terentius instead goes on the attack: he openly ‘admits’ his amicitia with Sejanus and suggests that in fact he has only jumped on the bandwagon and mirrored everyone else in courting this powerful intimate of the Emperor Tiberius.Footnote 2 As with all speeches in Tacitus, this one contains much that is of historiographical interest, as this article will explore further.Footnote 3 Since it is ‘the only extended oration in book 6’, it is a significant case-study.Footnote 4
Sejanus fell a long way (and rapidly), triggering danger for his former associates (or indeed for anyone vulnerable to attack on such a charge, whether or not they had been closely associated with Sejanus). Terentius, facing an imminent threat to his life, might have opted to appeal for clementia without unmasking an awkward and embarrassing truth (that is, that if he were guilty, then they were all guilty by association). Yet by speaking in realistic terms and openly revealing the political reality brushed under the carpet by the silent majority, Terentius potentially breaks a central unwritten rule of the principate (at least the principate as represented by Tacitus), namely that artful pretence (and staying alive) is better than uncomfortable candour (and embracing death).Footnote 5 His ruthlessly honest speech is high risk, overturning doublespeak—and becoming a beacon of honesty in an otherwise murky rhetorical landscape.Footnote 6
None the less, Terentius’ impressive candour still allows scope for historiographical subtlety: as we will see, Tacitus’ version of the speech has embedded within it two sets of significant and expressive literary allusions both of which engage with the issues relevant to ‘speaking to power’. In this article, I will first consider Terentius the orator and how he deploys arguments within his speech in Tacitus; I will then trace the significant and provocative mirroring of another important speech in Curtius Rufus (also taking into account the relative dates of Curtius Rufus and Tacitus); and finally, I will direct the spotlight at Tacitus’ remarkable and meaningful engagement with a powerful and programmatic moment in Virgil's Aeneid. As I will demonstrate, this vibrant intertextual web of prose and poetry taken together is highly expressive, raising wider issues about Tacitus’ creative historiography and its impact on readers.
1. TERENTIUS’ SPEECH IN TACITUS
Tacitus introduces the speech by emphasizing that, although Terentius’ case was worthy of recognition, unfortunately it had been neglected by other historians, tired out by the steady stream of similar punishments being inflicted and concerned that such narratives might bore their readers (Ann. 6.7.5).Footnote 7 Despite the superficially apologetic tone of this introduction, Tacitus is elegantly setting up a competition, both with other historians and even with himself, since ‘the present speech also resembles the incomplete speech delivered by an unidentified senator’ and partially preserved at Ann. 5.6.2–3 (a.d. 31).Footnote 8 The end of this earlier (incomplete) speech comes just after the lacuna of indeterminate length (and the loss of almost three years of material from the narrative of Tiberius’ principate). Although the earlier speaker is unknown because of the lacunose text, the situation is almost identical, as the man defends himself for his association with Sejanus before, at the finale of the speech, celebrating the egregius finis (suicide) which he himself is about to deliver. There is therefore typically artful Tacitean narrative complexity in the framing which primes us to expect that Terentius too will come to a similarly sticky end and commit suicide. Tacitus presents the incident as follows (Ann. 6.8):Footnote 9
Nam ea tempestate qua Seiani amicitiam ceteri falso exuerant, ausus est eques Romanus M. Terentius, ob id reus, amplecti, ad hunc modum apud senatum ordiendo: ‘Fortunae quidem meae fortasse minus expediat adgnoscere crimen quam abnuere, sed, utcumque casura res est, fatebor et fuisse me Seiano amicum et ut essem expetisse et, postquam adeptus eram, laetatum. [2] Videram collegam patris regendis praetoriis cohortibus, mox urbis et militiae munia simul obeuntem. Illius propinqui et adfines honoribus augebantur; ut quisque Seiano intimus, ita ad Caesaris amicitiam ualidus; contra quibus infensus esset, metu ac sordibus conflictabantur. [3] Nec quemquam exemplo adsumo: cunctos qui nouissimi consilii expertes fuimus meo unius discrimine defendam.
‘Non enim Seianum Vulsiniensem set Claudiae et Iuliae domus partem, quas adfinitate occupauerat, tuum, Caesar, generum, tui consulatus socium, tua officia in re publica capessentem colebamus. [4] Non est nostrum aestimare quem supra ceteros et quibus de causis extollas: tibi summum rerum iudicium di dedere, nobis obsequii gloria relicta est. Spectamus porro quae coram habentur, cui ex te opes, honores, quis plurima iuuandi nocendiue potentia, quae Seiano fuisse nemo negauerit. Abditos principis sensus et si quid occultius parat exquirere inlicitum, anceps; nec ideo adsequare.
[5] ‘Ne, patres conscripti, ultimum Seiani diem sed sedecim annos cogitaueritis. Etiam Satrium atque Pomponium uenerabamur; libertis quoque ac ianitoribus eius notescere pro magnifico accipiebatur. [6] Quid ergo? Indistincta haec defensio et promisca dabitur? Immo iustis terminis diuidatur. Insidiae in rem publicam, consilia caedis aduersum imperatorem puniantur; de amicitia et officiis idem finis et te, Caesar, et nos absoluerit.’
For example, at the time when everyone else had fraudulently discarded the friendship of Sejanus, the Roman equestrian M. Terentius, a defendant on that account, dared to embrace it, embarking in this fashion before the senate: ‘Of course it may perchance be less helpful to my chances to admit the charge than to abjure it; but, however the affair turns out, I will acknowledge both that I was a friend of Sejanus and that I sought earnestly to be, and that, after achieving it, I was delighted. [2] I had seen him as his father's colleague in directing the praetorian cohorts, then meeting the responsibilities of City and soldiery simultaneously. His relatives and connections were being enhanced with honors: intimacy with Sejanus meant an effective claim on Caesar's friendship; but those to whom he was hostile were constantly belabored by the dread of tatters [that is, becoming a defendant in court]. [3] I enlist no individual as an example; all of us who were not participants in his final plan I shall defend at the cost of danger to myself alone.
‘It was not Sejanus the Vulsinian whom we courted, but part of the Claudian and Julian house, which he had taken over by his connection with it; it was your son-in-law, Caesar, the partner of your consulship, performing your duties in public life. [4] It is not ours to assess whom you exalt above the rest and for what reasons: to you the gods have given the supreme judgement of affairs; to us is left the glory of compliance. Further, we look only at what is held in front of us, to whom you dispense wealth and honors, who is possessed of the greatest power for aiding or harming (which no one is likely to deny that Sejanus had); but to search out the hidden feelings of the princeps, and his still more concealed intentions, is unlawful, perilous. Nor would you necessarily grasp them.
[5] ‘Do not, conscript fathers, think of Sejanus’ last day but of his sixteen years. We actually used to venerate Satrius and Pomponius; becoming known even to his freedmen and doorkeepers was interpreted as magnificent. [6] Well, then: is this defense to be offered comprehensively and indiscriminately? Rather let it divide along proper lines: plots against the state, schemes of slaughter against the Commander should be punished; but, concerning friendship and its services, let the same boundary absolve both you, Caesar, and us.’Footnote 10
Even before Terentius has started to speak, Tacitus accentuates his daring: so we have the verb ausus est even before getting the speaker's name. The very first word of his speech (fortuna) might (after the filter of ausus est) momentarily conjure up the proverbial idea of ‘fortune favouring the daring’ (audentes Fortuna iuuat, Verg. Aen. 10.284).Footnote 11 Terentius certainly delivers an arresting and paradoxical opening by pointedly acknowledging that, even though it will potentially threaten his own fortune to admit the ‘charge’ (crimen), that is just what he will do.Footnote 12 Given that his life is at stake, this is an unexpected but bold opening gambit. Effective too is his tripartite escalation of ‘admissions’ in polysyndeton (et … et … et), moving first from his concession that he was Sejanus’ friend, then to the bolder revelation that he had actually sought that friendship, and finally (and most spectacularly) to his candid summary that he had been delighted to win this status: that extraordinary word laetatum is an unexpected sentence finale in this grim setting. In this connection, Woodman points to Quintilian's distinction between a harmless confession (confessio nihil nocitura) and a risky one where we admit something damaging precisely in order to show confidence in our cause (Inst. 9.2.51): Terentius’ candid admission is in this second category, except that previously friendship with Sejanus would not have been damaging (quite the opposite).Footnote 13 He then introduces a powerful piece of autopsy (uideram, Ann. 6.8.2), clarifying that he, Terentius, had seen Sejanus as his father Seius Strabo's colleague as Prefect of the Praetorian Guard and observed that effectively Sejanus and Tiberius had had the same friends and enemies. Here the first-person singular of uideram is striking: Terentius lays claim to observe a situation which they had all witnessed, but by avoiding a first-person plural he makes himself stand out from the crowd (cf. spectamus, Ann. 6.8.4).Footnote 14 This sets up a further compelling moment when Terentius says that he will not introduce anybody else as an exemplum, but will defend them all at the cost of danger to himself alone (Ann. 6.8.3). By rejecting the familiar forensic route of introducing historical exempla from outside the case, Terentius implies that they are currently in unchartered waters.Footnote 15 At the same time, by projecting himself as the single brave individual intervening selflessly on everyone's behalf, his altruism still hints at an impressive historical precedent (despite the lack of individual exempla available), namely the model of Cicero confronting Catiline, regardless of the danger posed to his own life.Footnote 16 By calling Sejanus’ activity nouissimum consilium, he pushes this line a little further by aligning it with conspiracy.Footnote 17 This is another risky move, because, in defending his previous friendship with a ‘conspirator’, he risks himself being tarred with the same brush. However, he simultaneously makes the point that any one of them could have found themselves in this position: his expressive contrast between cuncti and unus (Tacitus uses similar rhetorical tricks elsewhere) underscores the fact that Terentius steps out of a group to which actually they all belong.Footnote 18
It is also expressive that Terentius boldly reminds his senatorial audience that they should think not about Sejanus’ last day but about the sixteen years before that: Woodman compares Terentius’ focus on sedecim anni and a memorable praeteritio of Velleius Paterculus, who explains that he will not narrate in detail all Tiberius’ ‘accomplishments of these past sixteen years’ (horum sedecim annorum opera, 2.126.1).Footnote 19 Terentius’ focus on sixteen years in Tacitus and the evocation of the Velleian intertext intertwine Tiberius and Sejanus as they are represented as dominating politics in tandem over an extended period of time. It is possible too that Terentius’ argument may evoke (anachronistically) the prologue of Tacitus’ Agricola (3.2).Footnote 20 This is where Tacitus looks back over the last fifteen years, quindecim annos (grande mortalis aeui spatium, ‘a large portion of a human life’) when many men fell to chance circumstances (fortuitis casibus) and when Domitian's savagery had eliminated the bravest, so that the few ‘survivors’ (superstites) are only just now regaining their voices.Footnote 21 Of course, fifteen years is not sixteen years, but the Agricola passage none the less presents a suggestive parallel scenario where prolonged oppression (under Domitian [Agr.]/Sejanus–Tiberius [Ann.]) is halted by a violent peripeteia (facilitated by an imperial woman, Domitian's wife Domitia [Agr.]/Tiberius’ sister-in-law Antonia [Ann.]) and where one outspoken individual (Tacitus [Agr.]/Terentius [Ann.]) reflects candidly on communal experience of oppression. The dynamics which underpin Terentius’ speech in Annals Book 6 project a very similar trajectory to Tacitus’ authorial overview at the opening of the Agricola, even if the timbre of the authorial voice in the prologue of the Agricola is perhaps in some ways less candid and more elusive than the outspoken voice of Terentius is here.
Terentius also stands out because he reworks (with uariatio and a positive spin) a compelling theme from Tacitus’ earlier Histories. This is the trope whereby in the perverted moral climate of civil war, individuals distastefully and openly even claim credit for treachery (Hist. 2.60.1, 3.86.2, 5.24.1). Terentius instead showcases his friendship, even when the focus of that friendship, Sejanus, has been such a corrosive presence in the state, as they can now belatedly acknowledge. We can also compare the specific example of Marius Celsus, who stridently claims credit before Otho for his loyalty to the dead Galba: Celsus constanter seruatae erga Galbam fidei crimen confessus, exemplum ultro imputauit, ‘bravely pleading guilty to the charge of fidelity to Galba, Celsus voluntarily claimed credit for setting an example’ (Hist. 1.71.2). Celsus is not exactly a hero because (as Tacitus makes clear) Otho is cynically engaging in a publicity stunt so that he can win a reputation for clementia. Footnote 22 None the less, in parading his loyalty to Galba, the tarnished Celsus seems (however imperfectly) to be trying to embrace outspokenness and to deliver the same sort of exemplary steadfastness as Terentius actually does succeed in delivering.Footnote 23 Tacitus’ paradoxical language stands out, as the unexpected oddity of Celsus confessing to a charge of loyalty (rather than treachery) reflects wider linguistic patterns in Tacitus where, as Plass emphasizes, ‘strange things happen to language itself … and the double take forced on the ear by such sentences unmasks what is wrong’.Footnote 24
Finally, it is important to stress that Terentius’ defence blends powerful elements of forensic technique from the wider rhetorical tradition. First, he comes close to suggesting that formally this is a honesta causa, where the very nature of the case removes the need for a defence (Rhet. Her. 1.5; Cic. Inu. rhet. 1.20; Quint. Inst. 4.1.40).Footnote 25 Second, in pointing the finger at the Emperor Tiberius for creating the uncomfortable circumstances where everyone in Rome (like it or not) had to embrace amicitia with Sejanus, Terentius’ defence also uses a technique similar to those speeches where the defence lawyer presents the jury with an alternative suspect. This is a form of ‘counter-accusation’ (anticategoria; Quint. Inst. 3.10.4, 7.2.9), a technique which Cicero memorably used at Rosc. Am. 83–123 in relation to the alternative suspects Magnus and Capito.Footnote 26 And after Terentius has finished speaking, Tacitus comments positively on his constantia, announcing with some satisfaction that unusually the vindictive accusers themselves then suffered exile or death (Ann. 6.9.1).Footnote 27 Remarkably, Terentius’ speech allowed him to escape the threat posed by the opportunistic and morally flawed prosecutors.Footnote 28 His steadfastness amidst mortal danger recalls positive precedents such as Seneca the Younger, Ep. 120. Here, Seneca celebrates consistency as an ideal trait of the Stoic sapiens and condemns inconsistency (fluctuatio) as the maximum indicium … malae mentis, ‘greatest indication of an evil mind’ (Ep. 120.20).Footnote 29 Terentius seems to combine the uplifting roles of articulate, courageous orator and idealized Stoic sapiens in one impressive figure. And last but not least, he breaks the usual pattern of such cases in Tacitus’ narrative (and overturns the expectations raised by the earlier speech at Ann. 5.6.2–3). As Martin observes: ‘not only does an innocent man secure his acquittal by his constantia: for once, the tables are turned, and those who sought to capitalize on their hoped-for-victim's friendship with Sejanus are themselves accused and condemned to exile or death.’Footnote 30 Tacitus only reveals the satisfying outcome after the end of the speech (Ann. 6.9.1), whereas Dio defuses any suspense by making it clear before the speech that Terentius was spared (58.19.3).Footnote 31
2. AMYNTAS’ SPEECH IN CURTIUS RUFUS
There is clearly much that is rhetorically striking about Terentius’ defence. Yet so far the speech has primarily attracted scholarly attention for one main reason, namely its significant points of contact with a speech in Quintus Curtius Rufus’ Historiae Alexandri Magni (7.1.19–40).Footnote 32 This (much longer) address occurs in the aftermath of a conspiracy against Alexander the Great, allegedly formed by Philotas, who is arrested and imprisoned.Footnote 33 Although Philotas vigorously denies the charges (Curt. 6.10), he is tortured until he confesses, and finally he is stoned to death (Curt. 6.11).Footnote 34 The story does not end there however (at least in Curtius Rufus and Appian). After Philotas’ violent death, his close friends fall under suspicion, including the Macedonian general, Amyntas, who, on the day before Philotas’ alleged conspiracy was discovered, had unleashed some bad-tempered remarks on an unrelated matter, after getting annoyed about an order he had received to hand over some horses to associates who had lost theirs (Curt. 7.1.15). As a result of this outburst, Amyntas later finds himself charged as a co-conspirator. Yet in a compelling speech (Curt. 7.1.19–40) Curtius Rufus’ Amyntas (whose very name means ‘defender’ in Greek) defends himself before Alexander against charges of conspiracy.Footnote 35 Indeed, Amyntas actively goes on the offensive by refusing to deny his friendship with Philotas. This was on the grounds that everyone at court (including Alexander the Great) had sought association with the man. Here is the relevant section (Curt. 7.1.26–30) from his (much longer) speech:
‘… Amicitiam, quae nobis cum Philota fuit, adeo non eo infitias, ut expetisse quoque nos magnosque ex ea fructus percepisse confitear. [27] An uero Parmenionis, quem tibi proximum esse uoluisti, filium omnes paene amicos tuos dignatione uincentem cultum a nobis esse miraris? [28] Tu, hercules, si uerum audire uis, rex, huius nobis periculi es causa. Quis enim alius effecit, ut ad Philotan decurrerent, qui placere uellent tibi? Ab illo traditi ad hunc gradum amicitiae tuae ascendimus; is apud te fuit, cuius et gratiam expetere et iram timere possemus. [29] Si non propemodum in tua uerba, at tui omnes te praeeunte iurauimus, eosdem nos inimicos amicosque habituros esse, quos tu haberes. Hoc sacramento pietatis obstricti auersaremur scilicet, quem tu omnibus praeferebas! [30] Igitur, si hoc crimen est, paucos innocentes habes, immo, hercules, neminem. Omnes enim Philotae amici esse uoluerunt sed totidem, quot uolebant esse, non poterant. Ita, si a consciis amicos non diuidis, ne ab amicis quidem separabis illos, qui idem esse uoluerunt.’Footnote 36
‘As for the friendship which we had with Philotas, I am so far from denying it that I confess we actually sought it out and won great advantages from it. [27] Or indeed are you surprised that the son of Parmenion, whom you were willing to be closest to yourself in rank, and who excelled almost all of your friends in distinction, was cultivated by us? [28] You, by Hercules, if you are willing to listen to the truth, O King, are the cause of our present danger. For who else brought it about that people who wanted to gratify you went running off to Philotas? Only when promoted by him did we ascend to our current rank in your friendship. He had such influence with you that we brought ourselves both to seek out his favour and fear his anger. [29] We have all sworn, almost coerced by threats of violence from you and in formulae dictated by you, to regard as enemies or friends the same people as you so regard. Bound by this sacred oath of allegiance, could we be expected to turn our backs on a man you used to set above all others? [30] So, if this is a crime, you have few blameless subjects—no by Hercules, not one. Everyone wanted Philotas’ friendship, but not all who wanted it could have it. So if you like to make no distinction between Philotas’ friends and those involved in the conspiracy, you will also make no distinction between his friends and those who wanted to be his friends.’Footnote 37
Amyntas here exploits the compelling defence that, if he is guilty because of his friendship with Philotas, then indeed they must all be guilty. His conspicuous and insistent deployment of first-person plural pronouns (nobis … nos … nobis … nobis) and first-person plural verbs (ascendimus … possemus … iurauimus) gives added weight to this basic point that they are all in this together. So too does the fact that his language has further powerful associations beyond the text, particularly by evoking the traditional language of international alliances whereby nations swore collectively to have the ‘same friends and enemies as the Roman people’.Footnote 38 This had long been an epigraphical staple in Greek interstate agreements, and it became part of the oath of allegiance to the Roman emperor in the eastern provinces: for instance, we have an example from Tiberius’ principate in the form of an inscription giving the Cypriot oath of loyalty to the emperor in the context of promised worship of Tiberius within the imperial cult.Footnote 39 Curtius’ Amyntas is casting Alexander in the manner of a Roman emperor who dictates the boundaries of friendship for all those in his orbit.
As should already be clear, Amyntas’ broad strategy of self-defence at this point is very similar to the one used by Tacitus’ Terentius (Ann. 6.8), that friendship with Sejanus should not be taken to indicate disloyalty to the princeps. As Bosworth observes: ‘Terentius takes on the colour of Amyntas, pleading his case before the army assembly, and there is a secondary parallel between Philotas and Seianus. Both were favourites brought low by the guile of their rulers.’Footnote 40 Ancient historical writers from the Classical world regularly exploit patterns where one set of characters is expressively mapped onto another earlier, and usually more prominent, set of characters. A well-known example is Tacitus, Ann. 4.1, where he redeploys Latin terms designed to align Sejanus with Sallust's Catiline.Footnote 41 These two speeches of Terentius under Tiberius and Amyntas under Alexander are another such case, and verbal and thematic echoes again underpin the connection. Certainly, there are many points of contact between Tacitus and Curtius Rufus throughout their surviving texts, and these two authors clearly have interconnections. Yet there are particularly close verbal and conceptual links between these two speeches, which commentators have convincingly highlighted. Bosworth, for example, picks out Terentius’ phrase utcumque casura res est (Ann. 6.8) as ‘the most significant correspondence’, because Amyntas says something very similar towards the end of his speech: utcumque cessura res est (7.1.37).Footnote 42 Woodman also notes a similar concept introduced by Amyntas right at the start of his speech: qualiscumque … exitus nos manet, ‘whatever end remains in store for us’.Footnote 43 Martin and Woodman each point to the similarities between Terentius’ opening assertion, fatebor … ut essem expetisse (Ann. 6.8.1), and ut expetisse … confitear, ‘I confess that we actually sought it out’, at the start of the extract from Amyntas’ speech (Curtius Rufus 7.1.26).Footnote 44
One further detail in Amyntas’ speech suggests conceptual interconnections between the two conspiracies. This is the intriguing point that Amyntas and his brothers had been the subject of damning letters written by Alexander's mother, Olympias, warning her son against them (quo facto dictoue nostro mota, tam trepidas tibi litteras scripsit?, ‘stirred by which deed or word of ours did she write such an agitated letter to you?’, 7.1.36; cf. 7.1.12). Given the pivotal role played by the letter of Antonia (Tiberius’ sister-in-law) in accusing Sejanus, the significant role of the earlier letter by Olympias denouncing Amyntas looks like a powerful historical precedent, as two prominent women each make compelling epistolary interventions to protect a close relative.Footnote 45 Certainly, the overlap is not precise, since Olympias’ letter accuses Amyntas (the Terentius figure) rather than Philotas (the Sejanus figure), whereas Antonia's letter accuses Sejanus (the Philotas figure) rather than Terentius (the Amyntas figure). None the less, the expressive potential of a written denunciation by a prominent imperial woman prompted somebody to compare the two conspiracies, whether in the aftermath of Sejanus’ downfall or in the later literary tradition.Footnote 46 It is another significant association, suggesting that there is a strong ‘dialogue’ between these two narratives.Footnote 47
Essentially, what scholars have found most intriguing about these points of contact between the speeches of Terentius and Amyntas is the light which they can potentially cast on the tricky question of the relative dates of Tacitus and Curtius Rufus.Footnote 48 Increasingly, critics support the idea that Curtius Rufus was the earlier writer, although opinions differ about how much earlier he was. Devine argues that Curtius came first and that his version of Amyntas’ speech influenced Tacitus: ‘it is distinctly possible, even probable, that Tacitus read and was influenced by Curtius.’Footnote 49 Martin is also confident about the relative dates of the two authors: ‘there is no reason to doubt that Curtius’ History of Alexander antedates Tacitus’ Annals.’Footnote 50 Others add nuance by suggesting that here we have some kind of window-reference so that both Tacitus and Curtius Rufus were each alluding to an earlier writer whose work is no longer extant.Footnote 51 So Atkinson speculates that both Tacitus and Curtius Rufus were inspired by the historical account of Aufidius Bassus.Footnote 52 Yet, as the next section will demonstrate, there is another distinctive intertext embedded in Terentius’ speech which does not feature in Curtius Rufus and seems uniquely Tacitean. Multiple intertexts often simultaneously hunt in packs, adding different layers of interest to a narrative, and in Terentius’ speech there is another significant text in play. To this we will now turn.
3. VIRGILIAN INTERTEXTUALITY
Scholarly interest in questions surrounding the tantalizing chronological relationship between Tacitus and Curtius Rufus is understandable. However, it has distracted attention from another important and meaningful intertext at work in Tacitus’ version of Terentius’ speech. Let us return now to the relevant section. Terentius, after claiming that he had actively sought out Sejanus’ powerful friendship, traces Sejanus’ steady elevation through the praetorian cohorts and his meteoric rise through the imperial household. Terentius then engages in his striking and risky ‘all-or-nothing’ rhetorical gambit (Ann. 6.8.3–4):
‘Non enim Seianum Vulsiniensem set Claudiae et Iuliae domus partem, quas adfinitate occupauerat, tuum, Caesar, generum, tui consulatus socium, tua officia in re publica capessentem colebamus. [4] Non est nostrum aestimare quem supra ceteros et quibus de causis extollas: tibi summum rerum iudicium di dedere, nobis obsequii gloria relicta est.’
‘For it was not Sejanus from Vulsinii whom we were courting but a member of the Claudian and Julian household, which he had taken hold of by his connection—your son-in-law, Caesar, your fellow consul, the one executing your duties in the state. It is not our place to assess whom you raise up above the others and for what reasons: to you the gods have given the highest judgement over affairs, to us has been left the glory of obedience.’
This is an extraordinary moment. Tiberius himself was absent from the Senate, but Terentius apostrophizes him as if he were present, enumerating in tricolon crescendo three hugely important roles binding this eques from Vulsinii to the emperor—(i) Sejanus’ family connection through his relationship with Livi(ll)a (widow of Tiberius’ son, Drusus);Footnote 53 (ii) the shared consulship of a.d. 31; and (iii) his day-to-day running of affairs of state after Tiberius’ permanent withdrawal to Capri in a.d. 27 (Ann. 4.67; cf. 4.41). Woodman rightly likens the triple anaphora (tuum … tui … tua) in asyndeton to the ‘“Du-Stil” used in prayers and hymns to divinities’.Footnote 54 Terentius’ next assertion is where our new intertext starts to come in. Through the filter of colebamus and its connotations of divine worship (OLD colo 6), Terentius expresses aporia over the reasons why Tiberius chooses individuals as his particular favourites.Footnote 55 Terentius then draws a sharp dividing-line between you (Tiberius), to whom the gods have given the highest judgement over affairs, and us (everyone else), to whom is left the obsequii gloria, ‘the glory of obedience’—obviously in this setting, a sharply ironic and oxymoronic phrase.Footnote 56 Elegantly and provocatively, Terentius here plays with a pivotal moment from early in Virgil's Aeneid. Footnote 57 When Juno aims to disrupt and destroy Aeneas and his men on their journey to Italy, she famously approaches the minor deity Aeolus and shamelessly flatters him to get him to unleash a storm to sink Aeneas’ fleet. As added persuasion, she bribes him with a particularly beautiful nymph, Deiopea, offered to him as a wife and mother of his future children.Footnote 58 When Juno dangles the tempting prospect of Deiopea before Aeolus, he quickly caves in, and indicates that he does so in a memorably oily and sycophantic reply, dripping with obsequiousness (Verg. Aen. 1.76–80):
In reply, Aeolus said this: ‘Your task, o queen, is to settle upon what you desire; my duty is to carry out orders. You bestow all this kingdom, such as it is, upon me, you bestow royal power and Jupiter's favour, you grant me permission to recline at the banquets of the gods, and you make me powerful over the storm-clouds.’
There are multiple points of contact with Tacitus’ version of Terentius’ speech. Terentius’ sudden apostrophe to Tiberius, with the triple anaphora in asyndeton tuum … tui … tua and the vocative Caesar, mirrors Aeolus’ vocative o regina (1.76) and the triple anaphora tu … tu … tu (1.78–9; also in asyndeton). In Virgil the playful hymnic Du-Stil is obviously apt for a minor deity directly addressing the queen of the gods.Footnote 59 For an equestrian addressing an absent elderly Roman emperor it might seem less apt—but herein lies the irony, as Terentius in retrospect wittily casts Tiberius as a powerful divinity whose whims had to be obeyed and himself as a helpless Aeolus doing his will.Footnote 60 There is also further overlap between the two passages of Virgil and Tacitus in the verb capesso (Verg. Aen. 1.77 iussa capessere, ‘to carry out orders’; Tac. Ann. 6.8.3 tua officia … capessentem, ‘executing your duties’).Footnote 61 Tacitus’ combination capesso + officia would not on its own be sufficient to evoke this Virgilian scene, but it is another contributory element in a wider verbal and conceptual nexus interlinking the two passages.Footnote 62 So, Tacitus’ Terentius echoes the expressive structure in the Virgilian passage where Aeolus (using adversative asyndeton, with a possessive pronoun tuus and dative pronoun mihi opening the clauses) sycophantically tells Juno that her task (tuus … labor) is to settle upon what she desires, but that his duty (mihi) is to carry out orders.Footnote 63 In mimetic syntax the dominant Juno is flatteringly placed in the first clause, while the submissive Aeolus appears in the second clause. Tacitus’ Terentius mimics and plays with this formulation, when (with opening pronouns in adversative asyndeton) he reminds his listeners that the gods have granted Tiberius (tibi, placed first) the highest judgement over affairs, but to us (nobis, placed second) has been left the glory of obedience.Footnote 64 All these points of contact together suggest that Tacitus’ Terentius wryly casts himself as Virgil's smarmy Aeolus and, by extension, presents Tiberius as the manipulative and vindictive Juno.Footnote 65
Finally, one further point may make Terentius’ evocation of Virgil's Juno particularly telling. Suetonius preserves an important detail about Tiberius’ behaviour after Sejanus was eliminated on 18 October a.d. 31: for the next nine months, the emperor ‘did not leave the villa which is called Io's/Ion's’ (non egressus est uilla, quae uocatur Ionis, Tib. 65.2). This is the text in Ihm's Teubner, indicating that Tiberius retreated to a place called the Villa of Io or Ion.Footnote 66 Yet, as Champlin observes, neither the female Io (who caught Jupiter's eye and was temporarily turned into a heifer to conceal her from Juno) nor male Ion (the illegitimate son of Creusa, born after she was raped by Apollo) has obvious relevance for the name of a clifftop villa on Capri.Footnote 67 Subsequent editors often emend this last word to Iouis to give the Villa of Jupiter (the name frequently used to designate the impressive physical remains of the extensive residence on ‘the eastern height, just below the church of S. Maria del Soccorso’).Footnote 68 Kaster's recent OCT instead reads uilla quae uocatur Inonis, indicating the Villa of Ino.Footnote 69 This is the daughter of Cadmus of Thebes, the woman who leapt from a cliff into the sea but was saved by Zeus to become the goddess Leukothea. That makes sense for the location and may well be what the text should read. One further possibility is Heinsius's reading Iunonis, indicating the Villa of Juno.Footnote 70 Champlin dismisses this reading as ‘inexplicable and most unlikely’, but there might just be a case for considering it (or at least for seeing how it might have been considered possible).Footnote 71 Underpinning the two readings Iouis and Iunonis (that is, the Villa of Jupiter and the Villa of Juno) lies a detail at Tac. Ann. 4.67.3 that on Capri there were twelve villas—the inference being that each of the twelve villas was named after a member of the divine pantheon (and therefore that amongst these there were two separate villas, one each named after Jupiter and Juno).Footnote 72 If Tiberius, anxious and afraid after Sejanus’ elimination, had retreated to a place known as the Villa of Juno on Capri, then Terentius’ gambit of playing Aeolus and addressing Tiberius as if he were Juno is more than a pointed literary allusion, but also engages with Tiberius’ current location on Capri.Footnote 73
4. CONCLUSIONS
By this stage, the Virgilian footprints in Terentius’ speech at Ann. 6.8.4 are hopefully discernible. They rest not so much on highly distinctive lexical overlap of unusual Latin words but more on cumulative figures of speech common to both passages and on significant thematic and situational links.Footnote 74 Yet, if we do concede the presence of Virgilian footprints alongside (generally acknowledged) echoes of Curtius Rufus, what does this signify in historiographical terms? Is the fresh Virgilian color largely decorative? Of course, embedding epic moments in a later text always adds something aesthetic to the reader's experience, but there is more at stake than that here. The Virgilian intertext does not function alone but in combination with the Curtius Rufus passage. Both operating together are surely meant to be expressive for Tacitus’ audience about the political realities of the imperial system and about the compromises involved for men like Terentius in negotiating its complexities. There is a further important question to pose. Are we to imagine that Tacitus’ Terentius expected his listeners in the Senate in a.d. 32 to pick up on the Virgilian echo? It seems likely that this was not meant to be a heavily veiled allusion or a deeply hidden intertext, particularly since Terentius’ chances of survival at this point must have looked slim, and Tiberius was not even present in person to be taken in by any doublespeak. Instead, the speech is Terentius’ legacy in which, however belatedly, he admits the realities of life under Sejanus and gives a candid account of how the system really operated under such an all-powerful figure.
It is clear that Terentius’ reprisal of Aeolus’ sycophantic address to Juno within the speech is unique to Tacitus (and not discernible either in Amyntas’ parallel speech in Curtius Rufus or in Dio's much later version of Terentius’ speech). Indeed, Tacitus’ general liking for Virgilian allusion elsewhere in his historical narratives might tip the balance and convince us that Tacitus himself, rather than any no longer extant source, introduced the Virgilian echo, although that can never be known absolutely.Footnote 75 Still, trying to track the provenance of this Virgilian echo is less compelling than thinking about its impact. The novel intertext has a significant effect on Terentius’ characterization and on our response to him. His presence of mind is impressive as he shows himself able to embed a witty and apt echo of a darkly comic Virgilian scene into his speech in a life-threatening situation. If this is going to be his swansong, then evoking epic both adds weight to his words and unmasks a truth about the imperial system under Tiberius. As Elliott observes, repetition of material from that genre is a way of ‘reflecting tradition as the repository of the true past and using it to assert the validity and relevance of that truth with regard to the lived and the textual present’.Footnote 76 In so doing, Tacitus’ Terentius makes a serious point about hierarchy, friendship and power in looking back at Sejanus’ ‘sixteen years’, reminding everyone that when a supremely powerful figure (whether the divine Juno or the godlike Tiberius) wants something to happen, then those lower down in the hierarchy (whether the minor divinity Aeolus or the equestrian Terentius; or indeed the senators listening in a.d. 32 or Tacitus’ own contemporaries) have no choice but to comply. When the political landscape abruptly shifts (as it always seems to do), then belatedly punishing those who had been caught up in the previous hierarchy of power is hardly the most constructive move. Terentius’ rhetorical gambit is bold, but in an unexpected twist which overturns the usual grim pattern in Tacitus his straight-talking speech secures his acquittal by reminding his audience that, if he is guilty, then so are they all.
