In
the pillage were found the ancient stores of prey accumulated by the
Suevians; as also many victuallers and traders from our provinces; men who
were drawn hither from their several homes, first by privilege of traffic,
then retained by a passion to multiply gain, and at last, through utter
oblivion of their own country, fixed, like natives, in a hostile soil.
To Maroboduus on every side forsaken, no other refuge remained but the
mercy of Caesar: he therefore passed the Danube where it washes the
province of Norica, and wrote to Tiberius; not however in the language of
a fugitive or supplicant, but with a spirit suitable to his late grandeur,
"that many nations invited him to them, as a king once so glorious; but he
preferred to all the friendship of Rome." The Emperor answered, "that in
Italy he should have a safe and honourable retreat, and, when his affairs
required his presence, the same security to return." But to the Senate he
declared, "that never had Philip of Macedon been so terrible to the
Athenians; nor Pyrrhus, nor Antiochus to the Roman people." The speech is
extant: in it he magnifies "the greatness of the man, the fierceness and
bravery of the nations his subjects; the alarming nearness of such an
enemy to Italy, and his own artful measures to destroy him.
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