While Germanicus was spending the summer in visits to several provinces,
Drusus gained no little glory by sowing discord among the Germans
and urging them to complete the destruction of the now broken power
of Maroboduus. Among the Gotones was a youth of noble birth, Catualda
by name, who had formerly been driven into exile by the might of Maroboduus,
and who now, when the king’s fortunes were declining, ventured on
revenge. He entered the territory of the Marcomanni with a strong
force, and, having corruptly won over the nobles to join him, burst
into the palace and into an adjacent fortress. There he found the
long-accumulated plunder of the Suevi and camp followers and traders
from our provinces who had been attracted to an enemy’s land, each
from their various homes, first by the freedom of commerce, next by
the desire of amassing wealth, finally by forgetfulness of their fatherland.

Maroboduus, now utterly deserted, had no resource but in the mercy
of Caesar. Having crossed the Danube where it flows by the province
of Noricum, he wrote to Tiberius, not like a fugitive or a suppliant,
but as one who remembered his past greatness. When as a most famous
king in former days he received invitations from many nations, he
had still, he said, preferred the friendship of Rome. Caesar replied
that he should have a safe and honourable home in Italy, if he would
remain there, or, if his interests required something different, he
might leave it under the same protection under which he had come.
But in the Senate he maintained that Philip had not been so formidable
to the Athenians, or Pyrrhus or Antiochus to the Roman people, as
was Maroboduus. The speech is extant, and in it he magnifies the man’s
power, the ferocity of the tribes under his sway, his proximity to
Italy as a foe, finally his own measures for his overthrow. The result
was that Maroboduus was kept at Ravenna, where his possible return
was a menace to the Suevi, should they ever disdain obedience. But
he never left Italy for eighteen years, living to old age and losing
much of his renown through an excessive clinging to life.

Catualda had a like downfall and no better refuge. Driven out soon
afterwards by the overwhelming strength of the Hermundusi led by Vibilius,
he was received and sent to Forum Julii, a colony of Narbonensian
Gaul. The barbarians who followed the two kings, lest they might disturb
the peace of the provinces by mingling with the population, were settled
beyond the Danube between the rivers Marus and Cusus, under a king,
Vannius, of the nation of the Quadi.

Tidings having also arrived of Artaxias being made king of Armenia
by Germanicus, the Senate decreed that both he and Drusus should enter
the city with an ovation. Arches too were raised round the sides of
the temple of Mars the Avenger, with statues of the two Caesars. Tiberius
was the more delighted at having established peace by wise policy
than if he had finished a war by battle. And so next he planned a
crafty scheme against Rhescuporis, king of Thrace. That entire country
had been in the possession of Rhoemetalces, after whose death Augustus
assigned half to the king’s brother Rhescuporis, half to his son Cotys.
In this division the cultivated lands, the towns, and what bordered
on Greek territories, fell to Cotys; the wild and barbarous portion,
with enemies on its frontier, to Rhescuporis. The kings too themselves
differed, Cotys having a gentle and kindly temper, the other a fierce
and ambitious spirit, which could not brook a partner. Still at first
they lived in a hollow friendship, but soon Rhescuporis overstepped
his bounds and appropriated to himself what had been given to Cotys,
using force when he was resisted, though somewhat timidly under Augustus,
who having created both kingdoms would, he feared, avenge any contempt
of his arrangement. When however he heard of the change of emperor,
he let loose bands of freebooters and razed the fortresses, as a provocation
to war.

Nothing made Tiberius so uneasy as an apprehension of the disturbance
of any settlement. He commissioned a centurion to tell the kings not
to decide their dispute by arms. Cotys at once dismissed the forces
which he had prepared. Rhescuporis, with assumed modesty, asked for
a place of meeting where, he said, they might settle their differences
by an interview. There was little hesitation in fixing on a time,
a place, finally on terms, as every point was mutually conceded and
accepted, by the one out of good nature, by the other with a treacherous
intent. Rhescuporis, to ratify the treaty, as he said, further proposed
a banquet; and when their mirth had been prolonged far into the night,
and Cotys amid the feasting and the wine was unsuspicious of danger,
he loaded him with chains, though he appealed, on perceiving the perfidy,
to the sacred character of a king, to the gods of their common house,
and to the hospitable board. Having possessed himself of all Thrace,
he wrote word to Tiberius that a plot had been formed against him,
and that he had forestalled the plotter. Meanwhile, under pretext
of a war against the Bastarnian and Scythian tribes, he was strengthening
himself with fresh forces of infantry and cavalry.

He received a conciliatory answer. If there was no treachery in his
conduct, he could rely on his innocence, but neither the emperor nor
the Senate would decide on the right or wrong of his cause without
hearing it. He was therefore to surrender Cotys, come in person transfer
from himself the odium of the charge.
The Annals by Tacitus