Tiberius and Thrasyllus

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Tiberius and ThrasyllusAuthor(s): Alexander Haggerty KrappeSource: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 48, No. 4 (1927), pp. 359-366Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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TIBERIUS AND THRASYLLUS.IBERIUS AND THRASYLLUS.IBERIUS AND THRASYLLUS.IBERIUS AND THRASYLLUS.

In the sixth book of his Annals Tacitus tells a curious storywhich throws a peculiar light on the role of astrology in the firstcenturies of our era. Speaking of the last years of Tiberius,spent, as we all know, on the island of Capri, the historian men-tions an anecdote which was doubtless still current during thereign of the first Flavian emperor and according to whichTiberius predicted the empire to Galba on the occasion of anofficial visit of the latter, then a consul. Tacitus then goes onto relate the following tale: 1

. scientia Chaldaeorum artis, cujus apiscendaeotium apud Rhodum, magistrum Thrasyllum habuit,peritiam ejus hoc modo expertus. Quotiens super talinegotio consultaret, edita domus parte ac liberti uniusconscientia utebatur:

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ignarus, corporevalido, per avia ac derupta (nam saxis domus imminet)praeibat eum cujus artem experiri Tiberius statuisset;et regredientem, si vanitatis aut fraudum suspicioincesserat, in subjectum mare praecipitabat, ne indexarcani exsisteret. Igitur Thrasyllus, iisdem rupibusinductus, postquam percontantem commoveratimperium ipsi et futura sollerter patefaciens, interro-gatur an suam quoque genitalem horam comperisset;quem tur annum, qualem diem haberet. Ille, positussiderum ac spatia dimensus, haerere primo, dein pave-scere, et, quantum introspiceret, magis ac magis trepi-dus admirationis et metus, postremo exclamatambiguum sibi ac prope ultimum discrimen instare.Tum complexus eum Tiberius praescium periculorumet incolumen fore gratatur, quaeque dixerat oraculivice accipiens, inter intimos amicorum tenet.

Tacitus uses this anecdote as point d'attache for a lengthy

digression, expressing his doubt whether all things are pre-ordained by fate or are governed by blind chance. But beforeexamining further the historian's attitude toward this tale andthe probable source from which he took it, it will be well to citethe remaining source material.

1Lib. VI, cap. 20-21.

359



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1Lib. VI, cap. 20-21.

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.MERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.MERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.MERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.

Suetonius knew a similar story about Tiberius and

Thrasyllus:2

Thrasyllum quoque mathematicum, quem ut sapien-tiae professorem contubernio admoverat, tur maximeexpertus est affirmantem nave provisa gaudium afferri;cum quidem illum durius et contra praedicta cadenti-bus rebus ut falsum et secretorum temere conscium, eoipso momento, dum spatiatur una, praecipitare in maredestinasset.

A third account of this episode which has come down to us isfound in the huge compilation of Cassius Dio, who reports thestory as follows:3

aVTros TIE yap e7/AretpoTQTOS T7S 'LVa Zwv acLTpWV l LaVT1K

Wv, KaUL pdavXXov avSpa raCr/o adorpoXoytaS 8aux7r?vKoTaEXov, I7rdVTa KaC Ta EaVTWr KCa TaL KELVOLS TErTrpwO.eva KpL-/3s) rlcrTarTO KaU X0oyov yE EXEL TL UL?EXX)cras WrOTE V 7TPoO TO\v ?paxcrvXAov a7ro Trov TUXLOVs, 7MreSLOVO VT(vTw

7rdvO' 5cra evevoeLt Orvv SE, (CreLt, vKer' aGVTO T7rolqoC GoKV-OpwtracravTa avrov L3wV, OrVTL ye Kal 8ta TOVTO aXX^ OTL Erepw-T7'1Od7 &ta rTt rvwVvoope, KlvvvOv Tiva V7ro7rrTevv o0EvO7-cYreoOaL Efr' Oeav(Lloraw; ap OTL Kal T7\V JfEXX1YcrLV 7s e'7rtplov-X7 T-npociL&v, 4vdaatL aVTOv EaVTrw a as A7XrIas 0Oe'XIqOev.

Let us note, at the outset, that the three accounts are suffi-ciently different, both in wording and content, to preclude thepossibility of one being the direct source of the other two.4 Theyall

agreein

statingthat when in

Rhodes,Tiberius was about to

drown the astrologer Thrasyllus, fearing that he had entrustedto him too many of his own secrets and doubting his art, butthat in the last minute he desisted, seeing that his intended vic-tim was able to foresee the danger threatening him, or the goodnews about to reach his master. Suetonius agrees with CassiusDio as against Tacitus in that Tiberius plans to kill theastrologer with his own hands and that no mention is made ofother

astrologerswho had

gonethe fatal

path beforehim. Taci-

2 Vita Tib., cap. 14.SHist. LV. 11. 1-2 B.4 On the problem of the relationship of the three ancient writers cf.

M. Thamm, De fontibus ad Tiberii historiamn pertinentibus, Diss. Halle,1874; Ph. Fabia, Les Sources de Tacite, Paris, 1893, pp. 329 and 386-387; Pauly-Wissowa, R.-E., III, 1714.


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tus and Dio agree as against Suetonius in that Tiberius intendsto hurl Thrasyllus from the walls of his house and that the

astrologer foresees his own danger. Tacitus, then, stands alonein the account of the melodramatic claptrap which one wouldexpect to find in a novel of Walter Scott or in a drame of Dumaspere rather than in a serious historian. Cassius Dio is the onlyone to speak vaguely of a premonition on the part of Thrasyllusinstead of making him derive his knowledge from the stars.Suetonius differs from the other two in indicating rather vaguelythe scene of the action and in apparently missing the point of

the story, namely, the astrologer's ability to read in the stars hisown approaching danger.5 In all these cases, Tacitus excepted,the minority versions spoil the tale. For it stands to reason thatThrasyllus, being an astrologer, should be warned by his ownscience rather than by a premonition pure and simple. It is alsoclear that, for this reason, the action must take place at nightand on a high place, a mountain or an observatory on a moun-tain.

The Thrasyllus, who is the hero of the tale, is an historicalpersonage who was first drawn into the circle of Tiberius duringthe latter's exile at Rhodes. We find him in the prince's retinuea short time before the death of Augustus,6 who asked his opin-ion on some improvised verses of his own, a sure sign that hemust have been considered as a highly educated Greek. He con-tinued to live near Tiberius during his entire reign, which cameto an end in A. D. 37, and was credited with having saved thelives of a number of persons by assuring the emperor of a longerlife than was really allotted to him.7 Thus it would appear thathe survived his master. His son was said to have succeeded himin his functions, which were those of a court astrologer as itwere, and to have predicted the empire to Nero.8

5 Since in the narrative of Cassius Dio the incident of the incomingship immediately follows Thrasyllus' prediction, I conjecture that both

episodeswere found in a source common to Suetonius and

Dio and thatthe former, epitomizing the story, fused them together.6 Sueton. Vita divi Augusti, cap. 98.7 Vitat Tib., cap. 62; cf. also Vita C. Cal., cap. 19.8 Tacitus, Annals, lib. VI, cap. 22. It is to be noted that this is an

instance of Tacitus' parallelisms; cf. E. Bacha, Le Genie de Tacite, Paris,1906, p. 186. All ancient references to Thrasyllus will be found inSmith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, III(1869), p. 1110.

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It is of course needless to say that the historicity of the herodoes

notwarrant the truth of the

tale,which

byits

verynature

will find credence only among adepts in astrology, whose numberis now considerably smaller than it was in the times of theRoman Empire and even as late as the seventeenth century. It

may be objected that the account of Tacitus is essentially trueand that Thrasyllus, owing to his natural shrewdness and perspi-cacity, clearly saw the trap in which so many of his predecessorshad been caught, and that he saved his life in much the same

manner in which Martius Galeotti saves his in Scott's well-knownnovel. But the whole setting of Tacitus' account is extremelyimprobable, for it presupposes a cynical disregard for humanlives which cannot possibly be admitted for the reign of Augustusafter the stabilization of the Empire. True enough, the sup-posed victims would in any case have been Graeculi, usually ofthe Asiatic type, who, after all, mattered little to the Roman pro-vincial authorities. But it must not be forgotten that the scene

of the action is Rhodes, a Greek community and flourishing com-mercial city. To suppose that the citizens would have tolerateda wholesale slaughter of Greeks at the hands of a private indi-vidual and an exile, who was moreover known to be in disfavoron the Palatine, is to suppose an absurdity. As a matter of fact,this episode, like so many others, is characteristic of Tacitus'workmanship. He takes over a simple fact, in this case anaccount resembling those of Suetonius and Cassius Dio, and then

grossly exaggerates it, providing it with a melodramatic setting.9It is therefore the narratives of Suetonius and Dio, in so far asthey are in agreement with each other and with Tacitus, whichmust be regarded as resembling most closely the lost archetypeof the tale; that is, the form which was current during the latterhalf of the first century. If this be granted, it is clear thatThrasyllus could not possibly have foreseen his impending fate,unless one is willing to concede to him the divinatory powers

which he claimed to possess.The whole episode would then appear to be fictitious and littlemore than a piece of gossip which circulated in the capital atthe expense of an unpopular figure such as Tiberius undoubtedly



tale,which

byits

verynature









tale,which

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verynature









tale,which

byits

verynature







o For other examples showing the same tendency cf. Bacha, op. cit.,pp. 88 and 95.




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was. But since stories of this type are not invented out of noth-

ing, it is not surprising to find a rather close parallel in a workof fiction known to have existed at that time. I refer to the taleof the death of Nektanebos as told by the Pseudo-Callisthenes,of which I quote the text from the Syriac version, going back tothe seventh century.10

One night, when he (i. e. Alexander) was twelveyears old, Nectanebus took him out to show him thestars. In the course of conversation Nectanebus told

him that he himself was to perish at the hands of hisson. Whilst his eyes were fixed on the heavens, Alex-ander mercilessly pushed him over into a pit, andtaunted him, saying, "I blame thy lack of knowledge inthat thou didst say that thy death would happen bythe hands of thy son, and thou didst not know thatthou shouldst die by my hands." Then Nectanebussaid, " I did indeed say that I should die through myson, and I have not lied in what I said, for thou, thy-self, art my son." Alexander, moved by tardy affection,carried his father out of the pit and buried him as ason should do.

Nor is this tale peculiar to the Oriental versions of the GreekAlexander romance. In a mediaeval text published not so longago,l1 Nektanebos leads Alexander on a high mountain to gaze

10 E. A. W. Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, being theSyriac version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, Cambridge, 1889, p. 15 sq.;Ryssel, Arch. f. d. Studium d. neueren Spraohen, XC (1893), p. 96; J.Zacher, Pseudo-Callisthenes, Halle, 1867, p. 115. On the character ofthe Pseudo-Callisthenes and the problems connected with this romancecf. E. Rohde, Der griechische Roman und seine Vorliufer, Leipzig, 1914,p. 197. W. Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur, Miinchen,1898, p. 819; O. Weinreich, Der Trug des Nektanebos, Berlin-Leipzig,1911, p. 3.

11A. Hilka, Der Zauberer Neptanabus nach einem bisher unbekanntenErfurter Text, in Festschrift zur Jahrhundertfeier der K6nigl. Uni-versitdt zu

Breslau, Breslau, 1911, p. 197: Cum vero prefatus at etatemcongruam aduenisset, Neptanabo datus est informandus, qui in cursustellarum et astrorum ultra modum eundem erudiuit, ita quod exaffluenti scientia cursuum superiorum non solum presencia, sed eciamfutura perspicaciter agnoscebat. Accidit autem quod Neptanabus vnadierum propter aeris nubilum stellarum euentus non poterat intueri.Qua propter cum Alexandro suo discipulo celi lucidum querens ascenditlardua montis et inde superius aspiciens vidit apparatus bellicosos et

























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at the stars, but is hurled down by his disciple before he hastime to answer the latter's

question.The revelation follows when

Alexander descends to listen to his dying words. The point inthis text is no longer the fact that the astrologer foresees thetruth which Alexander does not suspect, but that he claims toforesee future events and yet does not know of his own imminentdeath. The high mountain recurs in an Old French romance 12and in a Middle Dutch compilation.13 In most versions Nektane-bos is thrown from a city wall.14 What the reading of the arche-

typewas can be determined

only bya careful

comparisonof all

extant versions, both Oriental and Occidental. But there canbe no doubt that the episode of the death of Nektanebos formedan integral part of the original Greek romance.15

What is the source of this tale which, it is needless to add, hasno foundation whatever in the life of Alexander the Great ? Theseer who is ignorant of his own fate or, if he knows it, is unableto avert it, was a familiar figure in antiquity.'6 Kassandra is a

good example for the latter case, whilst the former is well repre-nauium multitudines et globos armatorum collectos aduersus Philippumregem Macedonum in Grecia. Qui intuens Alexandrum dixit: Nonne,fili, que video in visione celi tu eciam contemplaris? At ille: que petis,magister, sunt michi dudum manifesta. Exhinc Allexander volens

magistrum temptare dixit: 0 vates maxime vatum, numquid per astro-rum noticias que bona uel mala nune et alias sunt futura cognouisti?Qui cum vellet respondere verbo querentis, a discipulo per precipiciumrupis est proiectus. Et inde Allexander descendens cornmerit Neptana-bum laborantem in extremis et dixit: Heu michi, magister metuende,ego istud periculum tamquam temerarius te precauere putabam! Tu

quidem numquid hoc infortunium ex cursu stellarum fugere potuisti,cum gentibus alijs et populis plurima futura sis vaticinatus? Vatesait: A filio meo iam dudum sensi me mortem recepturum, nunc autem

quod verebar ducitur ad effectum. Allexander hijs verbis attonitusadmirans ait: Ergo me nunc nuncupas de numero filiorum tuorum?Vates subdit: Tu dicis et verum dicis. Quo dicto vates expirauit.Allexander autem motus amore paternali Neptanabum tamquam patrem

super humeros ponens honorifice fecit sepeliri.12 Li Romans d'Alixandre par Lambert li Tors et Alexandre de Ber-

nay, p. p. Michelant, Stuttgart, 1846, IX, 20-21.

13Hoogstra, Prosabewerkingen van het Leven van Alexander den(Groote in het Middelnederlandsch, The Hague, 1898, p. 45.

H4 ilka, op. cit., p. 197.15 Weinreich, op. cit., p. 16.16 W. R. Halliday, Greek Divination, London, 1913, p. 56.





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sented by a widely current anecdote variously ascribed to Thalesof Miletus or other men renowned for their

learning.Thales, so

the tale runs, went out at night to gaze at the stars, but lookingat the sky he fell into a cistern, whereupon his witty Thracianmaid called out that he tried to know what there was in the skybut failed to see what was close to him at his very feet.17 Thestory is best known to modern readers through the fable of LaFontaine.18 It has been correctly observed that this anecdote orfable was, with certain modifications peculiar to an age which

firmlybelieved in

astrology, incorporatedin the

compilationwhich circulated under the name of Kallisthenes.l9 In its moresimple form it continued to live in Mediaeval Europe and mayhave influenced in its turn the Western branch of the Alexanderromance. There exists therefore a possibility that the tale ofTiberius and Thrasyllus was evolved out of this ancient anec-dote. The likelihood that such was the case is, however, small.For the spirit of the anecdote is altogether different from thatof the

episodein the life of Tiberius.

Both,it is

true,have a

happy ending (for in most versions of the anecdote the astrolo-ger does not die from his fall); but whilst the anecdote makesfun of astrology and astrologers, opposing to the science of thewise man the common sense of his illiterate Thracian slave, theepisode told of the Roman emperor is calculated to fill the read-ers with awe and wonder at the miracles which astrology canachieve. This is also the case in the Pseudo-Callisthenes, and

we should then have to assume that twice in a fairly rapid succes-sion the ancient fable was developed into an historical or pseudo-historical tale showing the infallibility of the science. Add tothis that in both the Pseudo-Callisthenes and the historians theacting personages are a prince and his astronomer, that theformer subjects the latter to a test and that in both the princebecomes convinced of the value of astrology and the ability of hisastronomer. These similarities are certainly not the work of

mere chance. On the other hand, it is perfectly clear why theepisode of the historians could not possibly have taken a tragic

17 W. Hertz, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, Stuttgart-Berlin, 1905, p.323; cf. also R. Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt, Miinchen, 1910,p. 259.

18 Fables, II. 13: L 'Astrologue qui se laisse tomber dans un puits.19 Weinreich, p. 16; Eisler, op. et loo. cit.


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turn; we have seen above that Thrasyllus continued to live after

the return of his imperial master and that he even survivedhim. The only probable conclusion is then that the Pseudo-Callisthenes was the direct source of the tale which attributedto Tiberius the role of Alexander, to Thrasyllus that of Nektane-bos. There was no difficulty in the way; for the leanings of theotherwise level-headed and able Tiberius 20 toward the pseudo-science imported from the East were well known.21

One very important conclusion can be drawn from these facts,

which will thus be seen to shed some light on the early historyof the Alexander romance. It has generally been admitted thatthis compilation arose in Egypt at the time of the Ptolemies,22but scholars have not been quite unanimous as to the date of thearchetype, and Zacher, induced by the occurrence of a quotationof Favorinus in Valerius and the Armenian translation, con-cluded that the first literary version of the romance must be pos-terior to A. D. 100.23 The traces left by the romance on Roman

historians, drawing on chronicles and memoirs of the firstcentury, make it practically certain that there existed literaryGreek versions of the Pseudo-Callisthenes at the beginning ofour era.

ALEXANDER HAGGERTY KEAPPE.UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA.

20 Cf. I. Gentile, L'Imperatore Tiberio secondo la, moderna criticastorica, Milano, 1887.

21 Joseph. Flav. Antiqu. Jud. XVIII. 6. 8-10; Juven. Sat. X. 56-107;G. Boissier, Tacite, Paris, 1904, p. 145.

22 C. Miller, Pseudo-Kallisthenes, Paris, 1846, pp. xx sqq.28 Zacher, op. cit., p. 102.




























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