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One of the ladies most admired by the ancient Romans was Arria, the wife of Caecina Paetus, a Roman who was condemned by the Emperor Claudius to become his own executioner.
Caecina, who was perplexed how at once to repair the causeway decayed by time, and to repulse the foe, resolved at last to encamp in the place, that whilst some were employed in the work, others might maintain the fight. The Barbarians strove violently to break our station, and to fall upon the entrenchers: they harassed our men, assaulted the works, changed their attacks, and pushed everywhere.
Hence Caecina was commanded to advance with the cohorts without their baggage, and to clear a passage through the forest: at a moderate distance followed the legions; the clearness of the night facilitated the march, and they arrived at the villages of the Marsians, which with guards they presently invested.
Besides, it was observed that Otho's officers were much more inoffensive, both towards the public and to private men, than those of Vitellius; among whom was Caecina, who used neither the language nor the apparel of a citizen; an overbearing, foreign-seeming man, of gigantic stature and always dressed in trews and sleeves, after the manner of the Gauls, whilst he conversed with Roman officials and magistrates.
Germanicus had already drawn together his army, and was prepared to take vengeance on the seditious: but judging it proper to allow space for trial, whether they would follow the late example, and consulting their own safety do justice upon one another, he sent letters to Caecina, "that he himself approached, with a powerful force; and if they prevented him not, by executing the guilty, he would put all indifferently to the slaughter."
This first Arria, her husband Caecina Paetus, having been taken prisoner by some of the Emperor Claudius' people, after Scribonianus' defeat, whose party he had embraced in the war, begged of those who were to carry him prisoner to Rome, that they would take her into their ship, where she would be of much less charge and trouble to them than a great many persons they must otherwise have to attend her husband, and that she alone would undertake to serve him in his chamber, his kitchen, and all other offices.
Whether this selection of a site was made because the Palatine had long before been the Faubourg St. Honoré, the Belgravia of ancient Rome, is difficult to determine. We know that the house of Hortensius, chosen by Augustus, was surrounded by those of Clodius, Scaurus, Crassus, Caecina, Sisenna, Flaccus, Catiline, and other members of the aristocracy.
No course remained but to overawe the authors; on which account men well known and dangerous in a literary point of view, such as Publius Nigidius Figulus and Aulus Caecina, had more difficulty in obtaining permission to return to Italy than other exiles, while the oppositional writers tolerated in Italy were subjected to a practical censorship, the restraints of which were all the more annoying that the measure of punishment to be dreaded was utterly arbitrary.
These words, with several other signs, gave her friends to understand that she would undoubtedly despatch herself, impatient of supporting her husband's misfortune. And Thrasea, her son-in-law, beseeching her not to throw away herself, and saying to her, "What! if I should run the same fortune that Caecina has done, would you that your daughter, my wife, should do the same?"
In the investigation of the supernatural he was followed by Caecina, who wrote on the Etruscan ceremonial, and drew up a theory of portents and prodigies. The younger generation produced few grammarians of merit. He seems to have had some influence with the young nobles, with whom a teacher of grammar, who was also a fluent and persuasive speaker, was always welcome.
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