Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso

Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso was tried for poisoning Germanicus and killed himself before the verdict, and the surviving record of his trial is one of the best documents Rome left about how a political prosecution actually worked. He came from an old and arrogant family, was consul with Tiberius in 7 BC, and governed Hispania. In AD 17 Tiberius sent Germanicus, his adopted son and the most popular man in the empire, to settle the eastern provinces with extraordinary powers, and appointed Piso governor of Syria at the same time. The two quarrelled immediately: Piso countermanded orders, cultivated the legions, and his wife Plancina insulted Germanicus's wife Agrippina in public. Germanicus fell ill at Antioch in 19, accused Piso of poisoning him, formally renounced his friendship, and died. Piso then tried to retake Syria by force after leaving it, which turned a suspicion into a treason. The Senate tried him in Rome in 20. He was found dead with his throat cut before judgement; suicide was the official finding and murder was widely assumed. The Senate's decree recording the case was published on bronze across the empire, and copies found in Spain in the 1980s - the senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre - show the charges, the acquittal on the poisoning count, and the careful public praise of Tiberius. Tacitus wrote the affair as the moment the principate's cruelty became undeniable, and the bronze lets historians read his account against the official one. His wife Plancina was protected by Livia and escaped punishment, and killed herself some years later when the protection ended. His sons were spared and one kept the consulship he had been promised. The decree ordered his statues removed and his name erased from public monuments, and then ordered its own text set up in every legionary winter camp, so the erasure and the record were commanded in the same document.

• Lived: 44 BCE – 20 CE
• Nationality: Roman
• Roles: ruler