Produced by Tapio Riikonen and David Widger
THE LIVES
OF
THE TWELVE CAESARS
By
C. Suetonius Tranquillus;
To which are added,
HIS LIVES OF THE GRAMMARIANS, RHETORICIANS, AND POETS.
The Translation of
Alexander Thomson, M.D.
revised and corrected by
T.Forester, Esq., A.M.
TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS CAESAR. [465]
(295)
I. Livia, having married Augustus when she was pregnant, was within
three months afterwards delivered of Drusus, the father of Claudius
Caesar, who had at first the praenomen of Decimus, but afterwards that of
Nero; and it was suspected that he was begotten in adultery by his
father-in-law. The following verse, however, was immediately in every
one's mouth:
Tois eutychousi kai primaena paidia.
Nine months for common births the fates decree;
But, for the great, reduce the term to three.
This Drusus, during the time of his being quaestor and praetor, commanded
in the Rhaetian and German wars, and was the first of all the Roman
generals who navigated the Northern Ocean [466]. He made likewise some
prodigious trenches beyond the Rhine [467], which to this day are called
by his name. He overthrew the enemy in several battles, and drove them
far back into the depths of the desert. Nor did he desist from pursuing
them, until an apparition, in the form of a barbarian woman, of more than
human size, appeared to him, and, in the Latin tongue, forbad him to
proceed any farther. For these achievements he had the honour of an
ovation, and the triumphal ornaments. After his praetorship, he
immediately entered on the office of consul, and returning again to
Germany, died of disease, in the summer encampment, which thence obtained
the name of "The Unlucky Camp." His corpse was carried to Rome by the
principal persons of the several municipalities and colonies upon the
road, being met and received by the recorders of each place, and buried
in the Campus Martius. In honour of his (296) memory, the army erected a
monument, round which the soldiers used, annually, upon a certain day, to
march in solemn procession, and persons deputed from the several cities
of Gaul performed religious rites. The senate likewise, among various
other honours, decreed for him a triumphal arch of marble, with trophies,
in the Appian Way, and gave the cognomen of Germanicus to him and his
posterity. In him the civil and military virtues were equally displayed;
for, besides his victories, he gained from the enemy the Spolia Opima
[468], and frequently marked out the German chiefs in the midst of their
army, and encountered them in single combat, at the utmost hazard of his
life. He likewise often declared that he would, some time or other, if
possible, restore the ancient government. In this account, I suppose,
some have ventured to affirm that Augustus was jealous of him, and
recalled him; and because he made no haste to comply with the order, took
him off by poison. This I mention, that I may not be guilty of any
omission, more than because I think it either true or probable; since
Augustus loved him so much when living, that he always, in his wills,
made him joint-heir with his sons, as he once declared in the senate; and
upon his decease, extolled him in a speech to the people, to that degree,
that he prayed the gods "to make his Caesars like him, and to grant
himself as honourable an exit out of this world as they had given him."
And not satisfied with inscribing upon his tomb an epitaph in verse
composed by himself, he wrote likewise the history of his life in prose.
He had by the younger Antonia several children, but left behind him only
three, namely, Germanicus, Livilla, and Claudius.
II. Claudius was born at Lyons, in the consulship of Julius Antonius,
and Fabius Africanus, upon the first of August [469], the very day upon
which an altar was first dedicated there to Augustus. He was named
Tiberius Claudius Drusus, but soon afterwards, (297) upon the adoption of
his elder brother into the Julian family, he assumed the cognomen of
Germanicus. He was left an infant by his father, and during almost the
whole of his minority, and for some time after he attained the age of
manhood, was afflicted with a variety of obstinate disorders, insomuch
that his mind and body being greatly impaired, he was, even after his
arrival at years of maturity, never thought sufficiently qualified for
any public or private employment. He was, therefore, during a long time,
and even after the expiration of his minority, under the direction of a
pedagogue, who, he complains in a certain memoir, "was a barbarous
wretch, and formerly superintendent of the mule-drivers, who was selected
for his governor, on purpose to correct him severely on every trifling
occasion." On account of this crazy constitution of body and mind, at
the spectacle of gladiators, which he gave the people, jointly with his
brother, in honour of his father's memory, he presided, muffled up in a
pallium--a new fashion. When he assumed the manly habit, he was carried
in a litter, at midnight, to the Capitol, without the usual ceremony.
III. He applied himself, however, from an early age, with great
assiduity to the study of the liberal sciences, and frequently published
specimens of his skill in each of them. But never, with all his
endeavours, could he attain to any public post in the government, or
afford any hope of arriving at distinction thereafter. His mother,
Antonia, frequently called him "an abortion of a man, that had been only
begun, but never finished, by nature." And when she would upbraid any
one with dulness, she said, "He was a greater fool than her son,
Claudius." His grandmother, Augusta, always treated him with the utmost
contempt, very rarely spoke to him, and when she did admonish him upon
any occasion, it was in writing, very briefly and severely, or by
messengers. His sister, Livilla, upon hearing that he was about to be
created emperor, openly and loudly expressed her indignation that the
Roman people should experience a fate so severe and so much below their
grandeur. To exhibit the opinion, both favourable and otherwise,
entertained concerning him by Augustus, his great-uncle, I have here
subjoined some extracts from the letters of that emperor.
IV. "I have had some conversation with Tiberius, according (298) to your
desire, my dear Livia, as to what must be done with your grandson,
Tiberius, at the games of Mars. We are both agreed in this, that, once
for all, we ought to determine what course to take with him. For if he
be really sound and, so to speak, quite right in his intellects [470],
why should we hesitate to promote him by the same steps and degrees we
did his brother? But if we find him below par, and deficient both in
body and mind, we must beware of giving occasion for him and ourselves to
be laughed at by the world, which is ready enough to make such things the
subject of mirth and derision. For we never shall be easy, if we are
always to be debating upon every occasion of this kind, without settling,
in the first instance, whether he be really capable of public offices or
not. With regard to what you consult me about at the present moment, I
am not against his superintending the feast of the priests, in the games
of Mars, if he will suffer himself to be governed by his kinsman,
Silanus's son, that he may do nothing to make the people stare and laugh
at him. But I do not approve of his witnessing the Circensian games from
the Pulvinar. He will be there exposed to view in the very front of the
theatre. Nor do I like that he should go to the Alban Mount [471], or be
at Rome during the Latin festivals. For if he be capable of attending
his brother to the mount, why is he not made prefect of the city? Thus,
my dear Livia, you have my thoughts upon the matter. In my opinion, we
ought to (299) settle this affair once for all, that we may not be always
in suspense between hope and fear. You may, if you think proper, give
your kinsman Antonia this part of my letter to read." In another letter,
he writes as follows: "I shall invite: the youth, Tiberius, every day
during your absence, to supper, that he may not sup alone with his
friends Sulpicius and Athenodorus. I wish the poor creature was more
cautious and attentive in the choice of some one, whose manners, air, and
gait might be proper for his imitation:
Atuchei panu en tois spoudaiois lian.
In things of consequence he sadly fails.
Where his mind does not run astray, he discovers a noble disposition."
In a third letter, he says, "Let me die, my dear Livia, if I am not
astonished, that the declamation of your grandson, Tiberius, should
please me; for how he who talks so ill, should be able to declaim so
clearly and properly, I cannot imagine." There is no doubt but Augustus,
after this, came to a resolution upon the subject, and, accordingly, left
him invested with no other honour than that of the Augural priesthood;
naming him amongst the heirs of the third degree, who were but distantly
allied to his family, for a sixth part of his estate only, with a legacy
of no more than eight hundred thousand sesterces.
V. Upon his requesting some office in the state, Tiberius granted him
the honorary appendages of the consulship, and when he pressed for a
legitimate appointment, the emperor wrote word back, that "he sent him
forty gold pieces for his expenses, during the festivals of the
Saturnalia and Sigillaria." Upon this, laying aside all hope of
advancement, he resigned himself entirely to an indolent life; living in
great privacy, one while in his gardens, or a villa which he had near the
city; another while in Campania, where he passed his time in the lowest
society; by which means, besides his former character of a dull, heavy
fellow, he acquired that of a drunkard and gamester.
VI. Notwithstanding this sort of life, much respect was shown him both
in public and private. The equestrian (300) order twice made choice of
him to intercede on their behalf; once to obtain from the consuls the
favour of bearing on their shoulders the corpse of Augustus to Rome, and
a second time to congratulate him upon the death of Sejanus. When he
entered the theatre, they used to rise, and put off their cloaks. The
senate likewise decreed, that he should be added to the number of the
Augustal college of priests, who were chosen by lot; and soon afterwards,
when his house was burnt down, that it should be rebuilt at the public
charge; and that he should have the privilege of giving his vote amongst
the men of consular rank. This decree was, however, repealed; Tiberius
insisting to have him excused on account of his imbecility, and promising
to make good his loss at his own expense. But at his death, he named him
in his will, amongst his third heirs, for a third part of his estate;
leaving him besides a legacy of two millions of sesterces, and expressly
recommending him to the armies, the senate and people of Rome, amongst
his other relations.
VII. At last, Caius [473], his brother's son, upon his advancement to
the empire, endeavouring to gain the affections of the public by all the
arts of popularity, Claudius also was admitted to public offices, and
held the consulship jointly with his nephew for two months. As he was
entering the Forum for the first time with the fasces, an eagle which was
flying that way; alighted upon his right shoulder. A second consulship
was also allotted him, to commence at the expiration of the fourth year.
He sometimes presided at the public spectacles, as the representative of
Caius; being always, on those occasions, complimented with the
acclamations of the people, wishing him all happiness, sometimes under
the title of the emperor's uncle, and sometimes under that of
Germanicus's brother.
VIII. Still he was subjected to many slights. If at any time he came in
late to supper, he was obliged to walk round the room some time before he
could get a place at table. When he indulged himself with sleep after
eating, which was a common practice with him, the company used to throw
olive-stones and dates at him. And the buffoons who attended would wake
him, as if it were only in jest, with a cane or a whip. Sometimes they
would put slippers upon his hands; as he lay snoring, that he might, upon
awaking, rub his face with them.
IX. He was not only exposed to contempt, but sometimes likewise to
considerable danger: first, in his consulship; for, having been too
remiss in providing and erecting the statues of Caius's brothers, Nero
and Drusus, he was very near being deprived of his office; and afterwards
he was continually harassed with informations against him by one or
other, sometimes even by his own domestics. When the conspiracy of
Lepidus and Gaetulicus was discovered, being sent with some other
deputies into Germany [474], to congratulate the emperor upon the
occasion, he was in danger of his life; Caius being greatly enraged, and
loudly complaining, that his uncle was sent to him, as if he was a boy
who wanted a governor. Some even say, that he was thrown into a river,
in his travelling dress. From this period, he voted in the senate always
the last of the members of consular rank; being called upon after the
rest, on purpose to disgrace him. A charge for the forgery of a will was
also allowed to be prosecuted, though he had only signed it as a witness.
At last, being obliged to pay eight millions of sesterces on entering
upon a new office of priesthood, he was reduced to such straits in his
private affairs, that in order to discharge his bond to the treasury, he
was under the necessity of exposing to sale his whole estate, by an order
of the prefects.
X. Having spent the greater part of his life under these and the like
circumstances, he came at last to the empire in the fiftieth year of his
age [475], by a very surprising turn of fortune. Being, as well as the
rest, prevented from approaching Caius by the conspirators, who dispersed
the crowd, under the pretext of his desiring to be private, he retired
into an apartment called the Hermaeum [476]; and soon afterwards,
terrified by the report of Caius being slain, he crept into an adjoining
balcony, where he hid himself behind the hangings of (302) the door. A
common soldier, who happened to pass that way, spying his feet, and
desirous to discover who he was, pulled him out; when immediately
recognizing him, he threw himself in a great fright at his feet, and
saluted him by the title of emperor. He then conducted him to his
fellow-soldiers, who were all in a great rage, and irresolute what they
should do. They put him into a litter, and as the slaves of the palace
had all fled, took their turns in carrying him on their shoulders, and
brought him into the camp, sad and trembling; the people who met him
lamenting his situation, as if the poor innocent was being carried to
execution. Being received within the ramparts [477], he continued all
night with the sentries on guard, recovered somewhat from his fright, but
in no great hopes of the succession. For the consuls, with the senate
and civic troops, had possessed themselves of the Forum and Capitol, with
the determination to assert the public liberty; and he being sent for
likewise, by a tribune of the people, to the senate-house, to give his
advice upon the present juncture of affairs, returned answer, "I am under
constraint, and cannot possibly come." The day afterwards, the senate
being dilatory in their proceedings, and worn out by divisions amongst
themselves, while the people who surrounded the senate-house shouted that
they would have one master, naming Claudius, he suffered the soldiers
assembled under arms to swear allegiance to him, promising them fifteen
thousand sesterces a man; he being the first of the Caesars who purchased
the submission of the soldiers with money. [478]
XI. Having thus established himself in power, his first object was to
abolish all remembrance of the two preceding days, in which a revolution
in the state had been canvassed. Accordingly, he passed an act of
perpetual oblivion and pardon for every thing said or done during that
time; and this he faithfully observed, with the exception only of putting
to death a few tribunes and centurions concerned in the conspiracy
against Caius, both as an example, and because he understood that they
had also planned his own death. He now turned (303) his thoughts towards
paying respect to the memory of his relations. His most solemn and usual
oath was, "By Augustus." He prevailed upon the senate to decree divine
honours to his grandmother Livia, with a chariot in the Circensian
procession drawn by elephants, as had been appointed for Augustus [479];
and public offerings to the shades of his parents. Besides which, he
instituted Circensian games for his father, to be celebrated every year,
upon his birth-day, and, for his mother, a chariot to be drawn through
the circus; with the title of Augusta, which had been refused by his
grandmother [480]. To the memory of his brother [481], to which, upon
all occasions, he showed a great regard, he gave a Greek comedy, to be
exhibited in the public diversions at Naples [482], and awarded the crown
for it, according to the sentence of the judges in that solemnity. Nor
did he omit to make honourable and grateful mention of Mark Antony;
declaring by a proclamation, "That he the more earnestly insisted upon
the observation of his father Drusus's birth-day, because it was likewise
that of his grandfather Antony." He completed the marble arch near
Pompey's theatre, which had formerly been decreed by the senate in honour
of Tiberius, but which had been neglected [483]. And though he cancelled
all the acts of Caius, yet he forbad the day of his assassination,
notwithstanding it was that of his own accession to the empire, to be
reckoned amongst the festivals.
XII. But with regard to his own aggrandisement, he was sparing and
modest, declining the title of emperor, and refusing all excessive
honours. He celebrated the marriage of his daughter and the birth-day of
a grandson with great privacy, at home. He recalled none of those who
had been banished, without a decree of the senate: and requested of them
permission for the prefect of the military tribunes and pretorian guards
to attend him in the senate-house [484]; and (304) also that they would
be pleased to bestow upon his procurators judicial authority in the
provinces [485]. He asked of the consuls likewise the privilege of
holding fairs upon his private estate. He frequently assisted the
magistrates in the trial of causes, as one of their assessors. And when
they gave public spectacles, he would rise up with the rest of the
spectators, and salute them both by words and gestures. When the
tribunes of the people came to him while he was on the tribunal, he
excused himself, because, on account of the crowd, he could not hear them
unless they stood. In a short time, by this conduct, he wrought himself
so much into the favour and affection of the public, that when, upon his
going to Ostia, a report was spread in the city that he had been way-laid
and slain, the people never ceased cursing the soldiers for traitors, and
the senate as parricides, until one or two persons, and presently after
several others, were brought by the magistrates upon the rostra, who
assured them that he was alive, and not far from the city, on his way
home.
XIII. Conspiracies, however, were formed against him, not only by
individuals separately, but by a faction; and at last his government was
disturbed with a civil war. A low fellow was found with a poniard about
him, near his chamber, at midnight. Two men of the equestrian order were
discovered waiting for him in the streets, armed with a tuck and a
huntsman's dagger; one of them intending to attack him as he came out of
the theatre, and the other as he was sacrificing in the temple of Mars.
Gallus Asinius and Statilius Corvinus, grandsons of the two orators,
Pollio and Messala [486], formed a conspiracy against him, in which they
engaged many of his freedmen and slaves. Furius Camillus Scribonianus,
his lieutenant in Dalmatia, broke into rebellion, but was reduced in
(305) the space of five days; the legions which he had seduced from their
oath of fidelity relinquishing their purpose, upon an alarm occasioned by
ill omens. For when orders were given them to march, to meet their new
emperor, the eagles could not be decorated, nor the standards pulled out
of the ground, whether it was by accident, or a divine interposition.
XIV. Besides his former consulship, he held the office afterwards four
times; the first two successively [487], but the following, after an
interval of four years each [488]; the last for six months, the others
for two; and the third, upon his being chosen in the room of a consul who
died; which had never been done by any of the emperors before him.
Whether he was consul or out of office, he constantly attended the courts
for the administration of justice, even upon such days as were solemnly
observed as days of rejoicing in his family, or by his friends; and
sometimes upon the public festivals of ancient institution. Nor did he
always adhere strictly to the letter of the laws, but overruled the
rigour or lenity of many of their enactments, according to his sentiments
of justice and equity. For where persons lost their suits by insisting
upon more than appeared to be their due, before the judges of private
causes, he granted them the indulgence of a second trial. And with
regard to such as were convicted of any great delinquency, he even
exceeded the punishment appointed by law, and condemned them to be
exposed to wild beasts. [489]
XV. But in hearing and determining causes, he exhibited a strange
inconsistency of temper, being at one time circumspect and sagacious, at
another inconsiderate and rash, and sometimes frivolous, and like one out
of his mind. In correcting the roll of judges, he struck off the name of
one who, concealing the privilege his children gave him to be excused
from serving, had answered to his name, as too eager for the office.
Another who was summoned before him in a cause of his own, but alleged
that the affair did not properly come under the (306) emperor's
cognizance, but that of the ordinary judges, he ordered to plead the
cause himself immediately before him, and show in a case of his own, how
equitable a judge he would prove in that of other persons. A woman
refusing to acknowledge her own son, and there being no clear proof on
either side, he obliged her to confess the truth, by ordering her to
marry the young man [490]. He was much inclined to determine causes in
favour of the parties who appeared, against those who did not, without
inquiring whether their absence was occasioned by their own fault, or by
real necessity. On proclamation of a man's being convicted of forgery,
and that he ought to have his hand cut off, he insisted that an
executioner should be immediately sent for, with a Spanish sword and a
block. A person being prosecuted for falsely assuming the freedom of
Rome, and a frivolous dispute arising between the advocates in the cause,
whether he ought to make his appearance in the Roman or Grecian dress, to
show his impartiality, he commanded him to change his clothes several
times according to the character he assumed in the accusation or defence.
An anecdote is related of him, and believed to be true, that, in a
particular cause, he delivered his sentence in writing thus: "I am in
favour of those who have spoken the truth." [491] By this he so much
forfeited the good opinion of the world, that he was everywhere and
openly despised. A person making an excuse for the non-appearance of a
witness whom he had sent for from the provinces, declared it was
impossible for him to appear, concealing the reason for some time: at
last, after several interrogatories were put to him on the subject, he
answered, "The man is dead;" to which Claudius replied, "I think that is
a sufficient excuse." Another thanking him for suffering a person who
was prosecuted to make his defence by counsel, added, "And yet it is no
more than what is usual." I have likewise heard some old men say [492],
that the advocates used to abuse his patience so grossly, that they would
not only (307) call him back, as he was quitting the tribunal, but would
seize him by the lap of his coat, and sometimes catch him by the heels,
to make him stay. That such behaviour, however strange, is not
incredible, will appear from this anecdote. Some obscure Greek, who was
a litigant, had an altercation with him, in which he called out, "You are
an old fool." [493] It is certain that a Roman knight, who was
prosecuted by an impotent device of his enemies on a false charge of
abominable obscenity with women, observing that common strumpets were
summoned against him and allowed to give evidence, upbraided Claudius in
very harsh and severe terms with his folly and cruelty, and threw his
style, and some books which he had in his hands, in his face, with such
violence as to wound him severely in the cheek.
XVI. He likewise assumed the censorship [494], which had been
discontinued since the time that Paulus and Plancus had jointly held it.
But this also he administered very unequally, and with a strange variety
of humour and conduct. In his review of the knights, he passed over,
without any mark of disgrace, a profligate young man, only because his
father spoke of him in the highest terms; "for," said he, "his father is
his proper censor." Another, who was infamous for debauching youths and
for adultery, he only admonished "to indulge his youthful inclinations
more sparingly, or at least more cautiously;" [495] adding, "why must I
know what mistress you keep?" When, at the request of his friends, he
had taken off a mark of infamy which he had set upon one knight's name,
he said, "Let the blot, however, remain." He not only struck out of the
list of judges, but likewise deprived of the freedom of Rome, an
illustrious man of the highest provincial rank in Greece, only because he
was ignorant of the Latin language. Nor in this review did he suffer any
one to give an account of his conduct by an advocate, but obliged each
man to speak for himself in the best way he could. He disgraced many,
and some that little expected it, and for a reason entirely new, namely,
for going out of Italy without his license; (308) and one likewise, for
having in his province been the familiar companion of a king; observing,
that, in former times, Rabirius Posthumus had been prosecuted for
treason, although he only went after Ptolemy to Alexandria for the
purpose of securing payment of a debt [496]. Having tried to brand with
disgrace several others, he, to his own greater shame, found them
generally innocent, through the negligence of the persons employed to
inquire into their characters; those whom he charged with living in
celibacy, with want of children, or estate, proving themselves to be
husbands, parents, and in affluent circumstances. One of the knights who
was charged with stabbing himself, laid his bosom bare, to show that
there was not the least mark of violence upon his body. The following
incidents were remarkable in his censorship. He ordered a car, plated
with silver, and of very sumptuous workmanship, which was exposed for
sale in the Sigillaria [497], to be purchased, and broken in pieces
before his eyes. He published twenty proclamations in one day, in one of
which he advised the people, "Since the vintage was very plentiful, to
have their casks well secured at the bung with pitch:" and in another, he
told them, "that nothing would sooner cure the bite of a viper, than the
sap of the yew-tree."
XVII. He undertook only one expedition, and that was of short duration.
The triumphal ornaments decreed him by the senate, he considered as
beneath the imperial dignity, and was therefore resolved to have the
honour of a real triumph. For this purpose, he selected Britain, which
had never been attempted by any one since Julius Caesar [498], and was
then chafing (309) with rage, because the Romans would not give up some
deserters. Accordingly, he set sail from Ostia, but was twice very near
being wrecked by the boisterous wind called Circius [499], upon the coast
of Liguria, and near the islands called Stoechades [500]. Having marched
by land from Marseilles to Gessoriacum [501], he thence passed over to
Britain, and part of the island submitting to him, within a few days
after his arrival, without battle or bloodshed, he returned to Rome in
less than six months from the time of his departure, and triumphed in the
most solemn manner [502]; to witness which, he not only (310) gave leave
to governors of provinces to come to Rome, but even to some of the
exiles. Among the spoils taken from the enemy, he fixed upon the
pediment of his house in the Palatium, a naval crown, in token of his
having passed, and, as it were, conquered the Ocean, and had it suspended
near the civic crown which was there before. Messalina, his wife,
followed his chariot in a covered litter [503]. Those who had attained
the honour of triumphal ornaments in the same war, rode behind; the rest
followed on foot, wearing the robe with the broad stripes. Crassus Frugi
was mounted upon a horse richly caparisoned, in a robe embroidered with
palm leaves, because this was the second time of his obtaining that
honour.
XVIII. He paid particular attention to the care of the city, and to have
it well supplied with provisions. A dreadful fire happening in the
Aemiliana [504], which lasted some time, he passed two nights in the
Diribitorium [505], and the soldiers and gladiators not being in
sufficient numbers to extinguish it, he caused the magistrates to summon
the people out of all the streets in the city, to their assistance.
Placing bags of money before him, he encouraged them to do their utmost,
declaring, that he would reward every one on the spot, according to their
exertions.
XIX. During a scarcity of provisions, occasioned by bad crops for
several successive years, he was stopped in the middle of the Forum by
the mob, who so abused him, at the same time pelting him with fragments
of bread, that he had some (311) difficulty in escaping into the palace
by a back door. He therefore used all possible means to bring provisions
to the city, even in the winter. He proposed to the merchants a sure
profit, by indemnifying them against any loss that might befall them by
storms at sea; and granted great privileges to those who built ships for
that traffic. To a citizen of Rome he gave an exemption from the penalty
of the Papia-Poppaean law [506]; to one who had only the privilege of
Latium, the freedom of the city; and to women the rights which by law
belonged to those who had four children: which enactments are in force to
this day.
XX. He completed some important public works, which, though not
numerous, were very useful. The principal were an aqueduct, which had
been begun by Caius; an emissary for the discharge of the waters of the
Fucine lake [507], and the harbour of Ostia; although he knew that
Augustus had refused to comply with the repeated application of the
Marsians for one of these; and that the other had been several times
intended by Julius Caesar, but as often abandoned on account of the
difficulty of its execution. He brought to the city the cool and
plentiful springs of the Claudian water, one of which is called
Caeruleus, and the other Curtius and Albudinus, as likewise the river of
the New Anio, in a stone canal; and distributed them into many
magnificent reservoirs. The canal from the Fucine lake was undertaken as
much for the sake of profit, as for the honour of the enterprise; for
there were parties who offered to drain it at their own expense, on
condition of their having a grant of the land laid dry. With great
difficulty he completed a canal three miles in length, partly by cutting
through, and partly by tunnelling, a mountain; thirty thousand men being
constantly employed in the work for eleven years [508]. He formed the
harbour at Ostia, by carrying out circular piers on the right and on the
left, with (312) a mole protecting, in deep water, the entrance of the
port [509]. To secure the foundation of this mole, he sunk the vessel in
which the great obelisk [510] had been brought from Egypt [511]; and
built upon piles a very lofty tower, in imitation of the Pharos at
Alexandria, on which lights were burnt to direct mariners in the night.
XXI. He often distributed largesses of corn and money among the people,
and entertained them with a great variety of public magnificent
spectacles, not only such as were usual, and in the accustomed places,
but some of new invention, and others revived from ancient models, and
exhibited in places where nothing of the kind had been ever before
attempted. In the games which he presented at the dedication of Pompey's
theatre [512], which had been burnt down, and was rebuilt by him, he
presided upon a tribunal erected for him in the orchestra; having first
paid his devotions, in the temple above, and then coming down through the
centre of the circle, while all the people kept their seats in profound
silence [513]. He likewise (313) exhibited the secular games [514],
giving out that Augustus had anticipated the regular period; though he
himself says in his history, "That they had been omitted before the age
of Augustus, who had calculated the years with great exactness, and again
brought them to their regular period." [515] The crier was therefore
ridiculed, when he invited people in the usual form, "to games which no
person had ever before seen, nor ever would again;" when many were still
living who had already seen them; and some of the performers who had
formerly acted in them, were now again brought upon the stage. He
likewise frequently celebrated the Circensian games in the Vatican [516],
sometimes exhibiting a hunt of wild beasts, after every five courses. He
embellished the Circus Maximus with marble barriers, and gilded goals,
which before were of common stone [517] and wood, and assigned proper
places for the senators, who were used to sit promiscuously with the
other spectators. Besides the chariot-races, he exhibited there the
Trojan game, and wild beasts from Africa, which were encountered by a
troop of pretorian knights, with their tribunes, and even the prefect at
the head of them; besides Thessalian horse, who drive fierce bulls round
the circus, leap upon their backs when they have exhausted their fury,
and drag them by the horns to the ground. He gave exhibitions of
gladiators in several places, and of various kinds; one yearly on the
anniversary of his accession in the pretorian camp [518], but without any
hunting, or the usual apparatus; another in the Septa as usual; and in
the same place, another out of the common way, and of a few days'
continuance only, which he called Sportula; because when he was going to
present it, he informed the people by proclamation, "that he invited them
to a late supper, got up in haste, and without ceremony." Nor did he
lend himself to any kind of public diversion with more freedom and
hilarity; insomuch that he would hold out his left hand, and (314) joined
by the common people, count upon his fingers aloud the gold pieces
presented to those who came off conquerors. He would earnestly invite
the company to be merry; sometimes calling them his "masters," with a
mixture of insipid, far-fetched jests. Thus, when the people called for
Palumbus [519], he said, "He would give them one when he could catch it."
The following was well-intended, and well-timed; having, amidst great
applause, spared a gladiator, on the intercession of his four sons, he
sent a billet immediately round the theatre, to remind the people, "how
much it behoved them to get children, since they had before them an
example how useful they had been in procuring favour and security for a
gladiator." He likewise represented in the Campus Martius, the assault
and sacking of a town, and the surrender of the British kings [520],
presiding in his general's cloak. Immediately before he drew off the
waters from the Fucine lake, he exhibited upon it a naval fight. But the
combatants on board the fleets crying out, "Health attend you, noble
emperor! We, who are about to peril our lives, salute you;" and he
replying, "Health attend you too," they all refused to fight, as if by
that response he had meant to excuse them. Upon this, he hesitated for a
time, whether he should not destroy them all with fire and sword. At
last, leaping from his seat, and running along the shore of the lake with
tottering steps, the result of his foul excesses, he, partly by fair
words, and partly by threats, persuaded them to engage. This spectacle
represented an engagement between the fleets of Sicily and Rhodes;
consisting each of twelve ships of war, of three banks of oars. The
signal for the encounter was given by a silver Triton, raised by
machinery from the middle of the lake.
XXII. With regard to religious ceremonies, the administration of affairs
both civil and military, and the condition of all orders of the people at
home and abroad, some practices he corrected, others which had been laid
aside he revived; and some regulations he introduced which were entirely
new. In appointing new priests for the several colleges, he made no
appointments without being sworn. When an earthquake (315) happened in
the city, he never failed to summon the people together by the praetor,
and appoint holidays for sacred rites. And upon the sight of any ominous
bird in the City or Capitol, he issued an order for a supplication, the
words of which, by virtue of his office of high priest, after an
exhortation from the rostra, he recited in the presence of the people,
who repeated them after him; all workmen and slaves being first ordered
to withdraw.
XXIII. The courts of judicature, whose sittings had been formerly
divided between the summer and winter months, he ordered, for the
dispatch of business, to sit the whole year round. The jurisdiction in
matters of trust, which used to be granted annually by special commission
to certain magistrates, and in the city only, he made permanent, and
extended to the provincial judges likewise. He altered a clause added by
Tiberius to the Papia-Poppaean law [521], which inferred that men of
sixty years of age were incapable of begetting children. He ordered
that, out of the ordinary course of proceeding, orphans might have
guardians appointed them by the consuls; and that those who were banished
from any province by the chief magistrate, should be debarred from coming
into the City, or any part of Italy. He inflicted on certain persons a
new sort of banishment, by forbidding them to depart further than three
miles from Rome. When any affair of importance came before the senate,
he used to sit between the two consuls upon the seats of the tribunes.
He reserved to himself the power of granting license to travel out of
Italy, which before had belonged to the senate.
XXIV. He likewise granted the consular ornaments to his Ducenarian
procurators. From those who declined the senatorian dignity, he took
away the equestrian. Although he had in the beginning of his reign
declared, that he would admit no man into the senate who was not the
great-grandson of a Roman citizen, yet he gave the "broad hem" to the son
of a freedman, on condition that he should be adopted by a Roman knight.
Being afraid, however, of incurring censure by such an act, he informed
the public, that his ancestor Appius Caecus, the censor, had elected the
sons of freedmen into (316) the senate; for he was ignorant, it seems,
that in the times of Appius, and a long while afterwards, persons
manumitted were not called freedmen, but only their sons who were
free-born. Instead of the expense which the college of quaestors was
obliged to incur in paving the high-ways, he ordered them to give the
people an exhibition of gladiators; and relieving them of the provinces of
Ostia and [Cisalpine] Gaul, he reinstated them in the charge of the
treasury, which, since it was taken from them, had been managed by the
praetors, or those who had formerly filled that office. He gave the
triumphal ornaments to Silanus, who was betrothed to his daughter, though
he was under age; and in other cases, he bestowed them on so many, and
with so little reserve, that there is extant a letter unanimously
addressed to him by all the legions, begging him "to grant his consular
lieutenants the triumphal ornaments at the time of their appointment to
commands, in order to prevent their seeking occasion to engage in
unnecessary wars." He decreed to Aulus Plautius the honour of an ovation
[522], going to meet him at his entering the city, and walking with him in
the procession to the Capitol, and back, in which he took the left side,
giving him the post of honour. He allowed Gabinius Secundus, upon his
conquest of the Chauci, a German tribe, to assume the cognomen of
Chaucius. [523]
XXV. His military organization of the equestrian order was this. After
having the command of a cohort, they were promoted to a wing of auxiliary
horse, and subsequently received the commission of tribune of a legion.
He raised a body of militia, who were called Supernumeraries, who, though
they were a sort of soldiers, and kept in reserve, yet received pay. He
procured an act of the senate to prohibit all soldiers from attending
senators at their houses, in the way of respect and compliment. He
confiscated the estates of all freedmen who presumed to take upon
themselves the equestrian rank. Such of them as were ungrateful to their
patrons, and were complained of by them, he reduced to their former
condition of (317) slavery; and declared to their advocates, that he
would always give judgment against the freedmen, in any suit at law which
the masters might happen to have with them. Some persons having exposed
their sick slaves, in a languishing condition, on the island of
Aesculapius [524], because of the tediousness of their cure; he declared
all who were so exposed perfectly free, never more to return, if they
should recover, to their former servitude; and that if any one chose to
kill at once, rather than expose, a slave, he should be liable for
murder. He published a proclamation, forbidding all travellers to pass
through the towns of Italy any otherwise than on foot, or in a litter or
chair [525]. He quartered a cohort of soldiers at Puteoli, and another
at Ostia, to be in readiness against any accidents from fire. He
prohibited foreigners from adopting Roman names, especially those which
belonged to families [526]. Those who falsely pretended to the freedom
of Rome, he beheaded on the Esquiline. He gave up to the senate the
provinces of Achaia and Macedonia, which Tiberius had transferred to his
own administration. He deprived the Lycians of their liberties, as a
punishment for their fatal dissensions; but restored to the Rhodians
their freedom, upon their repenting of their former misdemeanors. He
exonerated for ever the people of Ilium from the payment of taxes, as
being the founders of the Roman race; reciting upon the occasion a letter
in Greek, (318) from the senate and people of Rome to king Seleucus
[527], on which they promised him their friendship and alliance, provided
that he would grant their kinsmen the Iliensians immunity from all
burdens.
He banished from Rome all the Jews, who were continually making
disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus [528]. He allowed the
ambassadors of the Germans to sit at the public spectacles in the seats
assigned to the senators, being induced to grant them favours by their
frank and honourable conduct. For, having been seated in the rows of
benches which were common to the people, on observing the Parthian and
Armenian ambassadors sitting among the senators, they took upon
themselves to cross over into the same seats, as being, they said, no way
inferior to the others, in point either, of merit or rank. The religious
rites of the Druids, solemnized with such horrid cruelties, which had
only been forbidden the citizens of Rome during the reign of Augustus, he
utterly abolished among the Gauls [529]. On the other hand, he attempted
(319) to transfer the Eleusinian mysteries from Attica to Rome [530]. He
likewise ordered the temple of Venus Erycina in Sicily, which was old and
in a ruinous condition, to be repaired at the expense of the Roman
people. He concluded treaties with foreign princes in the forum, with
the sacrifice of a sow, and the form of words used by the heralds in
former times. But in these and other things, and indeed the greater part
of his administration, he was directed not so much by his own judgment,
as by the influence of his wives and freedmen; for the most part acting
in conformity to what their interests or fancies dictated.
XXVI. He was twice married at a very early age, first to Aemilia Lepida,
the grand-daughter of Augustus, and afterwards to Livia Medullina, who
had the cognomen of Camilla, and was descended from the old dictator
Camillus. The former he divorced while still a virgin, because her
parents had incurred the displeasure of Augustus; and he lost the latter
by sickness on the day fixed for their nuptials. He next married Plautia
Urgulanilla, whose father had enjoyed the honour of a triumph; and soon
afterwards, Aelia Paetina, the daughter of a man of consular rank. But
he divorced them both; Paetina, upon some trifling causes of disgust; and
Urgulanilla, for scandalous lewdness, and the suspicion of murder. After
them he took in marriage Valeria Messalina, the daughter of Barbatus
Messala, his cousin. But finding that, besides her other shameful
debaucheries, she had even gone so far as to marry in his own absence
Caius Silius, the settlement of her dower being formally signed, in the
presence of the augurs, he put her to death. When summoning his
pretorians to his presence, he made to them this declaration: "As I have
been so unhappy in my unions, I am resolved to continue in future
unmarried; and if I should not, I give you leave to stab me." He was,
however, unable to persist in this resolution; for he began immediately
to think of another wife; and even of taking back Paetina, whom he had
formerly divorced: he thought also of Lollia Paulina, who had been
married to Caius Caesar. But being ensnared by the arts of Agrippina,
(320) the daughter of his brother Germanicus, who took advantage of the
kisses and endearments which their near relationship admitted, to inflame
his desires, he got some one to propose at the next meeting of the
senate, that they should oblige the emperor to marry Agrippina, as a
measure highly conducive to the public interest; and that in future
liberty should be given for such marriages, which until that time had
been considered incestuous. In less than twenty-four hours after this,
he married her [531]. No person was found, however, to follow the
example, excepting one freedman, and a centurion of the first rank, at
the solemnization of whose nuptials both he and Agrippina attended.