Suetonius: DE VITIS CAESARUM

[1] Patricia gens Claudia – fuit enim et alia plebeia, nec potentia minor nec dignitate – orta est ex Regillis oppido Sabinorum. Inde Romam recens conditam cum magna clientium manu conmigravit auctore Tito Tatio consorte Romuli, vel, quod magis constat, Atta Claudio gentis principe, post reges exactos sexto fere anno; atque in patricias cooptata agrum insuper trans Anienem clientibus locumque sibi ad sepulturam sub Capitolio publice accepit. Deinceps procedente tempore duodetriginta consulatus, dictaturas quinque, censuras septem, triumphos sex, duas ovationes adepta est.

[1] The patrician gens Claudia – for there was also another plebeian [branch], neither lesser in power nor in dignity – arose from Regillis, a town of the Sabines. Thence to Rome, newly founded,
with a great band of clients it migrated, with Titus Tatius, the consort of Romulus, as promoter; or,
what is more agreed, with Atta Claudius, the chief of the clan, about the sixth year after the kings were driven out;
and, being co-opted among the patricians, it received publicly, in addition, land across the Anio for its clients
and for itself a place for burial beneath the Capitoline. Thereafter, as time proceeded, it obtained 28 consulships, 5 dictatorships, 7 censorships, 6 triumphs, and 2 ovations.

Cum praenominibus cognominibusque variis distingueretur, Luci praenomen consensu repudiavit, postquam e duobus gentilibus praeditis eo alter latrocinii, caedis alter convictus est. Inter cognomina autem et Neronis assumpsit, quo[d] significatur lingua Sabina fortis ac strenuus.

Although he was distinguished by various praenomina and cognomina, he repudiated the praenomen Lucius by common consent, after, of two kinsmen of the gens who bore it, one was convicted of brigandage and the other of murder. Among his cognomina, moreover, he also assumed “Nero,” which in the Sabine tongue signifies “strong and strenuous.”

[2] Multa multorum Claudiorum egregia merita, multa etiam sequius admissa in rem p. extant. Sed ut praecipua commemorem, Appius Caecus societatem cum rege Pyrro ut parum salubrem iniri dissuasit. Claudius Caudex primus freto classe traiecto Poenos Sicilia expulit.

[2] Many distinguished services of many Claudii, and many also more detrimental acts against the Republic, are extant. But, to recall the chief ones, Appius Caecus dissuaded that an alliance be entered into with King Pyrrhus as not very salubrious. Claudius Caudex was the first, after the strait had been crossed with a fleet, to expel the Carthaginians from Sicily.

Tiberius Nero advenientem ex Hispania cum ingentibus copiis Hasdrubalem, prius quam Hannibali fratri coniungeretur, oppressit. Contra Claudius Regillianus, decemvir legibus scribendis, virginem ingenuam per vim libidinis gratia in servitutem asserere conatus causa plebi fuit secedendi rursus a patribus. Claudius [Russus] statua sibi diademata ad Appi Forum posita Italiam per clientelas occupare temptavit.

Tiberius Nero crushed Hasdrubal, arriving from
Spain with vast forces, before he could be joined to his brother Hannibal.
By contrast, Claudius Regillianus, a decemvir for writing laws,
having attempted to claim into slavery a freeborn maiden by force for the sake of lust, was the cause
for the plebs to secede again from the patricians. Claudius [Russus], with a statue of himself diademed set up at
the Forum of Appius, attempted to occupy Italy through clienteles.

Claudius Pulcher apud Siciliam non pascentibus in auspicando pullis ac per contemptum religionis mari demersis, quasi ut biberent quando esse nollent, proelium navale iniit; superatusque, cum dictatorem dicere a senatu iuberetur, velut iterum inludens discrimini publico Glycian viatorem suum dixit. Extant et feminarum exempla diversa aeque, siquidem gentis eiusdem utraque Claudia fuit, et quae navem cum sacris Matris deum Idaeae obhaerentem Tiberino vado extraxit, precata propalam, ut ita demum se sequeretur, si sibi pudicitia constaret; et quae novo more iudicium maiestatis apud populum mulier subiit, quod in conferta multitudine aegre procedente carpento palam optaverat, ut frater suus Pulcher revivisceret atque iterum classem amitteret, quo minor turba Romae foret. Praeterea notatissimum est, Claudios omnis, excepto dum taxat P. Clodio, qui ob expellendum urbe Ciceronem plebeio homini atque etiam natu minori in adoptionem se dedit, optimates adsertoresque unicos dignitatis ac potentiae patriciorum semper fuisse atque adversus plebem adeo violentos et contumaces, ut ne capitis quidem quisquam reus apud populum mutare vestem aut deprecari sustinuerit; nonnulli in altercatione et iurgio tribunos plebi pulsaverint.

Claudius Pulcher,
off Sicily, when in taking the auspices the chickens would not feed, and, in contempt of religion, having them sunk in the sea as if so that they might drink since they would not eat, entered a naval battle;
and having been defeated, when he was ordered by the senate to name a dictator, as if again mocking the public peril he named Glycias, his viator. There also exist equally diverse examples of women, since both were Claudias of the same gens, both she who drew out a ship stuck with the sacra of the Idaean Mother of the gods in the Tiber ford, praying openly that she should follow her only if her pudicitia stood firm; and she who, by a new custom, as a woman underwent a trial for maiestas before the people, because, as her carriage was proceeding with difficulty through a crowded throng, she had openly wished that her brother Pulcher might come back to life and lose a fleet again, that there might be a smaller crowd at Rome. Moreover it is most notorious that all the Claudii, except only P. Clodius, who, for the purpose of expelling Cicero from the city, gave himself in adoption to a plebeian man and even one younger in birth, have always been optimates and the sole champions of the dignity and power of the patricians, and so violent and contumacious against the plebs that not even anyone accused on a capital charge before the people would endure to change his dress or to supplicate; some, in altercation and wrangling, have even struck tribunes of the plebs.

Etiam virgo Vestalis fratrem iniussu populi triumphantem ascenso simul curru usque in Capitolium prosecuta est, ne vetare aut intercedere fas cuiquam tribunorum esset.

Even a Vestal Virgin, having mounted the chariot together, accompanied her brother, triumphing without the people’s order, all the way to the Capitol, so that it might not be lawful for any of the tribunes to forbid or to intercede.

[3] Ex hac stirpe Tiberius Caesar genus trahit, e[t] quidem utrumque: paternum a Tiberio Nerone, maternum ab Appio Pulchro, qui ambo Appi Caeci filii fuerunt. Insertus est et Liviorum familiae adoptato in eam materno avo. Quae familia, quanquam plebeia, tamen et ipsa admodum floruit octo consulatibus, censuris duabus, triumphis tribus, dictatura etiam ac magisterio equitum honorata; clara et insignibus viris ac maxime Salinatore Drusisque.

[3] From this stock Tiberius Caesar draws his lineage, and indeed from both lines: his paternal from Tiberius Nero, his maternal from Appius Pulcher, who both were sons of Appius the Blind. He was also inserted into the family of the Livii, his maternal grandfather having been adopted into it. Which family, although plebeian, nevertheless itself flourished greatly with eight consulships, two censorships, three triumphs, and was honored even with a dictatorship and the mastership of horse; renowned for distinguished men, and especially for Salinator and the Drusi.

Salinator universas tribus in censura notavit levitatis nomine, quod, cum se post Priorem consulatum multa inrogata condemnassent, consulem iterum censoremque fecissent. Drusus hostium duce Drauso comminus trucidato sibi posterisque suis cognomen invenit. Traditur etiam pro praetore ex provincia Gallia ret[t]ulisse aurum Senonibus olim in obsidione Capitolii datum nec, ut fama est, extortum a Camillo.

Salinator, in his censorship, marked all the tribes under the designation of levity, because, although after his earlier consulship they had condemned him with fines imposed, they made him consul again and censor. Drusus, the enemy leader Drausus having been slaughtered at close quarters, won for himself and his descendants the cognomen. It is handed down also that, as propraetor, he brought back from the province of Gaul the gold once given to the Senones at the siege of the Capitol—and not, as the report goes, extorted by Camillus.

Eius abnepos ob eximiam adversus Gracchos operam patronus senatus dictus filium reliquit, quem in simili dissensione multa varie molientem diversa factio per fraudem interemit.

His great-grandson, styled the patron of the senate for his exceptional service against the Gracchi, left a son, whom, in a similar dissension, as he was attempting many things in various ways, an opposing faction slew by fraud.

[4] Pater Tiberi, Nero, quaestor C. Caesaris Alexandrino bello classi praepositus, plurimum ad victoriam contulit. Quare et pontifex in locum P. Scipionis substitutus et ad deducendas in Galliam colonias, in quis Narbo et Arelate erant, missus est. Tamen Caesare occiso, cunctis turbarum metu abolitionem facti decernentibus, etiam de praemiis tyrannicidarum referendum censuit.

[4] The father of Tiberius, Nero, quaestor of C. Caesar, having been put in charge of the fleet in the Alexandrian war, contributed very much to the victory. Wherefore he was even appointed pontiff in the place of P. Scipio and was sent to plant colonies in Gaul, among which were Narbo and Arelate. Nevertheless, when Caesar was slain, while all, from fear of disturbances, were decreeing an amnesty for the deed, he also held that even a proposal should be referred concerning rewards for the tyrannicides.

Praetura deinde functus, cum exitu anni discordia inter triumviros orta esset, retentis ultra iustum tempus insignibus L. Antonium consulem triumviri fratrem ad Perusiam secutus, deditione a ceteris facta, solus permansit in partibus ac primo Praeneste, inde Neapolim evasit servisque ad pilleum frustra vocatis in Siciliam profugit. Sed indigne ferens nec statim se in conspectum Sexti Pompei admissum et fascium usu prohibitum, ad M. Antonium traiecit in Achaiam. Cum quo brevi reconciliata inter omnis pace Romam redit uxoremque Liviam Drusillam et tunc gravidam et ante iam apud se filium enixam petenti Augusto concessit.

Having then performed the praetorship, when at the end of the year discord arose among the triumvirs, the insignia being retained beyond the just time, he followed Lucius Antonius the consul, the triumvir’s brother, to Perusia; and, surrender having been made by the others, he alone remained on that side, and first at Praeneste, then he escaped to Naples, and, the slaves having been called to the cap of liberty in vain, he fled into Sicily. But, taking it ill that he was not immediately admitted to the presence of Sextus Pompeius and was forbidden the use of the fasces, he crossed over to Marcus Antonius into Achaea. With whom, peace among all having shortly been reconciled, he returned to Rome, and he conceded to Augustus, who was requesting her, his wife Livia Drusilla, both then pregnant and who had already before borne a son in his house.

Nec multo post diem obiit, utroque liberorum superstite, Tiberio Drusoque Neronibus.

Nor long after, he died, with both his children surviving, Tiberius and Drusus, both Neros.

[5] Tiberium quidam Fundis natum existimaverunt secuti levem coniecturam, quod materna eius avia Fundana fuerit et quod mox simulacrum Felicitatis ex s. c. publicatum ibi sit. Sed ut plures certioresque tradunt, natus est Romae in Palatio XVI. Kal.

[5] Some have supposed Tiberius to have been born at Fundi, following a slight conjecture, because his maternal grandmother was a woman of Fundi and because soon thereafter an image of Felicity, by decree of the Senate (s.c.), was made public there. But, as the more and more reliable relate, he was born at Rome on the Palatine on the 16th day before the Kalends.

Dec. M. Aemilio Lepido iterum L. Munatio Planco conss. per bellum Philippense.

December, with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus for the second time
and Lucius Munatius Plancus as consuls, during the Philippian war.

Sic enim in fastos actaque in publica relatum est. Nec tamen desunt, qui partim antecedente anno, Hirti ac Pansae, partim insequenti, Servili Isaurici [L.]que Antoni consulatu, genitum eum scribant.

For thus it has been entered in the fasti and recorded in the public records. Nor, however, are there lacking those who write that he was born partly in the preceding year, in the consulship of Hirtius and Pansa, and partly in the following, in the consulship of Servilius Isauricus and Lucius Antonius.

[6] Infantiam pueritiamque habuit laboriosam et exercitatam, comes usque quaque parentum fugae; quos quidem apud Neapolim sub inruptionem hostis navigium clam petentis vagitu suo paene bis prodidit, semel cum a nutricis ubere, ite[ru]m cum a sinu matris raptim auferretur ab iis, qui pro necessitate temporis mulierculas levare onere temptabant. Per Siciliam quoque et per Achaiam circumductus ac Lacedaemoniis publice, quod in tutela Claudiorum erant, demandatus, digrediens inde itinere nocturno discrimen vitae adiit flamma repente e silvis undique exorta adeoque omnem comitatum circumplexa, ut Liviae pars vestis et capilli amburerentur. Munera, quibus a Pompeia Sex.

[6] He had an infancy and boyhood laborious and exercised,
a companion everywhere of his parents’ flight; and indeed at Naples, under
the irruption of the enemy, as they secretly sought a ship, he almost twice betrayed them by his wailing: once
when he was being snatched in haste from his nurse’s breast, again
when from his mother’s bosom, by those who, given the necessity of the time, were attempting to lighten the womenfolk of their burden. Through Sicily also and
through Achaia he was led about, and, since they were under the tutelage of the Claudii, he was entrusted publicly to the Lacedaemonians; departing thence on a night journey he came into danger of life, when a flame suddenly arising from the woods on every side so encircled the whole retinue that a part of Livia’s garment and hair were singed. The gifts, with which by Pompeia Sex.

Pompei sorore in Sicilia donatus est, chlamys et fibula, item bullae aureae, durant ostendunturque adhuc Baiis. Post reditum in urbem a M. Gallio senatore testamento adoptatus hereditate adita mox nomine abstinuit, quod Gallius adversarum Augusto partium fuerat. Novem natus annos defunctum patrem pro rostris laudavit.

He was gifted in Sicily by Pompeia, the sister of Sextus Pompeius, with a chlamys and a fibula, likewise golden bullae; they still endure and are shown even now at Baiae.
After his return to the city he was adopted by the testament of M. Gallius, a senator; the inheritance having been entered upon, he soon abstained from the name, because Gallius had been of the party adverse to Augustus.
At nine years of age he lauded his deceased father before the Rostra.

Dehinc pubescens Actiaco triumpho currum Augusti comitatus est sinisteriore funali equo, cum Marcellus Octaviae filius dexteriore veheretur. Praesedit et asticis ludis et Troiam circensibus [lusit] ductor turmae puerorum maiorum.

Thereafter, coming of age, at the Actian triumph he accompanied Augustus’s chariot on the left-hand trace-horse, while Marcellus, son of Octavia, was carried on the right-hand. He also presided over the Attic games, and in the Circus he [played] Troy, as leader of the troop of the older boys.

[7] Virili toga sumpta adulescentiam omnem spatiumque insequentis aetatis usque ad principatus initia per haec fere transegit. Munus gladiatorium in memoriam patris et alterum in avi Drusi dedit, diversis temporibus ac locis, primum in foro, secundum in amphitheatro, rudiariis quoque quibusdam revocatis auctoramento centenum milium; dedit et ludos, sed absens: cuncta magnifice, inpensa matris ac vitrici. Agrippinam, Marco Agrippa genitam, neptem Caecili Attici equitis R., ad quem sunt Ciceronis epistulae, duxit uxorem; sublatoque ex ea filio Druso, quanquam bene convenientem rursusque gravidam dimittere ac Iuliam Augusti filiam confestim coactus est ducere non sine magno angore animi, cum et Agrippinae consuetudine teneretur et Iuliae mores improbaret, ut quam sensisset sui quoque sub priore marito appetentem, quod sane etiam vulgo existimabatur.

[7] With the virile toga assumed, he passed all his adolescence and the span of the succeeding age up to the beginnings of the principate in about these activities. He gave a gladiatorial munus in memory of his father and another for his grandfather Drusus, at different times and places, the first in the forum, the second in the amphitheater, with certain rudiarii also recalled by an enlistment-bounty of one hundred thousand apiece; and he put on games too, but in absentia: all splendidly, at the expense of his mother and stepfather. He took to wife Agrippina, born of Marcus Agrippa, granddaughter of Caecilius Atticus, a Roman eques, to whom Cicero’s letters are addressed; and when a son Drusus had been born from her, although they were well matched and she was again pregnant, he was compelled to divorce her and immediately to marry Julia, the daughter of Augustus, not without great anguish of spirit, since he was held by familiarity with Agrippina and disapproved of Julia’s mores, in that he had perceived her to be desirous of him even under her former husband—which indeed was commonly supposed.

Sed Agrippinam et abegisse post divortium doluit et semel omnino ex occursu visam adeo contentis et [t]umentibus oculis prosecutus est, ut custoditum sit ne umquam in conspectum ei posthac veniret. Cum Iulia primo concorditer et amore mutuo vixit, mox dissedit et aliquanto gravius, ut etiam perpetuo secubaret, intercepto communis fili pignore, qui Aquileiae natus infans extinctus est. Drusum fratrem in Germania amisit, cuius corpus pedibus toto itinere praegrediens Romam usque pervexit.

Yet he regretted having driven Agrippina away after the divorce, and on the one single occasion when he saw her by chance he followed her with eyes so intent and [t]umid that precautions were taken that she should never thereafter come into his sight. With Julia he lived at first in concord and mutual love, but soon he fell out with her, and rather more seriously, so that he even slept apart continually, after the pledge of their shared son had been taken away—who, born at Aquileia, died an infant. He lost his brother Drusus in Germany, whose body he conveyed all the way to Rome, going before it on foot for the entire journey.

[8] Civilium officiorum rudimentis regem Archelaum Trallianos et Thessalos, varia quosque de causa, Augusto cognoscente defendit; pro Laodicenis Thyatirenis Chiis terrae motu afflictis opemque implorantibus senatum deprecatus est; Fannium Caepionem, qui cum Varrone Murena in Augustum conspiraverat, reum maiestatis apud iudices fecit et condemnavit. Interque haec duplicem curam administravit, annonae quae artior inciderat, et repurgandorum tota Italia ergastulorum, quorum domini in invidiam venerant quasi exceptos supprimerent non solum viatores sed et quos sacramenti metus ad eius modi latebras compulisset.

[8] In the rudiments of civil offices he defended King Archelaus, the Trallians, and the Thessalians, each for various causes, Augustus taking cognizance; on behalf of the Laodiceans, Thyatirans, and Chians, afflicted by an earthquake and imploring aid, he petitioned the senate; he arraigned Fannius Caepio, who had conspired against Augustus with Varro Murena, on a charge of treason (maiestas) before the judges and condemned him. And amid these things he administered a double care: of the grain-supply, which had become more strait, and of the purging of the ergastula throughout all Italy, whose owners had fallen into odium on the ground that they were suppressing persons apprehended—not only travelers but also those whom fear of the sacramentum (the military oath) had driven to hiding-places of that sort.

[9] Stipendia prima expeditione Cantabrica tribunus militum fecit, dein ducto ad Orientem exercitu regnum Armeniae Tigrani restituit ac pro tribunali diadema imposuit. Recepit et signa, quae M. Crasso ademerant Parthi. Post hoc Comatam Galliam anno fere rexit et barbarorum incursionibus et principum discordia inquietam.

[9] He performed his first campaigns as a military tribune in the Cantabrian expedition; then, with the army led to the East, he restored the kingdom of Armenia to Tigranes and, before the tribunal, placed the diadem upon him. He also recovered the standards which the Parthians had taken from M. Crassus. After this he governed Gallia Comata for almost a year, troubled both by barbarian incursions and by the discord of the chieftains.

Exin Raeticum Vindelicumque bellum, inde Pannonicum, inde Germanicum gessit. Raetico atque Vindelico gentis Alpinas, Pannonico Breucos et Dalmatas subegit, Germanico quadraginta milia dediticiorum traiecit in Galliam iuxtaque ripam Rheni sedibus adsignatis conlocavit. Quas ob res et ovans et curru urbem ingressus est, prius, ut quidam putant, triumphalibus ornamentis honoratus, novo nec antea cuiquam tributo genere honoris.

Then he waged the Raetian and Vindelician war, then
the Pannonian, then the Germanic. In the Raetian and Vindelician he subdued the Alpine peoples,
in the Pannonian the Breuci and the Dalmatae, in the Germanic forty thousand
surrenderers he transported into Gaul and, with dwellings assigned near the bank of the Rhine,
he settled them. For which reasons he entered the city both in an ovation and in a chariot, earlier, as some
think, honored with triumphal insignia, a new kind of honor before granted to no one.

Magistratus et maturius incohavit et paene iunctim percucurrit, quaesturam praeturam consulatum; interpositoque tempore consul iterum etiam tribuniciam potestatem in quinquennium accepit.

He both initiated his magistracies earlier and ran through them almost back-to-back, the quaestorship, the praetorship, the consulship; and, with an interval interposed, as consul again he also received the tribunician power for a quinquennium.

[10] Tot prosperis confluentibus integra aetate ac valitudine statuit repente secedere seque e medio quam longissime amovere: dubium uxorisne taedio, quam neque criminari aut dimittere auderet neque ultra perferre posset, an ut vitato assiduitatis fastidio auctoritatem absentia tueretur atque etiam augeret, si quando indiguisset sui res p. Quidam existimant, adultis iam Augusti liberis, loco et quasi possessione usurpati a se diu secundi gradus sponte cessisse exemplo M. Agrippae, qui M. Marcello ad munera publica admoto Mytilenas abierit, ne aut obstare aut obtrectare praesens videretur. Quam causam et ipse, sed postea, reddidit. Tunc autem honorum satietatem ac requiem laborum praetendens commeatum petit; neque aut matri suppliciter precanti aut vitrico deseri se etiam in senatu conquerenti veniam dedit.

[10] With so many prosperities flowing together, while in full age and health,
he decided suddenly to secede and to remove himself as far as possible from the midst: it is uncertain
whether from weariness of his wife, whom he did not dare either to accuse or to divorce and yet could no longer endure,
or in order, by avoiding the tedium of assiduity, to guard his authority by absence and even to increase it,
if ever the commonwealth should need him. Some think that, with Augustus’s children already grown,
he voluntarily withdrew from the place and, as it were, the possession of the second rank long usurped by himself,
after the example of M. Agrippa, who, when M. Marcellus was brought into public offices, went off to Mytilene,
lest, being present, he seem either to stand in the way or to disparage. This motive he himself also gave, but later.
At that time, however, alleging a satiety of honors and a repose from labors, he sought leave of absence;
nor did he grant indulgence either to his mother, beseeching him suppliantly, or to his stepfather,
who complained, even in the senate, that he was being deserted.

Quin et pertinacius retinentibus, cibo per quadriduum abstinuit. Facta tandem abeundi potestate, relictis Romae uxore et filio confestim Ostiam descendit, ne verbo quidem cuiquam prosequentium reddito paucosque admodum in digressu exosculatus.

Indeed, and as they held him back more stubbornly, he abstained from food for four days. Leave at last being granted to depart, leaving his wife and son at Rome, he immediately went down to Ostia, returning not even a word to any of those accompanying him, and having kissed very few indeed on his departure.

[11] Ab Ostia oram Campaniae legens inbecillitate Augusti nuntiata paulum substitit. Sed increbrescente rumore quasi ad occasionem maioris spei commoraretur, tantum non adversis tempestatibus Rhodum enavigavit, amoenitate et salubritate insulae iam inde captus cum ad eam ab Armenia rediens appulisset. Hic modicis contentus aedibus nec multo laxiore suburbano genus vitae civile admodum instituit, sine lictore aut viatore gymnasio interdum obambulans mutuaque cum Graeculis officia usurpans prope ex aequo.

[11] From Ostia, coasting along the shore of Campania, on news of Augustus’s debility he halted a little. But as rumor grew that he was lingering as if for the occasion of a greater hope, he sailed clear to Rhodes, all but in the teeth of contrary storms, having already from that time been captivated by the amenity and salubriousness of the island when, returning from Armenia, he had put in there. Here, content with a modest house and with a suburban estate not much more spacious, he established a very civil sort of life, at times strolling about the gymnasium without lictor or viator and practicing mutual courtesies with the little Greeks almost on equal terms.

Forte quondam in disponendo die mane praedixerat, quidquid aegrorum in civitate esset visitare se velle; id a proximis aliter exceptum iussique sunt omnes aegri in publicam porticum deferri ac per valitudinum genera disponi. Perculsus ergo inopinata re diuque quid ageret incertus, tandem singulos circuit excusans factum etiam tenuissimo cuique et ignoto.

By chance once, while disposing the day, in the morning he had declared that he wished to visit whatever sick people there were in the city; this, being otherwise received by those nearest, all the sick were ordered to be carried into the public portico and to be disposed according to the genera of ailments. Struck, therefore, by the unexpected matter and for a long time uncertain what he should do, at length he goes around each individual, excusing the deed even to each most destitute and unknown.

Unum hoc modo neque praeterea quicquam notatum est, in quo exeruisse ius tribuniciae potestatis visus sit: cum circa scholas et auditoria professorum assiduus esset, moto inter antisophistas graviore iurgio, non defuit qui eum intervenientem et quasi studiosiorem partis alterius convicio incesseret. Sensim itaque regressus domum repente cum apparitoribus prodiit citatumque pro tribunali voce praeconis conviciatorem rapi iussit in carcerem.

Only this one thing, and nothing besides, has been noted, in which he seemed to have exercised the right of tribunician power: when he was assiduous about the schools and the auditoria of professors, a rather serious quarrel having been stirred among the anti-sophists, there was not lacking someone who, as he intervened and as though more partial to one party, assailed him with abuse. Therefore, having little by little withdrawn home, he suddenly came forth with apparitors and ordered the reviler, summoned before the tribunal at the herald’s voice, to be seized and taken into prison.

Comperit deinde Iuliam uxorem ob libidines atque adulteria damnatam repudiumque ei suo nomine ex auctoritate Augusti remissum; et quamquam laetus nuntio, tamen officii duxit, quantum in se esset, exorare filiae patrem frequentibus litteris et vel utcumque meritae, quidquid umquam dono dedisset, concedere. Transacto autem tribuniciae potestatis tempore, confessus tandem, nihil aliud secessu devitasse se quam aemulationis cum C. Lucioque suspicionem, petit ut sibi securo iam ab hac parte, conroboratis his et secundum locum facile tutantibus, permitteretur revisere necessitudines, quarum desiderio teneretur. Sed neque impetravit ultroque etiam admonitus est, dimitteret omnem curam suorum, quos tam cupide reliquisset.

He then learned that his wife Julia had been condemned for lusts and adulteries, and that a repudiation had been sent to her in his name by the authority of Augustus; and although glad at the news, nevertheless he deemed it a duty, so far as was in him, to implore with frequent letters the father of his daughter, and to grant to her, however she had merited, whatever he had ever given as a gift. But when the time of the tribunician power had elapsed, having at last confessed that by his secession he had shunned nothing other than the suspicion of emulation with Gaius and Lucius, he asked that, now secure from this quarter, since these were strengthened and were easily defending the second place, it be permitted him to revisit his kin, by the longing for whom he was held. But he did not obtain this, and was even further admonished to dismiss all care for his own people, whom he had so eagerly left behind.

[12] Remansit igitur Rhodi contra voluntatem, vix per matrem consecutus, ut ad velandam ignominiam quasi legatus Augusto abesset.

[12] He therefore remained at Rhodes against his will, having scarcely obtained through his mother that, to veil the ignominy, he should be absent as if a legate for Augustus.

Enimvero tunc non privatum modo, sed etiam obnoxium et trepidum egit mediterraneis agris abditus vitansque praeternavigantium officia, quibus frequentabatur assidue, nemine cum imperio aut magistratu tendente quoquam quin deverteret Rhodum. Et accesserunt maioris sollicitudinis causae. Namque privignum Gaium Orienti praepositum, cum visendi gratia traiecisset Samum, alieniorem sibi sensit ex criminationibus M. Lolli comitis et rectoris eius.

Indeed at that time he conducted himself not only as a private person, but also as subject and anxious, concealed in the inland fields,
and avoiding the courtesies of those sailing past, by which he was assiduously importuned, no one possessing imperium or a magistracy going anywhere without turning aside to Rhodes. And
causes of greater anxiety were added. For he perceived that his stepson Gaius, appointed over the East,
when, for the sake of seeing him, he had crossed over to Samos, was more estranged from him on account of the accusations of M. Lollius, his companion and tutor.

Venit etiam in suspicionem per quosdam beneficii sui centuriones a commeatu castra repetentis mandata ad complures dedisse ambigua et quae temptare singulorum animos ad novas res viderentur. De qua suspicione certior ab Augusto factus non cessavit efflagitare aliquem cuiuslibet ordinis custodem factis atque dictis suis.

He also came into suspicion, through certain centurions who were beneficiaries of his favor and, returning from furlough to the camp, that he had given to several persons mandates that were ambiguous and seemed to test the spirit of each man toward new measures. Made certain of this suspicion by Augustus, he did not cease to demand some custodian—of whatever order—over his deeds and words.

[13] Equi quoque et armorum solitas exercitationes omisit redegitque se deposito patrio habitu ad pallium et crepidas atque in tali statu biennio fere permansit, contemptior in dies et invisior, adeo ut imagines eius et statuas Nemausenses subverterint ac familiari quondam convivio mentione eius orta extiterit qui Gaio polliceretur, confestim se, si iuberet, Rhodum navigaturum caputque exulis – sic enim appellabatur – relaturum. Quo praecipue non iam metu sed discrimine coactus est, tam suis quam matris inpensissimis precibus reditum expostulare, impetravitque adiutus aliquantum etiam casu. Destinatum Augusto erat, nihil super ea re nisi ex voluntate maioris fili statuere; is forte tunc M. Lollio offensior, facilis exorabilisque in vitricum fuit.

[13] He also omitted the customary exercises of horse and arms, and, his native habit laid aside, reduced himself to the pallium and sandals; and in such a state he remained for almost two years, becoming by the day more despised and more hated, to such a degree that the Nemausenses overthrew his images and statues; and at a certain familiar banquet, mention of him having arisen, there appeared one who promised Gaius that he would at once, if he ordered, sail to Rhodes and bring back the head of the exile—for so he was called. Whereupon, forced especially not now by fear but by peril, he began to demand a return, by the most urgent entreaties as much of his own people as of his mother, and he obtained it, aided somewhat also by chance. It had been determined by Augustus to decide nothing in this matter except in accordance with the will of his elder son; he, then at that time more offended with M. Lollius, was easy and readily won over toward his stepfather.

Permittente ergo Gaio revocatus est, verum sub condicione ne quam partem curamve rei p. attingeret.

Accordingly, with Gaius permitting, he was recalled, but under the condition that he should not touch any part or care of the republic.

[14] Rediit octavo post secessum anno, magna nec incerta spe futurorum, quam et ostentis et praedictionibus ab initio aetatis conceperat.

[14] He returned in the eighth year after his withdrawal, with great and not uncertain hope of things to come, which he had conceived, from the beginning of his life, both from portents and from predictions.

Praegnans eo Livia cum an marem editura esset, variis captaret ominibus, ovum incubanti gallinae subductum nunc sua nunc ministrarum manu per vices usque fovit, quoad pullus insigniter cristatus exclusus est. Ac de infante Scribonius mathematicus praeclara spopondit, etiam regnaturum quandoque, sed sine regio insigni, ignota scilicet tunc adhuc Caesarum potestate. Et ingresso primam expeditionem ac per Macedoniam ducente exercitum in Syriam, accidit ut apud Philippos sacratae olim victricium legionum arae sponte subitis conlucerent ignibus; et mox, cum Illyricum petens iuxta Patavium adisset Geryonis oraculum, sorte tracta, qua monebatur ut de consultationibus in Aponi fontem talos aureos iaceret, evenit ut summum numerum iacti ab eo ostenderent; hodieque sub aqua visuntur hi tali.

Pregnant with him, Livia, as she was trying by various omens to learn whether she would bear a male, kept warm an egg stolen from a hen that was brooding, now with her own hand, now with the hands of her maidservants, by turns continually, until a chick conspicuously crested was hatched. And about the infant Scribonius the mathematician-astrologer promised splendid things, that he would even someday reign, but without a royal insignia—namely, the power of the Caesars, then as yet unknown. And when he entered upon his first expedition and, leading the army through Macedonia into Syria, it happened that at Philippi the altars once consecrated to the victorious legions shone of their own accord with sudden fires; and soon, when, aiming for Illyricum, he approached near Patavium the oracle of Geryon, a lot having been drawn by which he was advised to cast golden dice into the spring of Aponus concerning his consultations, it came about that the throw from him showed the highest number; and to this day these dice are seen under the water.

Ante paucos vero quam revocaretur dies aquila numquam antea Rhodi conspecta in culmine domus eius assedit; et pridie quam de reditu certior fieret, vestimenta mutanti tunica ardere visa est. Thrasyllum quoque mathematicum, quem ut sapientiae professorem contubernio admoverat, tum maxime expertus est affirmantem nave provisa gaudium afferri; cum quidem illum durius et contra praedicta cadentibus rebus ut falsum et secretorum temere conscium, eo ipso momento, dum spatiatur una, praecipitare in mare destinasset.

But a few days before he was recalled, an eagle, never before seen at Rhodes, settled on the ridge of his house; and on the day before he was made certain about his return, as he was changing clothes, his tunic seemed to be burning. He also then most especially put to the test Thrasyllus the mathematician, whom he had admitted to his companionship as a professor of wisdom, as he affirmed that joy was being brought with a ship made ready; indeed, when matters were turning out more harshly and contrary to the predictions, he had resolved at that very moment, while walking together, to hurl him headlong into the sea as a liar and one rashly privy to secrets.

[15] Romam reversus deducto in forum filio Druso statim e Carinis ac Pompeiana domo Esquilias in hortos Maecenatianos transmigravit totumque se ad quietem contulit, privata modo officia obiens ac publicorum munerum expers.

[15] Having returned to Rome, after conducting his son Drusus into the Forum, he immediately moved from the Carinae and the Pompeian house to the Esquiline, into the Gardens of Maecenas, and devoted himself wholly to repose, attending only to private duties and devoid of public functions.

Gaio et Lucio intra triennium defunctis adoptatur ab Augusto simul cum fratre eorum M. Agrippa, coactus prius ipse Germanicum fratris sui filium adoptare. Nec quicquam postea pro patre familias egit aut ius, quod amiserat, ex ulla parte retinuit. Nam neque donavit neque manumisit, ne hereditatem quidem aut legata percepit ulla aliter quam ut peculio referret accepta.

With Gaius and Lucius having died within three years, he is adopted by Augustus together with their brother M. Agrippa, first being compelled himself to adopt Germanicus, his brother’s son. Nor thereafter did he do anything as a paterfamilias or retain in any part the right which he had lost. For he neither donated nor manumitted, nor did he even receive any inheritance or legacies otherwise than to record what he had received into his peculium.

Nihil ex eo tempore praetermissum est ad maiestatem eius augendam ac multo magis, postquam Agrippa abdicato atque seposito certum erat, uni spem successionis incumbere.

Nothing from that time was omitted for the augmentation of his majesty, and much more so, after it was certain, with Agrippa disowned and set aside, that the hope of succession rested upon a single person.

[16] Data rursus potestas tribunicia in quinquennium, delegatus pacandae Germaniae status, Parthorum legati mandatis Augusto Romae redditis eum quoque adire in provincia iussi. Sed nuntiata Illyrici defectione transiit ad curam novi belli, quod gravissimum omnium externorum bellorum post Punica, per quindecim legiones paremque auxiliorum copiam triennio gessit in magnis omnium rerum difficultatibus summaque frugum inopia. Et quanquam saepius revocaretur, tamen perseveravit, metuens ne vicinus et praevalens hostis instaret ultro cedentibus.

[16] The tribunician power was again granted for five years, and he was delegated the settlement of pacifying Germany; the envoys of the Parthians, after delivering their mandates to Augustus at Rome, were ordered to approach him also in the province. But when the revolt of Illyricum was reported, he shifted to the care of a new war, which, the most grave of all foreign wars after the Punic, he waged for three years with fifteen legions and an equal force of auxiliaries, amid great difficulties in every matter and the utmost scarcity of grain. And although he was more than once recalled, nevertheless he persisted, fearing that a neighboring and prevailing enemy would press upon them of his own accord if they yielded ground.

Ac perseverantiae grande pretium tulit, toto Illyrico, quod inter Italiam regnumque Noricum et Thraciam et Macedoniam interque Danuvium flumen et sinum maris Hadriatici patet, perdomito et in dicionem redacto.

And he took a great prize for his perseverance, with all Illyricum—which lies between Italy and the kingdom of Noricum and Thrace and Macedonia, and between the river Danube and the gulf of the Adriatic Sea—thoroughly subdued and reduced to dominion.

[17] Cui gloriae amplior adhuc ex oportunitate cumulus accessit. Nam sub id fere tempus Quintilius Varus cum tribus legionibus in Germania periit, nemine dubitante quin victores Germani iuncturi se Pannoniis fuerint, nisi debellatum prius Illyricum esset. Quas ob res triumphus ei decretus est multi[que] et magni honores.

[17] To that glory an even greater accumulation from the opportune circumstance
accrued. For at about that very time Quintilius Varus, with three legions, in
Germany perished, with no one doubting that the victorious Germans would have joined themselves to the Pannonians
unless Illyricum had first been thoroughly subdued. For which reasons a triumph was decreed to him
and many and great honors.

Censuerunt etiam quidam ut Pannonicus, alii ut Invictus, nonnulli ut Pius cognominaretur. Sed de cognomine intercessit Augustus, eo contentum repromittens, quod se defuncto suscepturus esset. Triumphum ipse distulit maesta civitate clade Variana; nihilo minus urbem praetextatus et laurea coronatus intravit positumque in Saeptis tribunal senatu astante conscendit ac medius inter duos consules cum Augusto simul sedit; unde populo consalutato circum templa deductus est.

Some also proposed that he be surnamed Pannonicus, others that he be
Invictus, and some that he be Pius. But Augustus interposed regarding the cognomen,
promising that he would be content with that which he would assume after he himself was deceased. He himself
deferred the triumph, the state mourning the Varian disaster; nonetheless he entered the city wearing the toga praetexta and crowned with laurel,
and he mounted the tribunal set up in the Saepta, the senate standing by, and
in the middle between the two consuls he sat together with Augustus; whence, the people having been saluted in turn,
he was led around the temples.

[18] Proximo anno repetita Germania cum animadverteret Varianam cladem temeritate et neglegentia ducis accidisse, nihil non de consilii sententia egit; semper alias sui arbitrii contentusque se uno, tunc praeter consuetudinem cum compluribus de ratione belli communicavit. Curam quoque solito exactiorem praestitit. Traiecturus Rhenum commeatum omnem ad certam formulam adstrictum non ante transmisit, quam consistens apud ripam explorasset vehiculorum onera, ne qua deportarentur nisi concessa aut necessaria.

[18] In the next year, with Germany taken up again, since he observed
the Varian disaster to have happened through the temerity and negligence of the leader,
he did absolutely nothing except by the judgment of a council; always at other times content with his own discretion and with himself alone, then contrary
to custom he consulted with several about the plan of the war. He also furnished care more exact than usual.
About to cross the Rhine, he did not send across any of the supplies, bound to a fixed formula, before, taking his stand by the bank, he had examined
the loads of the vehicles, so that nothing be transported except things permitted or necessary.

Trans Rhenum vero eum vitae ordinem tenuit, ut sedens in caespite nudo cibum caperet, saepe sine tentorio pernoctaret, praecepta sequentis diei omnia, et si quid subiti muneris iniungendum esset, per libellos daret; addita monitione ut, de quo quisque dubitaret, se nec alio interprete quacumque vel noctis hora uteretur.

Across
the Rhine indeed he maintained such an order of life, that, sitting on the bare sod he would take food,
often without a tent he would pass the night, he would give all the precepts of the following day, and if any sudden
duty had to be enjoined, he would issue them through little notes; with an admonition added that, about whatever each one
was in doubt, he should use him and no other interpreter at whatever hour, even of the night.

[19] Disciplinam acerrime exegit animadversionum et ignominiarum generibus ex antiquitate repetitis atque etiam legato legionis, quod paucos milites cum liberto suo trans ripam venatum misisset, ignominia notato. Proelia, quamvis minimum fortunae casibusque permitteret, aliquanto constantius inibat, quotiens lucubrante se subito ac nullo propellente decideret lumen et extingueretur, confidens, ut aiebat, ostento sibi a maioribus suis in omni ducatu expertissimo. Sed re prospere gesta non multum afuit quin a Bructero quodam occideretur, cui inter proximos versanti et trepidatione detecto tormentis expressa confessio est cogitati facinoris.

[19] He exacted discipline most sharply by kinds of animadversions and ignominies fetched from antiquity, and even marked the legate of a legion with ignominy, because he had sent a few soldiers with his freedman across the bank to hunt. Battles, although he allowed the very least to fortune and to chance, he entered somewhat more steadfastly whenever, as he was lucubrating, the light would suddenly, with no one knocking it, fall down and be extinguished—trusting, as he said, in a portent most well-tried by his ancestors in every command. But when the matter had been successfully carried through, it was not far off that he was killed by a certain Bructeran, who, moving among those nearest and detected by his trepidation, by torture had an admission extorted of the crime intended.

[20] A Germania in urbem post biennium regressus triumphum, quem distulerat, egit prosequentibus etiam legatis, quibus triumphalia ornamenta impetrarat. Ac prius quam in Capitolium flecteret, descendit e curru seque praesidenti patri ad genua summisit. Batonem Pannonium ducem ingentibus donatum praemiis Ravennam transtulit, gratiam referens, quod se quondam cum exercitu iniquitate loci circumclusum passus es[se]t evadere.

[20] Returning from Germany to the city after two years, he celebrated the triumph which he had deferred, with even the legates escorting him, for whom he had obtained triumphal ornaments.
And before he turned toward the Capitol, he stepped down from the chariot and bowed himself at the knees of his father who was presiding.
He transferred Bato the Pannonian, the leader, to Ravenna, after he had been endowed with enormous rewards, returning thanks because he had once allowed him, when he with his army had been hemmed in by the unfairness of the ground, to escape.

Prandium dehinc populo mille mensis et congiarium trecenos nummos viritim dedit. Dedicavit et Concordiae aedem, item Pollucis et Castoris suo fratrisque nomine de manubiis.

Then he gave the people a luncheon at 1,000 tables and a congiary of 300 coins apiece
He also dedicated the temple of Concord, likewise that of Pollux and Castor, in his and his brother’s name,
out of the spoils.

[21] Ac non multo post lege per consules lata, ut provincias cum Augusto communiter administraret simulque censum a[u]geret, condito lustro in Illyricum profectus est. Et statim ex itinere revocatus iam quidem adfectum, sed tamen spirantem adhuc Augustum repperit fuitque una secreto per totum diem.

[21] And not long after, by a law carried through the consuls that he should administer the provinces jointly with Augustus and at the same time a[u]gment the census, with the lustrum concluded he set out for Illyricum. And immediately, recalled from the journey, he found Augustus already indeed afflicted, yet still breathing, and he was together with him in private for the whole day.

Scio vulgo persuasum quasi egresso post secretum sermonem Tiberio vox Augusti per cubicularios excepta sit: "Miserum populum R., qui sub tam lentis maxillis erit." Ne illud quidem ignoro aliquos tradidisse, Augustum palam nec dissimulanter morum eius diritatem adeo improbasse, ut nonnumquam remissiores hilarioresque sermones superveniente eo abrumperet; sed expugnatum precibus uxoris adoptionem non abnuisse, vel etiam ambitione tractum, ut tali successore desiderabilior ipse quandoque fieret. Adduci tamen nequeo quin existimem, circumspectissimum et prudentissimum principem in tanto praesertim negotio nihil temere fecisse; sed vitiis Tiberi[i] virtutibusque perpensis potiores duxisse virtutes, praesertim cum et rei p. causa adoptare se eum pro contione iuraverit et epistulis aliquot ut peritissimum rei militaris utque unicum p. R. praesidium prosequatur. Ex quibus in exemplum pauca hinc inde subieci.

I know it is commonly believed that, after Tiberius went out from a private conversation, a remark of Augustus was caught by the chamberlains: “Poor people of R., who will be under such sluggish jaws.” Nor am I unaware that some have handed down that Augustus openly, and not with any dissembling, so disapproved the harshness of his character that sometimes he would break off more relaxed and more cheerful conversations when he came in; but, overcome by his wife’s prayers, he did not refuse the adoption, or was even drawn by ambition, in order that with such a successor he himself might some day become more desirable. Yet I cannot be brought not to think that a most circumspect and most prudent prince, especially in so great a matter, did nothing rashly; but, the vices and virtues of Tiberius weighed, he judged the virtues the stronger—especially since both for the sake of the commonwealth he swore before a public assembly that he was adopting him, and in several letters he extols him as most skilled in military affairs and as the unique protection of the Roman people. From which I have subjoined a few items here and there by way of example.

"Vale, iucundissime Tiberi, et feliciter rem gere, ἐμοὶ καὶ ταῖς μούσαις στρατηγῶν. Iucundissime et ita sim felix, vir fortissime et dux νομιμώτατε, vale. Ordinem aestivorum tuorum ego vero [laudo], mi Tiberi, et inter tot rerum difficultates καὶ τοσαύτην ἀποθυμίαν τῶν στρατευομένων non potuisse quemquam prudentius gerere se quam tu gesseris, existimo. [H]ii quoque qui tecum fuerunt omnes confitentur, versum illum in te posse dici:

"Farewell, most pleasant Tiberius, and conduct the matter successfully, serving as general for me and for the Muses. Most pleasant one—and so may I be fortunate—bravest man and most lawful leader, farewell. The order of your summer-camps I indeed [commend], my Tiberius, and amid so many difficulties of affairs and so great a disaffection of the campaigning men, I judge that no one could have conducted himself more prudently than you have conducted yourself, [Th]ose also who were with you all confess that that verse can be said of you:

unus homo nobis vigilando restituit rem.

one man restored the state to us by vigilance.

Sive quid incidit de quo sit cogitandum diligentius, sive quid stomachor, valde medius Fidius Tiberium meum desidero succurritque versus ille Homericus:

Whether anything occurs about which one must think more diligently, or if I am vexed at something, by my good faith I very much miss my Tiberius, and that Homeric line comes to mind:

Τούτου γ᾽ ἑσπομένοιο καὶ ἐκ πυρὸς αἰθομένοιο
Ἄμφω νοστήσαιμεν, ἐπεὶ περίοιδε νοῆσαι.

By following this man, even out of blazing fire
we two might return home, since he knows beyond others how to think.

Attenuatum te esse continuatione laborum cum audio et lego, di me perdant nisi cohorrescit corpus meum; teque oro ut parcas tibi, ne si te languere audierimus, et ego et mater tua expiremus et summa imperi sui populus R. periclitetur. Nihil interest valeam ipse necne, si tu non valebis. Deos obsecro, ut te nobis conservent et valere nunc et semper patiantur, si non p. R. perosi sunt."

When I hear and read that you have been attenuated by the continuation of labors, may the gods destroy me unless
my body shudders; and I beg you to spare yourself, lest if we should hear that you are languishing, and
both I and your mother expire and the Roman people, in the supremacy of its empire, be endangered. It
makes no difference whether I myself am well or not, if you will not be well. I beseech the gods, that they
preserve you for us and allow you to be well now and always, if they are not hostile to the Roman people.

[22] Excessum Augusti non prius palam fecit, quam Agrippa iuvene interempto. Hunc tribunus militum custos appositus occidit lectis codicillis, quibus ut id faceret iubebatur; quos codicillos dubium fuit, Augustusne moriens reliquisset, quo materiam tumultus post se subduceret; an nomine Augusti Livia et ea conscio Tiberio an ignaro, dictasset. Tiberius renuntianti tribuno, factum esse quod imperasset, neque imperasse se et redditurum eum senatui rationem respondit, invidiam scilicet in praesentia vitans.

[22] He did not make the decease of Augustus public before the young Agrippa had been slain. A tribune of soldiers, posted as guard, killed him after the codicils had been read, by which he was ordered to do this; and it was doubtful whether Augustus, as he was dying, had left those codicils, in order to remove after himself the material for tumult, or whether Livia, in the name of Augustus—and with Tiberius aware of it or unaware—had dictated them. To the tribune reporting that what he had commanded had been done, Tiberius replied that he had not commanded it and that he would hand him over to the senate for an accounting—obviously shunning odium for the present.

Nam mox silentio rem obliteravit.

For soon he obliterated the matter by silence.

[23] Iure autem tribuniciae potestatis coacto senatu incohataque adlocutione derepente velut impar dolori congemuit, utque non solum vox sed et spiritus deficeret optavit ac perlegendum librum Druso filio tradidit. Inlatum deinde Augusti testamentum, non admissis signatoribus nisi senatorii ordinis, ceteris extra curiam signa agnoscentibus, recitavit per libertum. Testamenti initium fuit: "Quoniam atrox fortuna Gaium et Lucium filios mihi eripuit, Tiberius Caesar mihi ex parte dimidia et sextante heres esto." Quo et ipso aucta suspicio est opinantium successorem ascitum eum necessitate magis quam iudicio, quando ita praefari non abstinuerit.

[23] By the right of tribunician power, the senate having been convened,
and the address having been begun, he suddenly, as if unequal to his grief, groaned, and even wished that not only his voice but also his breath might fail, and he handed over the book to his son Drusus to be read through.
Then, when the testament of Augustus was brought in—with no signatories admitted save those of senatorial rank, the others recognizing their seals outside the curia—he had it recited by a freedman. The beginning of the testament was: "Since cruel fortune has snatched Gaius and Lucius, my sons, from me, Tiberius Caesar shall be my heir as to a half and a sixth." By this very point suspicion too was increased among those who thought that a successor had been taken on more by necessity than by judgment, since he had not refrained from prefacing thus.

[24] Principatum, quamvis neque occupare confestim neque agere dubitasset, et statione militum, hoc est vi et specie dominationis assumpta, diu tamen recusavit, impudentissimo mimo nunc adhortantis amicos increpans ut ignaros, quanta belua esset imperium, nunc precantem senatum et procumbentem sibi ad genua ambiguis responsis et callida cunctatione suspendens, ut quidam patientiam rumperent atque unus in tumultu proclamaret: "Aut agat aut desistat!" Alter coram exprobraret ceteros, quod polliciti sint tarde praestare, se[d] ipsum, quod praestet tarde polliceri. Tandem quasi coactus et querens miseram et onerosam iniungi sibi servitutem, recepit imperium; nec tamen aliter, quam ut depositurum se quandoque spem faceret. Ipsius verba sunt: "Dum veniam ad id tempus, quo vobis aequum possit videri dare vos aliquam senectuti meae requiem."

[24] The principate, although he had doubted neither to seize it immediately nor to exercise it, and, a station of soldiers—that is, force and the semblance of domination—having been assumed, nevertheless he long refused it, in a most shameless mime now rebuking the friends who urged him on as ignorant how great a monster the imperium is, now holding in suspense the Senate, beseeching and prostrating itself at his knees, by ambiguous answers and crafty delay, until some broke their patience and one shouted in the tumult: "Let him either act or desist!" Another, face to face, reproached the rest, because, having promised, they were slow to perform; but himself, because he is slow to promise performance. At last, as if compelled and complaining that a wretched and onerous servitude was being imposed upon him, he accepted the imperium; yet not otherwise than with the assurance that he would some day lay it down. His own words are: "Until I come to that time, when it may seem fair to you to grant my old age some respite."

[25] Cunctandi causa erat metus undique imminentium discriminum, ut saepe lupum se auribus tenere diceret. Nam et servus Agrippae Clemens nomine non contemnendam manum in ultionem domini compararat et L. Scribonius Libo vir nobilis res novas clam moliebatur et duplex seditio militum in Illyrico et in Germania exorta est. Flagitabant ambo exercitus multa extra ordinem, ante omnia ut aequarentur stipendio praetoriani[s]. Germaniciani quidem etiam principem detractabant non a se datum summaque vi Germanicum, qui tum iis praeerat, ad capessendam rem p. urgebant, quanquam obfirmate resistentem.

[25] The cause of delaying was fear of dangers threatening from every side, so that he often said that he was holding a wolf by the ears. For a slave of Agrippa, by name Clemens, had gathered a not-to-be-despised band for the vengeance of his master, and L. Scribonius Libo, a noble man, was secretly contriving revolution, and a double sedition of the soldiers arose in Illyricum and in Germany. Both armies were clamoring for many things outside the established order, above all that they be made equal in stipend to the praetoriani[s]. The Germanician troops indeed even disclaimed an emperor not given by themselves and with the utmost force pressed Germanicus, who then was in command of them, to assume the commonwealth, although he resisted resolutely.

Quem maxime casum timens, partes sibi quas senatui liberet, tuendas in re p. depoposcit, quando universae sufficere solus nemo posset nisi cum altero vel etiam cum pluribus. Simulavit et valitudinem, quo aequiore animo Germanicus celerem successionem vel certe societatem principatus opperiretur. Compositis seditionibus Clementem quoque fraude deceptum redegit in potestatem.

Fearing that contingency most of all, he demanded for himself that the portions of the commonwealth—which he would leave to the senate—be safeguarded, since no one could suffice for the whole unless with another or even with several. He also feigned ill health, so that Germanicus might await with a more even mind a swift succession, or at any rate a partnership in the principate. When the seditions had been settled, he likewise, by fraud, brought Clemens, who had been deceived, back into his power.

Libonem, ne quid in novitate acerbius fieret, secundo demum anno in senatu coarguit, medio temporis spatio tantum cavere contentus; nam et inter pontifices sacrificanti simul pro secespita plumbeum cultrum subiciendum curavit et secretum petenti non nisi adhibito Druso filio dedit dextramque obambulantis veluti incumbens, quoad perageretur sermo, continuit.

Libo he did not prosecute, lest anything too harsh be done in the novelty, until the second year at last, and then in the senate, being content in the meantime merely to take precautions; for he also took care that, while he was sacrificing among the pontifices, a leaden knife be slipped in place of the secespita, and, when he asked for a private interview, he granted it only with his son Drusus present, and he kept hold of the right hand of the man as they strolled, as if leaning upon it, until the talk was completed.

[26] Verum liberatus metu civilem admodum inter initia ac paulo minus quam privatum egit. Ex plurimis maximisque honoribus praeter paucos et modicos non recepit. Natalem suum plebeis incurrentem circensibus vix unius bigae adiectione honorari passus est.

[26] But, once freed from fear, at the outset he behaved quite as a citizen and almost as a private individual. Of the very many and greatest honors he accepted none, save a few and modest ones. His birthday, coinciding with the plebeian circus-games, he scarcely allowed to be honored by the addition of a single two-horse chariot.

Templa, flamines, sacerdotes decerni sibi prohibuit, etiam statuas atque imagines nisi permittente se poni; permisitque ea sola condicione, ne inter simulacra deorum sed inter ornamenta aedium ponerentur. Intercessit et quo minus in acta sua iuraretur, et ne mensis September Tiberius, October Livius vocarentur. Praenomen quoque imperatoris cognomenque patris patriae et civicam in vestibulo coronam recusavit; ac ne Augusti quidem nomen, quanquam hereditarium, nullis nisi ad reges ac dynastas epistulis addidit.

He forbade that temples, flamines, and priests be decreed for himself, and even that statues and images be set up unless with his permission; and he permitted them only on the condition that they be placed not among the likenesses of the gods but among the ornaments of buildings. He interposed as well to prevent that an oath be sworn upon his acts, and that the month September be called Tiberius and October Livius. He also refused the praenomen Imperator and the cognomen Father of the Fatherland, and the civic crown in the vestibule; and not even the name Augustus, although hereditary, did he add to any letters except to kings and dynasts.

Nec amplius quam mox tres consulatus, unum paucis diebus, alterum tribus mensibus, tertium absens usque in Idus Maias gessit.

Nor thereafter did he hold more than three consulships: one for a few days, another for three months, and the third, while absent, up to the Ides of May.

[27] Adulationes adeo aversatus est, ut neminem senatorum aut officii aut negotii causa ad lecticam suam admiserit, consularem vero satisfacientem sibi ac per genua orare conantem ita suffugerit, ut caderet supinus; atque etiam, si quid in sermone vel in continua oratione blandius de se diceretur, non dubitaret interpellare ac reprehendere et commutare continuo. Dominus appellatus a quodam denuntiavit, ne se amplius contumeliae causa nominaret. Alium dicentem sacras eius occupationes et rursus alium, auctore eo senatum se adisse, verba mutare et pro auctore suasorem, pro sacris laboriosas dicere coegit.

[27] He was so averse to adulations that he admitted none of the senators either for office or for business to his litter; and a consular who was making satisfaction to him and trying to beseech him at the knees he so fled from that he fell on his back; and even, if anything more flattering about himself was said in conversation or in continuous oration, he did not hesitate to interrupt and to reprove and to change it immediately. When addressed as “lord” by a certain person, he gave warning not to name him so any further, as by way of affront. Another who said “his sacred occupations,” and again another who said that, “by his authority,” he had approached the senate, he forced to change the words and to say instead of “author” “adviser,” instead of “sacred” “laborious.”

[28] Sed et adversus convicia malosque rumores et famosa de se ac suis carmina firmus ac patiens subinde iactabat in civitate libera linguam mentemque liberas esse debere; et quondam senatu cognitionem de eius modi criminibus ac reis flagitante: "Non tantum," inquit, "otii habemus, ut implicare nos pluribus negotiis debeamus; si hanc fenestram aperueritis, nihil aliud agi sinetis: omnium inimicitiae hoc praetexto ad vos deferentur." Extat et sermo eius in senatu percivilis: "Siquidem locutus aliter fuerit, dabo operam ut rationem factorum meorum dictorumque reddam; si perseveraverit, in vicem eum odero."

[28] But also, against insults and evil rumors and defamatory songs about himself and his own, steadfast and patient, he would repeatedly declare that in a free commonwealth the tongue and the mind ought to be free; and once, when the senate was demanding an inquiry concerning crimes and defendants of this sort: "We do not have so much leisure," he said, "that we ought to entangle ourselves in more affairs; if you open this window, you will allow nothing else to be done: under this pretext everyone’s enmities will be brought before you." There also survives his very civil speech in the senate: "If indeed he shall have spoken otherwise, I will take pains to render an account of my deeds and words; if he persists, in turn I will hate him."

[29] Atque haec eo notabiliora erant, quod ipse in appellandis venerandisque et singulis et universis prope excesserat humanitatis modum. Dissentiens in curia a Q. Haterio: "Ignoscas," inquit, "rogo, si quid adversus te liberius sicut senator dixero." Et deinde omnis adloquens: "Dixi et nunc et saepe alias, p. c., bonum et salutarem principem, quem vos tanta et tam libera potestate instruxistis, senatui servire debere et universis civibus saepe et plerumque etiam singulis; neque id dixisse me paenitet, et bonos et aequos et faventes vos habui dominos et adhuc habeo."

[29] And these things were all the more notable, because he himself, in
addressing and venerating both individuals and the whole body, had nearly exceeded the measure of humanity.
Disagreeing in the Curia with Q. Haterius: “Forgive me,” he said, “I ask, if I have said anything somewhat more freely
against you, as a senator.” And then addressing everyone: “I have said both now and often on other occasions, Conscript Fathers,
that a good and salutary princeps, whom you have equipped with so great and so free a power,
ought to serve the Senate and all the citizens, often and for the most part even
individuals; nor do I regret having said this, and I have had you as masters—good and equitable and favorable—
and I still have.”

[30] Quin etiam speciem libertatis quandam induxit conservatis senatui ac magistratibus et maiestate pristina et potestate. Neque tam parvum quicquam neque tam magnum publici privatique negotii fuit, de quo non ad patres conscriptos referretur: de vectigalibus ac monopoliis, de extruendis reficiendisve operibus, etiam de legendo vel exauctorando milite ac legionum et auxiliorum discriptione, denique quibus imperium prorogari aut extraordinaria bella mandari, quid et qua[m] forma[m] regum litteris rescribi placeret. Praefectum alae de vi et rapinis reum causam in senatu dicere coegit.

[30] Nay more, he even introduced a certain semblance of liberty, with the senate and the magistracies having their former majesty and power preserved. Nor was there anything so small nor so great of public or private business, about which reference was not made to the senate: about tax revenues and monopolies, about works to be erected or repaired, even about choosing or discharging soldiers and the distribution of the legions and auxiliaries, and finally for whom command should be prolonged or extraordinary wars entrusted, what, and in what form, it should be written back in reply to kings’ letters. He forced a prefect of a cavalry wing, arraigned on charges of violence and rapine, to plead his case in the senate.

Numquam curiam nisi solus intravit; lectica quondam intro latus aeger comites a se removit.

He never entered the curia except
alone; once, when he was brought in on a litter, ill, he removed his companions from himself.

[31] Quaedam adversus sententiam suam decerni ne questus quidem est. Negante eo destinatos magistratus abesse oportere, ut praesentes honori adquiescerent, praetor designatus liberam legationem impetravit. Iterum censente, ut Trebianis legatam in opus novi theatri pecuniam ad munitionem viae transferre concederetur, optinere non potuit quin rata voluntas legatoris esset.

[31] He did not even complain at certain measures being decreed against his own opinion. Though he said that magistrates-designate ought not to be absent, so that, being present,
they might acquiesce in the honor, a praetor-designate obtained a free legation. Again,
when he was of the opinion that it should be permitted to transfer to the construction of a road the money legated to the Trebians for the work of a new theater,
he could not prevail, but that the will of the legator should stand ratified.

Cum senatus consultum per discessionem forte fieret, transeuntem eum in alteram partem, in qua pauciores erant, secutus est nemo.

When a senatorial decree happened to be decided by a division, as he crossed over to the other side, where there were fewer, no one followed him.

Cetera quoque non nisi per magistratus et iure ordinario agebantur, tanta consulum auctoritate, ut legati ex Africa adierint eos querentes, trahi se a Caesare ad quem missi forent. Nec mirum, cum palam esset, ipsum quoque eisdem et assurgere et decedere via.

The rest also were transacted only through the magistrates and by ordinary law, with such authority of the consuls that envoys from Africa approached them complaining that they were being haled by Caesar, to whom they had been sent. Nor is it a wonder, since it was plain that he too would both rise for them and yield the road.

[32] Corripuit consulares exercitibus praepositos, quod non de rebus gestis senatui scriberent quodque de tribuendis quibusdam militaribus donis ad se referrent, quasi non omnium tribuendorum ipsi ius haberent. Praetorem conlaudavit, quod honore inito consuetudinem antiquam ret[t]ulisset de maioribus suis pro contione memorandi. Quorundam illustrium exequias usque ad rogum frequentavit.

[32] He rebuked the men of consular rank set over the armies, because they did not write to the senate about the deeds done, and because they referred to him the awarding of certain military decorations, as though they themselves did not have the right of bestowing all such things. He commended the praetor, because, on entering his office, he had revived the ancient custom of recounting his ancestors before the public assembly. He attended the funerals of certain illustrious men all the way to the pyre.

Parem moderationem minoribus quoque et personis et rebus exhibuit. Cum Rhodiorum magistratus, quod litteras publicas sine subscriptione ad se dederant, evocasset, ne verbo quidem insectatus ac tantum modo iussos subscribere remisit. Diogenes grammaticus, disputare sabbatis Rhodi solitus, venientem eum, ut se extra ordinem audiret, non admiserat ac per servolum suum in septimum diem distulerat; hunc Romae salutandi sui causa pro foribus adstantem nihil amplius quam ut post septimum annum rediret admonuit.

He exhibited equal moderation toward lesser persons and matters as well. When he had summoned the magistrates of the Rhodians, because they had delivered to him public letters without a subscription, he did not assail them even with a word and merely, having ordered them to subscribe, sent them away. Diogenes the grammarian, accustomed at Rhodes to dispute on sabbaths, when he came that he might hear him out of turn, did not admit him and through his slave‑boy deferred him to the seventh day; this man, standing before his doors at Rome for the sake of saluting him, he admonished with nothing more than to return after the seventh year.

Praesidibus onerandas tributo provincias suadentibus rescripsit boni pastoris esse tondere pecus, non deglubere.

He wrote in reply to the governors, who were advising that the provinces be burdened with tribute, that it is the part of a good shepherd to shear the flock, not to flay it.

[33] Paulatim principem exeruit praestititque etsi varium diu, commodiorem tamen saepius et ad utilitates publicas proniorem. Ac primo eatenus interveniebat, ne quid perperam fieret. Itaque et constitutiones senatus quasdam rescidit et magistratibus pro tribunali cognoscentibus plerumque se offerebat consiliarium assidebatque iuxtim vel exadversum in parte primori; et si quem reorum elabi gratia rumor esset, subitus aderat iudicesque aut e plano aut e quaesitoris tribunali legum et religionis et noxae, de qua cognoscerent, admonebat; atque etiam, si qua in publicis moribus desidia aut mala consuetudine labarent, corrigenda suscepit.

[33] Gradually he brought the prince to light and showed himself, although changeable for a long time, yet more often more accommodating and more inclined to public interests. And at first he intervened only to this extent, that nothing be done amiss. Accordingly he also rescinded certain decrees of the senate, and when magistrates were judging from the tribunal he would for the most part offer himself as a counselor and would sit close by or opposite in the foremost place; and if there was a rumor that any defendant was slipping away by favor, he would appear suddenly and would remind the judges, either from the floor or from the quaesitor’s tribunal, of the laws and of religion and of the offense about which they were conducting inquiry; and even, if in public morals they were slipping through sloth or bad custom, he undertook to set them right.

[34] Ludorum ac munerum impensas corripuit mercedibus scaenicorum recisis paribusque gladiatorum ad certum numerum redactis. Corinthiorum vasorum pretia in immensum exarsisse tresque mul[l]os triginta milibus nummum venisse graviter conquestus, adhibendum supellectili modum censuit annonamque macelli senatus arbitratu quotannis temperandam, dato aedilibus negotio popinas ganeasque usque eo inhibendi, ut ne opera quidem pistoria proponi venalia sinerent. Et ut parsimoniam publicam exemplo quoque iuvaret, sollemnibus ipse cenis pridiana saepe ac semesa obsonia apposuit dimidiatumque aprum, affirmans omnia eadem habere, quae totum.

[34] He cut down the expenses of games and shows, having reduced the fees of the scenic performers and the pairs of gladiators to a fixed number. Complaining gravely that the prices of Corinthian vessels had flared up to the immense, and that three mullets had sold for thirty thousand coins, he judged that a limit must be applied to household furnishings, and that the prices of the meat-market should be moderated each year at the senate’s discretion, assigning to the aediles the task of restraining cook-shops and eating-houses to such a degree that they should not even allow bakery wares to be set out for sale. And that he might aid public parsimony by his own example as well, at solemn banquets he himself often served dishes from the day before and half-eaten, and a halved boar, asserting that it had all the same things as a whole one.

Cotidiana oscula edicto prohibuit, item strenarum commercium ne ultra Kal. Ian. exerceretur.

He forbade daily kisses by edict, and likewise that the exchange of New Year’s gifts be not conducted beyond the Kalends of January.

Consuerat quadriplam stren[u]am, et de manu, reddere; sed offensus interpellari se toto mense ab iis qui potestatem sui die festo non habuissent, ultra non tulit.

He had been accustomed to return a New Year’s gift fourfold, and from the hand; but, offended at being interrupted through the whole month by those who had not had the opportunity on the feast day, he no longer endured it.

[35] Matronas prostratae pudicitiae, quibus accusator publicus deesset, ut propinqui more maiorum de communi sententia coercerent auctor fuit. Eq(uiti) R(omano) iuris iurandi gratiam fecit, uxorem in stupro generi compertam dimitteret, quam se numquam repudiaturum ante iuraverat. Feminae famosae, ut ad evitandas legum poenas iure ac dignitate matronali exsolverentur, lenocinium profiteri coeperant, et ex iuventute utriusque ordinis profligatissimus quisque, quominus in opera scaenae harenaeque edenda senatus consulto teneretur, famosi iudicii notam sponte subibant; eos easque omnes, ne quod refugium in tali fraude cuiquam esset, exilio adfecit.

[35] He was the author of a measure that matrons of prostrated modesty, for whom a public accuser was lacking, should be restrained by their relatives, in the custom of the ancestors, by common consent. To a Roman knight he granted dispensation from an oath, that he should dismiss a wife found in debauchery with his son-in-law, whom he had previously sworn he would never repudiate. Notorious women, in order to avoid the penalties of the laws by being released from matronal right and dignity, had begun to profess procuring; and from the youth of each order, every most profligate person, in order not to be held by a senatorial decree to the work of putting on performances of the stage and the arena, were voluntarily undergoing the mark of an infamous judgment; all those men and those women, lest there be any refuge for anyone in such a fraud, he afflicted with exile.

Senatori latum clavum ademit, cum cognosset sub Kal. Iul. demigrasse in hortos, quo vilius post diem aedes in urbe conduceret.

He stripped a senator of the broad stripe, when he learned that, on the eve of the Kalends of July, he had moved out to his gardens, in order that he might rent a house in the city more cheaply after the day.

Alium e quaestura removit, quod uxorem pridie sortitionem ductam postridie repudiasset.

He removed another from the quaestorship, because he had, on the day after, repudiated a wife taken in marriage the day before the sortition.

[36] Externas caerimonias, Aegyptios Iudaicosque ritus compescuit, coactis qui superstitione ea tenebantur religiosas vestes cum instrumento omni comburere. Iudaeorum iuventutem per speciem sacramenti in provincias gravioris caeli distribuit, reliquos gentis eiusdem vel similia sectantes urbe summovit, sub poena perpetuae servitutis nisi obtemperassent. Expulit et mathematicos, sed deprecantibus ac se artem desituros promittentibus veniam dedit.

[36] He restrained foreign ceremonies, the Egyptian and Judaic rites, compelling those who were held by that superstition to burn their sacred vestments with all the apparatus. The youth of the Jews he distributed, under the pretext of the military oath, into provinces of a harsher climate; he removed from the city the rest of that nation, or those pursuing similar practices, under penalty of perpetual servitude unless they obeyed. He also expelled the mathematici (astrologers), but granted pardon to those who begged and promised that they would desist from the art.

[37] In primis tuendae pacis a grassaturis ac latrociniis seditionumque licentia curam habuit. Stationes militum per Italiam solito frequentiores disposuit. Romae castra constituit, quibus praetorianae cohortes vagae ante id tempus et per hospitia dispersae continerentur.

[37] First of all, he took care for the safeguarding of peace against marauders and banditries and the license of seditions. He disposed soldier stations throughout Italy more frequent than usual. In Rome he established a camp, in which the Praetorian cohorts—wandering before that time and scattered through lodgings—might be contained.

Populares tumultus et ortos gravissime coercuit et ne orerentur sedulo cavit. Caede in theatro per discordiam admissa capita factionum et histriones, propter quos dissidebatur, relegavit, nec ut revocaret umquam ullis populi precibus potuit evinci. Cum Pollentina plebs funus cuiusdam primipilaris non prius ex foro misisset quam extorta pecunia per vim heredibus ad gladiatorium munus, cohortem ab urbe et aliam a Cotti regno dissimulata itineris causa detectis repente armis concinentibusque signis per diversas portas in oppidum immisit ac partem maiorem plebei ac decurionum in perpetua vincula coiecit.

Popular tumults both those that had arisen he most gravely repressed, and he diligently took care that they not arise. When a killing in the theater, brought about through discord, had occurred, he banished the heads of the factions and the actors, on account of whom there was dissension, nor could he ever be prevailed upon by any pleas of the people to recall them. When the populace of Pollentia would not send out the funeral of a certain primipilaris from the forum until money had been extorted by force from the heirs for a gladiatorial munus, he sent a cohort from the city and another from the realm of Cottius, the pretext of a journey dissembled, with the arms suddenly uncovered and the signals sounding in concert, into the town through different gates, and he cast the greater part of the plebeians and the decurions into perpetual chains.

Abolevit et ius moremque asylorum, quae usquam erant. Cyzicenis in cives R. violentius quaedam ausis publice libertatem ademit, quam Mithridatico bello meruerant.

He abolished as well the right and the custom of asylums, wherever they existed. From the Cyzicenes, for having dared certain things too violently against Roman citizens, he publicly removed the liberty which they had merited in the Mithridatic War.

Hostiles motus nulla postea expeditione suscepta per legatos compescuit, ne per eos quidem nisi cunctanter et necessario. Reges infestos suspectosque comminationibus magis et querelis quam vi repressit; quosdam per blanditias atque promissa extractos ad se non remisit, ut Marobodum Germanum, Rhascuporim Thracem, Archelaum Cappadocem, cuius etiam regnum in formam provinciae redegit.

Hostile disturbances, with no expedition thereafter undertaken, he suppressed through legates, not even through them except hesitantly and of necessity. Kings who were hostile and suspect he restrained more by threats and complaints than by force; some, drawn out to him by blandishments and promises, he did not send back, such as Maroboduus the German, Rhascuporis the Thracian, Archelaus the Cappadocian, whose kingdom also he reduced into the form of a province.

[38] Biennio continuo post adeptum imperium pedem porta non extulit; sequenti tempore praeterquam in propinqua oppida et, cum longissime, Antio tenus nusquam afuit, idque perraro et paucos dies; quamvis provincias quoque et exercitus revisurum se saepe pronuntiasset et prope quotannis profectionem praepararet, vehiculis comprehensis, commeatibus per municipia et colonias dispositis, ad extremum vota pro itu et reditu suo suscipi passus, ut vulgo iam per iocum "Callippides" vocaretur, quem cursitare ac ne cubiti quidem mensuram progredi proverbio Graeco notatum est.

[38] For a continuous two years after obtaining the imperium he did not set foot beyond the gate;
in the time thereafter, except into neighboring towns and, at the farthest,
as far as Antium, he was absent nowhere, and that very rarely and for a few days; although
he often proclaimed that he would also revisit the provinces and the armies and almost
every year prepared a departure, with vehicles requisitioned, supplies arranged through
the municipalities and colonies, and at the last he even allowed vows to be undertaken for his going and return,
so that he was by now commonly called in jest “Callippides,” who is marked by a Greek proverb as one who runs about and does not
advance even the measure of a cubit.

[39] Sed orbatus utroque filio, quorum Germanicus in Syria, Drusus Romae obierat, secessum Campaniae petit; constanti et opinione et sermone paene omnium quasi neque rediturus umquam et cito mortem etiam obiturus. Quod paulo minus utrumque evenit; nam neque Romam amplius rediit et paucos post dies iuxta Tarracinam in praetorio, cui Speluncae nomen est, incenante eo complura et ingentia saxa fortuito superne dilapsa sunt, multisque convivarum et ministrorum elisis praeter spem evasit.

[39] But bereft of both sons—of whom Germanicus had died in Syria, Drusus at Rome—he sought a retreat in Campania; with the constant opinion and talk of almost all as if he would never return and would soon also meet death. Which both things came to pass scarcely less; for he never returned to Rome, and a few days later, near Tarracina, in a praetorium whose name is Speluncae, while he was dining, many and huge rocks by chance slipped down from above, and, many of the dinner-guests and attendants being crushed, he escaped beyond hope.

[40] Peragrata Campania, cum Capuae Capitolium, Nolae templum Augusti, quam causam profectionis praetenderat, dedicasset, Capreas se contulit, praecipue delectatus insula, quod uno parvoque litore adiretur, saepta undique praeruptis immensae altitudinis rupibus et profundo mari. Statimque revocante assidua obtestatione populo propter cladem, qua apud Fidenas supra viginti hominum milia gladiatorio munere amphitheatri ruina perierant, transiit in continentem potestatemque omnibus adeundi sui fecit: tanto magis, quod urbe egrediens ne quis se interpellaret edixerat ac toto itinere adeuntis submoverat.

[40] After traversing Campania, when at Capua he had dedicated the Capitol, at Nola
the temple of Augustus, which he had put forward as the cause of his departure, he betook himself to Capreae,
particularly delighted by the island, because it was approachable by a single and small shore, enclosed
on all sides by precipitous cliffs of immense height and by the deep sea. And immediately, as the people, by incessant adjuration, were calling him back on account of the disaster in which at Fidenae more than twenty thousand persons had perished at a gladiatorial show through the collapse of an amphitheater, he crossed over to
the mainland and made it within everyone’s power to approach him: all the more, because on leaving the city he had proclaimed that no one should interrupt him and had driven off those approaching throughout the whole journey.

[41] Regressus in insulam rei p. quidem curam usque adeo abiecit, ut postea non decurias equitum umquam supplerit, non tribunos militum praefectosque, non provinciarum praesides ullos mutaverit, Hispaniam et Syriam per aliquot annos sine consularibus legatis habuerit, Armeniam a Parthis occupari, Moesiam a Dacis Sarmatisque, Gallias a Germanis vastari neglexerit: magno dedecore imperii nec minore discrimine.

[41] Having returned to the island, he cast off concern for the commonwealth to such a degree that thereafter he never once replenished the decuries of the equites, did not change the tribunes of soldiers and prefects, nor any governors of provinces, kept Spain and Syria for several years without consular legates, allowed Armenia to be seized by the Parthians, Moesia by the Dacians and Sarmatians, and the Gauls to be ravaged by the Germans: to the great disgrace of the empire and with no less peril.

[42] Ceterum secreti licentiam nanctus et quasi civitatis oculis remotis, cuncta simul vitia male diu dissimulata tandem profudit: de quibus singillatim ab exordio referam. In castris tiro etiam tum propter nimiam vini aviditatem pro Tiberio "Biberius," pro Claudio "Caldius," pro Nerone "Mero" vocabatur. Postea princeps in ipsa publicorum morum correctione cum Pomponio Flacco et L. Pisone noctem continuumque biduum epulando potandoque consumpsit, quorum alteri Syriam provinciam, alteri praefecturam urbis confestim detulit, codicillis quoque iucundissimos et omnium horarum amicos professus.

[42] However, having gotten the license of seclusion and, as it were, the eyes of the commonwealth removed, he at last poured forth all the vices long badly dissembled, all at once: about which I shall relate severally from the beginning. In the camp, still then a raw recruit, on account of an excessive avidity for wine he was called, in place of Tiberius, “Biberius,” in place of Claudius, “Caldius,” in place of Nero, “Mero.” Later, as princeps, at the very time of the correction of public morals, he spent a night and a continuous two-day stretch feasting and drinking with Pomponius Flaccus and L. Piso, to one of whom he immediately conferred the province of Syria, to the other the prefecture of the city, and in codicils as well he professed them to be “most delightful and friends of every hour.”

Cestio Gall[i]o, libidinoso ac prodigo seni, olim ab Augusto ignominia notato et a se ante paucos dies apud senatum increpito cenam ea lege condixit, ne quid ex consuetudine immutaret aut demeret, utque nudis puellis ministrantibus cenaretur. Ignotissimum quaesturae candidatum nobilissimis anteposuit ob epotam in convivio propinante se vini amphoram. Asellio Sabino sestertia ducenta donavit pro dialogo, in quo boleti et ficedulae et ostreae et turdi certamen induxerat.

He made a dinner engagement with Cestius Gallio, a libidinous and prodigal old man, once marked with ignominy by Augustus and,
a few days before by himself rebuked in the senate, on this condition: that he should change nothing from his custom nor take anything away, and that the dinner be served with nude girls waiting. He preferred a most unknown candidate for the quaestorship to the most noble men on account of a wine amphora drained at a banquet, as he himself proposed the toast.
He gave Asellius Sabinus 200,000 sesterces for a dialogue in which he had staged a contest of the boletus and the fig-pecker and the oysters and the thrushes.

Novum denique officium instituit a voluptatibus, praeposito equite R. T. Caesonio Prisco.

Finally he instituted a new office of pleasures, with the Roman knight T. Caesonius Priscus set over it.

[43] Secessu vero Caprensi etiam sellaria excogitavit, sedem arcanarum libidinum, in quam undique conquisiti puellarum et exoletorum greges monstrosique concubitus repertores, quos spintrias appellabat, triplici serie conexi, in vicem incestarent coram ipso, ut aspectu deficientis libidines excitaret. Cubicula plurifariam disposita tabellis ac sigillis lascivissimarum picturarum et figurarum adornavit librisque Elephantidis instruxit, ne cui in opera edenda exemplar impe[t]ratae schemae deesset. In silvis quoque ac nemoribus passim Venerios locos commentus est prostantisque per antra et cavas rupes ex utriusque sexus pube Paniscorum et Nympharum habitu, quae palam iam et vulgo nomine insulae abutentes "Caprineum" dictitabant.

[43] In his Caprean retreat he even contrived little chambers, a seat of secret lusts, into which from every side he gathered bands of girls and exoleti and inventors of monstrous couplings, whom he called spintriae, linked in a triple series to debauch one another in turn before his very eyes, so that by the sight he might rouse his failing lusts. Bedrooms arranged in many places he adorned with panels and reliefs of the most lascivious paintings and figures, and he stocked them with the books of Elephantis, so that for anyone engaged in executing the act there should not be lacking an exemplar of the solicited schema. In the woods also and the groves he devised Venereal places everywhere, and stationed for hire, through caves and hollow rocks, the youth of both sexes in the guise of little Pans and Nymphs; and these, openly and commonly abusing the name of the island, kept calling it “Caprineum.”

[44] Maiore adhuc ac turpiore infamia flagravit, vix ut referri audirive, nedum credi fas sit, quasi pueros primae teneritudinis, quos pisciculos vocabat, institueret, ut natanti sibi inter femina versarentur ac luderent lingua morsuque sensim adpetentes; atque etiam quasi infantes firmiores, necdum tamen lacte depulsos, inguini ceu papillae admoveret, pronior sane ad id genus libidinis et natura et aetate. Quare Parrasi quoque tabulam, in qua Meleagro Atalanta ore morigeratur, legatam sibi sub condicione, ut si argumento offenderetur decies pro ea sestertium acciperet, non modo praetulit, sed et in cubiculo dedicavit. Fertur etiam in sacrificando quondam captus facie ministri acerram praeferentis nequisse abstinere, quin paene vixdum re divina peracta ibidem statim seductum constupraret simulque fratrem eius tibicinem; atque utrique mox, quod mutuo flagitium exprobrarant, crura fregisse.

[44] He blazed with an even greater and more shameful infamy, scarcely that it is right that it be reported or heard, much less believed: that he trained boys of the first tenderness, whom he called his “little fishes,” to move about between his thighs while he was swimming and to play with tongue and bite, gradually assailing; and even that he would apply somewhat sturdier infants, not yet, however, driven from milk, to his groin as to a nipple, being more prone to that kind of libido both by nature and by age. Wherefore a painting by Parrhasius too, in which Atalanta obliges Meleager with her mouth, having been bequeathed to him under the condition that, if he were offended by the subject, he should receive a million sesterces in its stead, he not only preferred, but even dedicated it in his bedchamber. It is reported also that once, while sacrificing, captivated by the face of an attendant bearing the censer, he was unable to refrain from debauching him, and with the rite hardly completed, almost then and there, having drawn him aside, he violated him, and likewise his brother, a piper; and that soon he broke the legs of both, because they had mutually reproached each other with the outrage.

[45] Feminarum quoque, et quidem illustrium, capitibus quanto opere solitus sit inludere, evidentissime apparuit Malloniae cuiusdam exitu, quam perductam nec quicquam amplius pati constantissime recusantem delatoribus obiecit ac ne ream quidem interpellare desiit, "ecquid paeniteret"; donec ea relicto iudicio domum se abripuit ferroque transegit, obscaenitate oris hirsuto atque olido seni clare exprobrata. Unde mora in Atellanico exhodio proximis ludis adsensu maximo excepta percrebruit, "hircum vetulum capreis naturam ligurire."

[45] Of women too, and indeed of illustrious ones, how greatly he was accustomed to make sport of their very persons appeared most evidently in the end of a certain Mallonia, whom, when she had been brought in and most steadfastly refused to endure anything further, he exposed to the delators and did not cease even to harass her as a defendant with “whether you repent at all”; until she, leaving the trial, hurried herself home and ran herself through with a sword, having loudly cast in the teeth of the shaggy and ill-smelling old man the obscenity of his mouth. Whence a tag in an Atellan afterpiece at the next games, received with the greatest applause, became widespread, “that an old he-goat licks the nature of the she-goats.”

[46] Pecuniae parcus ac tenax comites peregrinationum expeditionumque numquam salario, cibariis tantum sustentavit, una modo liberalitate ex indulgentia vitrici prosecutus, cum tribus classibus factis pro dignitate cuiusque, primae sescenta sestertia, secundae quadringenta distribuit, ducenta tertiae, quam non amicorum sed Graecorum appellabat.

[46] Sparing and tightfisted of money, he never maintained the companions of his travels and expeditions with a salary, but sustained them only with rations; only on a single occasion did he carry out a liberality, by his stepfather’s indulgence, when, three classes having been made according to the dignity of each, he distributed 600,000 sesterces to the first, 400,000 to the second, and 200,000 to the third, which he called not of “friends” but of “Greeks.”

[47] Princeps neque opera ulla magnifica fecit – nam et quae sola susceperat, Augusti templum restitutionemque Pompeiani theatri, imperfecta post tot annos reliquit – neque spectacula omnino edidit; et iis, quae ab aliquo ederentur, rarissime interfuit, ne quid exposceretur, utique postquam comoedum Actium coactus est manumittere. Paucorum senatorum inopia sustentata, ne pluribus opem ferret, negavit se aliis subventurum, nisi senatui iustas necessitatium causas probassent. Quo pacto plerosque modestia et pudore deterruit, in quibus Hortalum, Quinti Hortensi oratoris nepotem, qui permodica re familiari auctore Augusto quattuor liberos tulerat.

[47] The princeps neither accomplished any magnificent works – for even those which alone he had undertaken, the Temple of Augustus and the restoration of the Theatre of Pompey, he left unfinished after so many years – nor did he put on spectacles at all; and he very rarely attended those that were put on by someone else, lest anything be demanded of him, especially after he was forced to manumit the comedian Actius. The indigence of a few senators having been supported, in order not to bring help to more, he declared that he would not relieve others unless they had proved to the senate just causes of their necessities. By this method he deterred very many by modesty and shame, among whom Hortalus, grandson of Quintus Hortensius the orator, who with a very modest family fortune, at Augustus’s instigation, had begotten four children.

[48] Publice munificentiam bis omnino exhibuit, proposito milies sestertium gratuito in trienni tempus et rursus quibusdam dominis insularum, quae in monte Caelio deflagrarant, pretio restituto. Quorum alterum magna difficultate nummaria populo auxilium flagitante coactus est facere, cum per senatus consultum sanxisset, ut faeneratores duas patrimonii partes in solo collocarent, debitores totidem aeris alieni statim solverent, nec res expediretur; alterum ad mitigandam temporum atrocitatem. Quod tamen beneficium tanti aestimavit, ut montem Caelium appellatione mutata vocari Augustum iusserit.

[48] He exhibited public munificence only twice in all, having offered 100,000,000 sesterces gratis for a period of three years, and again by reimbursing at value certain owners of tenement-blocks which had been burned down on the Caelian Mount. The former of these he was compelled to do by a great monetary difficulty, when the people were clamoring for aid, after he had enacted by a senatorial decree that moneylenders invest two parts of their patrimony in land and that debtors immediately pay off an equal number of parts of their indebtedness, and the matter was not being expedited; the latter, to mitigate the atrocity of the times. Yet he esteemed that benefaction so highly that, the appellation being changed, he ordered the Caelian Mount to be called the Augustus.

Militi post duplicata ex Augusti testamento legata nihil umquam largitus est, praeterquam singula milia denariorum praetorianis, quod Seiano se non accommodassent, et quaedam munera Syriacis legionibus, quod solae nullam Seiani imaginem inter signa coluissent. Atque etiam missiones veteranorum rarissimas fecit, ex senio mortem, ex morte compendium captans. Ne provincias quidem liberalitate ulla sublevavit, excepta Asia, disiectis terrae motu civitatibus.

To the soldiery, after the legacies from Augustus’s testament had been doubled, he never at any time bestowed largess, except a single thousand denarii apiece to the Praetorians, because they had not accommodated themselves to Sejanus; and certain gifts to the Syrian legions, because they alone had cherished no image of Sejanus among their standards. And he even made the discharges of veterans very rare, taking from old age death, and from death a saving. Nor did he even relieve the provinces by any liberality, Asia excepted, when communities had been shattered by an earthquake.

[49] Procedente mox tempore etiam ad rapinas convertit animum. Satis constat, Cn. Lentulum Augurem, cui census maximus fuerit, metu et angore ad fastidium vitae ab eo actum et ut ne quo nisi ipso herede moreretur; condemnatam et generosissimam feminam Lepidam in gratiam Quirini consularis praedivitis et orbi, qui dimissam eam e matrimonio post vicensimum annum veneni olim in se comparati arguebat; praeterea Galliarum et Hispaniarum Syriaeque et Graeciae principes confiscatos ob tam leve ac tam inpudens calumniarum genus, ut quibusdam non aliud sit obiectum, quam quod partem rei familiaris in pecunia haberent; plurimis etiam civitatibus et privatis veteres immunitates et ius metallorum ac vectigalium adempta; sed et Vononem regem Parthorum, qui pulsus a suis quasi in fidem p. R. cum ingenti gaza Antiochiam se receperat, spoliatum perfidia et occisum.

[49] As time soon went on he even turned his mind to rapine. It is well established that Gnaeus Lentulus Augur, whose census was the greatest, was driven by him through fear and anguish to a disgust of life, and to the point that he should die with no heir except himself as heir; and that Lepida, a most high-born woman, condemned, was sacrificed to the favor of Quirinius, a consular, immensely rich and childless, who, having dismissed her from marriage after the twentieth year, was accusing her of having once prepared poison against himself; moreover, that the leading men of the Gauls and the Spains and Syria and Greece were confiscated on account of so light and so shameless a kind of calumny, such that to some nothing else was objected than that they held part of their family property in cash; that to very many cities and private persons ancient immunities and the right over mines and revenues were taken away; and even that Vonones, king of the Parthians, who, driven from his own people, had withdrawn to Antioch with an immense treasure, as if into the good faith of the Roman People, was despoiled by perfidy and killed.

[50] Odium adversus necessitudines in Druso primum fratre detexit, prodita eius epistula, qua secum de cogendo ad restituendam libertatem Augusto agebat, deinde et in reliquis. Iuliae uxori tantum afuit ut relegatae, quod minimum est, offici aut humanitatis aliquid impertiret, ut ex constitutione patris uno oppido clausam domo quoque egredi et commercio hominum frui vetuerit; sed et peculio concesso a patre praebitisque annuis fraudavit, per speciem publici iuris, quod nihil de his Augustus testamento cavisset. Matrem Liviam grauatus velut partes sibi aequas potentiae vindicantem, et congressum eius assiduum vitavit et longiores secretioresque sermones, ne consiliis, quibus tamen interdum et egere et uti solebat, regi videretur.

[50] He first laid bare his hatred toward his kin in Drusus, his brother, when a letter of his was betrayed, in which he was dealing with him about compelling Augustus to restore liberty, and then in respect to the rest as well. To his wife Julia he was so far from bestowing upon the relegated woman—which is the least—any office or humanity, that, on the constitution of her father, he forbade her, shut up in a single town, to go forth even from the house or to enjoy the commerce of men; but he also defrauded her of the peculium granted by her father and the annual allowances furnished, under the appearance of public law, on the ground that Augustus had provided nothing about these in his will. Offended at his mother Livia, as though claiming for herself a share equal to his in power, he avoided both her constant access and longer and more secret conversations, lest he should seem to be ruled by her counsels, which, however, he was wont at times both to need and to use.

Tulit etiam perindigne actum in senatu, ut titulis suis quasi Augusti, ita et "Liviae filius" adiceretur. Quare non "parentem patriae" appellari, non ullum insignem honorem recipere publice passus est; sed et frequenter admonuit, maioribus nec feminae convenientibus negotiis abstineret, praecipue ut animadvertit incendio iuxta aedem Vestae et ipsam intervenisse populumque et milites, quo enixius opem ferrent, adhortatam, sicut sub marito solita esset.

He also took it very indignantly that it was acted in the senate that to his titles,
as to those of Augustus, there should be added also "son of Livia." Wherefore he did not allow himself to be called "parent of the fatherland,"
nor to receive any distinguished honor publicly; but he also frequently admonished her to abstain from greater affairs not suitable to a woman,
especially when he noticed that, at a fire near the temple of Vesta, she herself had intervened
and had urged the people and the soldiers, so that they might bring aid more strenuously, just as she had been accustomed under her husband.

[51] Dehinc ad simultatem usque processit hac, ut ferunt, de causa. Instanti saepius, ut civitate donatum in decurias adlegeret, negavit alia se condicione adlecturum, quam si pateretur ascribi albo extortum id sibi a matre. At illa commota veteres quosdam ad se Augusti codicillos de acerbitate et intolerantia morum eius e sacrario protulit atque recitavit.

[51] Thereafter it advanced even to a feud for this, as they say, cause. As she pressed him again and again to enroll in the decuries a man who had been endowed with citizenship, he declared that he would enroll him on no other condition than if she allowed it to be entered on the album that this had been extorted from him by his mother. But she, stirred, brought out from her sacrarium certain old codicils of Augustus, addressed to her, about the acerbity and intolerance of his character, and read them aloud.

Hos et custoditos tam diu et exprobratos tam infeste adeo graviter tulit, ut quidam putent inter causas secessus hanc ei vel praecipuam fuisse. Toto quidem triennio, quo vivente matre afuit, semel omnino eam nec amplius quam uno die paucissimis vidit horis; ac mox neque aegrae adesse curavit defunctamque et, dum adventus sui spem facit, complurium dierum mora corrupto demum et tabido corpore funeratam prohibuit consecrari, quasi id ipsa mandasset. Testamentum quoque eius pro irrito habuit omnisque amicitias et familiaritates, etiam quibus ea funeris sui curam moriens demandaverat, intra breve tempus afflixit, uno ex iis, equestris ordinis viro, et in antliam condemnato.

These, kept so long under guard and cast in his teeth so aggressively, he took so grievously that some think this was among the causes of his secession, perhaps the chief. Indeed, during the whole three-year period in which, while his mother was alive, he was absent, he saw her only once, and for no more than a single day, for very few hours; and soon he did not take care to be present to her when ill, and, when she was dead, while he held out hope of his arrival, by a delay of several days—her body at last corrupted and putrid after the funeral—he forbade her to be consecrated, as if she herself had so directed. He also held her testament as null, and within a short time crushed all her friendships and familiarities, even those to whom, as she was dying, she had entrusted the care of her funeral, one of them, a man of the equestrian order, even being condemned to the pump.

[52] Filiorum neque naturalem Drusum neque adoptivum Germanicum patria caritate dilexit, alterius vitiis infensus. Nam Drusus fluxioris remissiorisque vitae erat. Itaque ne mortuo quidem perinde adfectus est, sed tantum non statim a funere ad negotiorum consuetudinem rediit iustitio longiore inhibito.

[52] Of his sons he loved neither his natural son Drusus nor his adopted son Germanicus with a father’s affection, being hostile on account of the latter’s vices. For Drusus was of a more wanton and more remiss way of life. And so he was not particularly affected even when he died, but all but straight from the funeral he returned to his customary business, a longer iustitium being checked.

Quin et Iliensium legatis paulo serius consolantibus, quasi obliterata iam doloris memoria, irridens se quoque respondit vicem eorum dolere, quod egregium civem Hectorem amisissent. Germanico usque adeo obtrectavit, ut et praeclara facta eius pro supervacuis elevarit et gloriosissimas victorias ceu damnosas rei p. increparet. Quod vero Alexandream propter immensam et repentinam famem inconsulto se adisset, questus est in senatu.

Moreover, when the envoys of the Ilians, offering condolences a little too late, as if the memory of his grief were already obliterated, he, mocking, replied that he too in his turn was grieving for them, because they had lost an excellent citizen, Hector. He disparaged Germanicus to such a degree that he both made light of his illustrious deeds as superfluous and rebuked his most glorious victories as if damaging to the republic. And as to the fact that he had gone to Alexandria, on account of the immense and sudden famine, without consulting him, he lodged a complaint in the senate.

Etiam causa mortis fuisse ei per Cn. Pisonem legatum Syriae creditur, quem mox huius criminis reum putant quidam mandata prolaturum, nisi ea secreto ostentant [ . . . . . . ] quae multifariam inscriptum et per noctes celeberrime adclamatum est: "Redde Germanicum!" Quam suspicionem confirmavit ipse postea coniuge etiam ac liberis Germanici crudelem in modum afflictis.

It is even believed that the cause of his death was brought about through Cn. Piso, the legate of Syria, whom some think would soon have been arraigned on this charge and would have produced written orders, unless these were shown in secret [ . . . . . . ] which was written up in many places and most loudly acclaimed by night: "Give back Germanicus!" This suspicion he himself later confirmed, by cruelly afflicting even the wife and the children of Germanicus.

[53] Nurum Agrippinam post mariti mortem liberius quiddam questam manu apprehendit Graecoque versu: "Si non dominaris," inquit, "filiola, iniuriam te accipere existimas?" Nec ullo mox sermone dignatus est. Quondam vero inter cenam porrecta a se poma gustare non ausam etiam vocare desiit, simulans veneni se crimine accersi; cum praestructum utrumque consulto esset, ut et ipse temptandi gratia offerret et illa quasi certissimum exitium caveret. Novissime calumniatus modo ad statuam Augusti modo ad exercitus confugere velle, Pandatariam relegavit conviciantique oculum per centurionem verberibus excussit.

[53] His daughter-in-law Agrippina, after her husband’s death having complained somewhat too freely,
he seized by the hand and, in a Greek verse, said: “If you do not rule, little girl, do you suppose you are receiving an injury?” Nor did he soon deign her any conversation. But once,
at dinner, when she did not dare to taste fruit proffered by himself, he even ceased to invite her, pretending that he was being summoned on a charge of poison; whereas both sides had been prearranged on purpose, so that both he might offer for the sake of testing, and she might avoid it as though a most certain destruction. Finally,
after slanderously alleging that she wished to flee for refuge now to the statue of Augustus, now to the armies,
he banished her to Pandataria, and when she railed, he had her eye knocked out by a centurion with blows.

Rursus mori inedia destinanti per vim ore diducto infulciri cibum iussit. Sed et perseverantem atque ita absumptam criminosissime insectatus, cum diem quoque natalem eius inter nefastos referendum suasisset, imputavit etiam, quod non laqueo strangulatam in Gemonias abiecerit: proque tali clementia interponi decretum passus est, quo sibi gratiae agerentur et Capitolino Iovi donum ex auro sacraretur.

Again, when she had resolved to die by starvation, he ordered food to be forced in, her mouth pried open by violence. But even as she persisted and was thus wasted away, he most criminally hounded her; and when he had even proposed that her birthday be counted among inauspicious days, he further claimed as a grievance that he had not, after strangling her with a noose, cast her upon the Gemonian steps: and for such clemency he allowed a decree to be entered, by which thanks should be rendered to himself and a gift of gold should be consecrated to Capitoline Jupiter.

[54] Cum ex Germanico tres nepotes, Neronem et Drusum et Gaium, ex Druso unum Tiberium haberet, destitutus morte liberorum maximos natu de Germanici filiis, Neronem et Drusum, patribus conscriptis commendavit diemque utriusque tirocinii congiario plebei dato celebravit. Sed ut comperit ineunte anno pro eorum quoque salute publice vota suscepta, egit cum senatu, non debere talia praemia tribui nisi expertis et aetate provectis. Atque ex eo patefacta interiore animi sui nota omnium criminationibus obnoxios reddidit variaque fraude inductos, ut et concitarentur ad convicia et concitati proderentur, accusavit per litteras amarissime congestis etiam probris et iudicatos hostis fame necavit, Neronem in insula Pontia, Drusum in ima parte Palatii.

[54] Since from Germanicus he had three grandsons—Nero, Drusus, and Gaius—and from Drusus one, Tiberius, bereft by the death of his children he commended to the senators the eldest by birth of Germanicus’s sons, Nero and Drusus, and he celebrated the day of each one’s coming-of-age (tyrocinium) with a congiary given to the plebs. But when he learned that at the beginning of the year vows too had been publicly undertaken for their safety, he dealt with the senate that such prizes ought not to be bestowed except on men tested and advanced in age. And from that point, with the inner mark of his mind laid bare, he rendered them liable to everyone’s accusations, and, drawn on by various fraud so that they were both provoked to revile and, once provoked, were betrayed, he accused them by letter most bitterly, heaping on reproaches as well, and, once judged as enemies, he killed them by starvation—Nero on the island of Pontia, Drusus in the deepest part of the Palatine.

Putant Neronem ad voluntariam mortem coactum, cum ei carnifex quasi ex senatus auctoritate missus laqueos et uncos ostentaret, Druso autem adeo alimenta subducta, ut tomentum e culcita temptaverit mandere; amborum sic reliquias dispersas, ut vix quandoque colligi possent.

They think that Nero was driven to a voluntary death, when an executioner, as if sent by the authority of the senate, displayed to him nooses and hooks; but that for Drusus food was withdrawn to such a degree that he tried to chew the stuffing from a mattress; and that the remains of both were thus scattered, so that they could scarcely ever be collected.

[55] Super veteres amicos ac familiares viginti sibi e numero principum civitatis depoposcerat velut consiliarios in negotiis publicis. Horum omnium vix duos anne tres incolumis praestitit, ceteros alium alia de causa perculit, inter quos cum plurimorum clade Aelium Seianum; quem ad summam potentiam non tam benivolentia provexerat, quam ut esset cuius ministerio ac fraudibus liberos Germanici circumveniret, nepotemque suum ex Druso filio naturalem ad successionem imperii confirmaret.

[55] In addition to his old friends and familiars he had requisitioned twenty for himself from the number of the leading men of the state, as if counselors in public affairs. Of all these he scarcely kept two or three unharmed, the rest he struck down, each for a different cause, among whom, with the ruin of very many, Aelius Sejanus; whom he had advanced to the highest power not so much out of benevolence as in order that there might be someone by whose ministry and frauds he might circumvent the children of Germanicus, and might confirm for the succession of the empire his own natural grandson from his son Drusus.

[56] Nihilo lenior in convictores Graeculos, quibus vel maxime adquiescebat, Xenonem quendam exquisitius sermocinantem cum interrogasset, quaenam illa tam molesta dialectos esset, et ille respondisset Doridem, relegavit Cinariam, existimans exprobratum sibi veterem secessum, quod Dorice Rhodii loquantur. Item cum soleret ex lectione cotidiana quaestiones super cenam proponere comperissetque Seleucum grammaticum a ministris suis perquirere, quos quoque tempore tractaret auctores, atque ita praeparatum venire, primum a contubernio removit, deinde etiam ad mortem compulit.

[56] In no way gentler toward his Greekling table-companions, with whom he most of all used to take his ease, when he had asked a certain Xenon, who was discoursing too exquisitely, what dialect that so troublesome one was, and he replied “Doric,” he banished him to Cinarus, thinking his old retirement was being thrown in his teeth, because the Rhodians speak Doric. Likewise, since he used to propose questions over dinner from his daily reading, and had found out that Seleucus the grammarian inquired from his attendants which authors he was handling at each time, and so came prepared, he first removed him from his close companionship, and then even drove him to death.

[57] Saeva ac lenta natura ne in puero quidem latuit; quam Theodorus Gadareus rhetoricae praeceptor et perspexisse primus sagaciter et assimilasse aptissime visus est, subinde in obiurgando appellans πηλὸν αἵματι πεφυραμένον, id est lutum a sanguine maceratum. Sed aliquanto magis in principe eluxit, etiam inter initia cum adhuc favorem hominum moderationis simulatione captaret. Scurram, qui praetereunte funere clare mortuo mandarat, ut nuntiaret Augusto nondum reddi legata quae plebei reliquisset, adtractum ad se recipere debitum ducique ad supplicium imperavit et patri suo verum referre.

[57] His savage and slow-to-relent nature did not lie hidden even in boyhood; Theodorus of Gadara, his teacher of rhetoric, seemed the first sagaciously to have perceived it and most aptly to have likened it, repeatedly in rebuking calling him πηλὸν αἵματι πεφυραμένον, that is, mud macerated with blood. But it shone forth rather more in him as princeps, even at the outset, when he was still trying to capture men’s favor by a simulation of moderation. A buffoon who, as a funeral was passing by, had loudly charged the dead to report to Augustus that the legacies he had left to the plebs were not yet being paid out—him, when dragged before him, he ordered to get his due and to be led off to execution, and to report the truth to his father.

Nec multo post in senatu Pompeio cuidam equiti R. quiddam perneganti, dum vincula minatur, affirmavit fore ut ex Pompeio Pompeianus fieret, acerba cavillatione simul hominis nomen incessens veteremque partium fortunam.

Not much
later, in the senate, to a certain Pompeius, a Roman knight, who was denying something, while he threatened chains, he affirmed that it would come to pass that from Pompeius he would become “Pompeianus,” with a bitter cavillation at once assailing the man’s name and the old fortune of the party.

[58] Sub idem tempus consulente praetore an iudicia maiestatis cogi iuberet, exercendas esse leges respondit et atrocissime exercuit. Statuae quidam Augusti caput dempserat, ut alterius imponeret; acta res in senatu et, quia ambigebatur, per tormenta quaesita est. Damnato reo paulatim genus calumniae eo processit, ut haec quoque capitalia essent: circa Augusti simulacrum servum cecidisse, vestimenta mutasse, nummo vel anulo effigiem impressam latrinae aut lupanari intulisse, dictum ullum factumve eius existimatione aliqua laesisse.

[58] About the same time, when the praetor consulted whether he should order trials of treason (maiestas) to be convened, he replied that the laws were to be enforced, and he enforced them most atrociously. A certain man had removed the head of a statue of Augustus, to set that of another upon it; the matter was brought before the senate and, because it was in doubt, it was investigated by means of torture. With the defendant condemned, gradually the kind of calumny advanced to this point, that these too were capital: to have killed a slave near the simulacrum of Augustus, to have changed one’s garments, to have brought into a latrine or a brothel a coin or a ring with his effigy impressed, to have injured by any word or deed his estimation in any respect.

Perit denique et is, qui honorem in colonia sua eodem die decerni sibi passus est, quo decreti et Augusto olim erant.

And in the end, he too perished—the one who allowed an honor in his own colony to be decreed to himself on the same day on which a decree had once been passed for Augustus as well.

[59] Multa praeterea specie gravitatis ac morum corrigendorum, sed et magis naturae optemperans, ita saeve et atrociter factitavit, ut nonnulli versiculis quoque et praesentia exprobrarent et futura denuntiarent mala:

[59] Many things moreover under the guise of gravity and of morals to be corrected, but even more obeying his nature, he kept doing so savagely and atrociously that some, with little verses too, reproached the present and denounced the future evils:

Asper et immitis, breviter vis omnia dicam?
dispeream, si te mater amare potest.
Non es eques; quare?

Harsh and unkind, do you wish me to say everything briefly?
may I perish, if your mother can love you.
You are not an equestrian; why?

non sunt tibi milia centum;
    omnia si quaeras, et Rhodus exilium est.
Aurea mutasti Saturni saecula, Caesar:
    incolumi nam et ferrea semper erunt.
Fastidit vinum, quia iam sitit iste cruorem:
    tam bibit hunc avide, quam bibit ante merum.

you do not have a hundred thousand;
    if you consider everything, even Rhodes is an exile.
You have changed the Golden Ages of Saturn, Caesar:
    for while you remain unharmed, even iron ones will always be.
He spurns wine, because now that fellow thirsts for blood:
    he drinks this as greedily as he used to drink neat wine.

Aspice felicem sibi, non tibi, Romule, Sullam
    et Marium, si vis, aspice, sed reducem,
Nec non Antoni civilia bella moventis
    non semel infectas aspice caede manus,
Et dic: Roma perit! regnavit sanguine multo,
    ad regnum quisquis venit ab exilio.

Look upon Sulla, fortunate for himself, not for you, Romulus,
    and Marius, if you wish, look—yet as one returned;
And do not fail to look on Antony, setting civil wars in motion,
    his hands more than once stained with slaughter,
And say: Rome perishes! With much blood has he reigned,
    whoever has come to a kingdom from exile.

Quae primo, quasi ab impatientibus remedi[or]um ac non tam ex animi sententia quam bile et stomacho fingerentur, volebat accipi dicebatque identidem: "Oderint, dum probent." Dein vera plane certaque esse ipse fecit fidem.

The things which at first he wanted to be received as if contrived by people impatient of remedies and fashioned not so much from the judgment of the mind as from gall and spleen, he kept saying again and again: "Let them hate, so long as they approve." Then he himself made it credible that they were plainly true and certain.

[60] In paucis diebus quam Capreas attigit piscatori, qui sibi secretum agenti grandem mullum inopinanter obtulerat, perfricari eodem pisce faciem iussit, territus quod is a tergo insulae per aspera et devia erepsisset ad se; gratulanti autem inter poenam, quod non et lucustam, quam praegrandem ceperat, obtulisset, lucusta quoque lacerari os imperavit. Militem praetorianum ob subreptum e viridiario pavonem capite puniit. In quodam itinere lectica, qua vehebatur, vepribus impedita exploratorem viae, primarum cohortium centurionem, stratum humi paene ad necem verberavit.

[60] Within a few days after he reached Capreae, he ordered the fisherman—who, while he was keeping seclusion, had unexpectedly offered him a large mullet—to have his face rubbed with the same fish, alarmed because the man had crept to him from the back of the island through rough and trackless places; and when, while under punishment, he congratulated himself that he had not also offered the lobster, which he had caught of extraordinary size, he ordered his face to be torn by the lobster as well. He punished a praetorian soldier by beheading for a peacock stolen from the pleasure-garden. On a certain journey, when the litter in which he was being carried was hindered by brambles, he beat the scout of the road, a centurion of the first cohorts, laid out on the ground, nearly to death.

[61] Mox in omne genus crudelitatis erupit numquam deficiente materia, cum primo matris, deinde nepotum et nurus, postremo Seiani familiares atque etiam notos persequeretur; post cuius interitum vel saevissimus extitit. Quo maxime apparuit, non tam ipsum ab Seiano concitari solitum, quam Seianum quaerenti occasiones sumministrasse; etsi commentario, quem de vita sua summatim breviterque composuit, ausus est scribere Seianum se punisse, quod comperisset furere adversus liberos Germanici filii sui; quorum ipse alterum suspecto iam, alterum oppresso demum Seiano interemit.

[61] Soon he burst out into every kind of cruelty, with material never failing, since at first he persecuted his mother’s, then his grandsons’ and daughter-in-law’s, and at last Sejanus’s intimates and even acquaintances; after whose death he was at his most savage. By this it most clearly appeared that he himself was not so much wont to be incited by Sejanus as that Sejanus supplied opportunities to one seeking them; although in a commentary, which he composed about his own life summarily and briefly, he dared to write that he punished Sejanus because he had discovered him raving against the children of Germanicus, his son; of whom he himself did away with the one when already under suspicion, the other only after Sejanus had been crushed.

Singillatim crudeliter facta eius exequi longum est; genera, velut exemplaria saevitiae, enumerare sat erit. Nullus a poena hominum cessavit dies, ne religiosus quidem ac sacer; animadversum in quosdam ineunte anno novo. Accusati damnatique multi cum liberis atque etiam a liberis suis.

It is too long to pursue one by one his cruel deeds; to enumerate the kinds, as exemplars of savagery, will suffice.
No day ceased from the punishment of men, not even a religious and sacred one; animadversion was taken upon certain persons at the opening of the New Year.
Many were accused and condemned with their children, and even by their own children.

Interdictum ne capite damnatos propinqui lugerent. Decreta accusatoribus praecipua praemia, nonnumquam et testibus. Nemini delatorum fides abrogata.

A prohibition was issued that relatives should not mourn those condemned to death.
Exceptional rewards were decreed for accusers, sometimes even for witnesses.
The credibility of none of the informers was abrogated.

Omne crimen pro capitali receptum, etiam paucorum simpliciumque verborum. Obiectum est poetae, quod in tragoedia Agamemnonem probris lacessisset; obiectum et historico, quod Brutum Cassiumque ultimos Romanorum dixisset; animadversum statim in auctores scriptaque abolita, quamvis probarentur ante aliquot annos etiam Augusto audiente recitata. Quibusdam custodiae traditis non modo studendi solacium ademptum, sed etiam sermonis et conloqui usus.

Every crime was received as capital, even those of a few and simple words. It was alleged against a poet that in a tragedy he had provoked Agamemnon with reproaches; it was alleged also against a historian that he had called Brutus and Cassius the last of the Romans; punishment was at once inflicted upon the authors and their writings abolished, although they had been approved and, some years before, even recited with Augustus listening. To some who were handed over to custody not only the solace of studying was taken away, but even the use of speech and of colloquy.

Citati ad causam dicendam partim se domi vulneraverunt certi damnationis et ad vexationem ignominiamque vitandam, partim in media curia venenum hauserunt; et tamen conligatis vulneribus ac semianimes palpitantesque adhuc in carcerem rapti. Nemo punitorum non in Gemonias abiectus uncoque tractus, viginti uno die abiecti tractique, inter eos feminae et pueri. Immaturae puellae, quia more tradito nefas esset virgines strangulari, vitiatae prius a carnifice, dein strangulatae.

Summoned to plead their case, some wounded themselves at home, certain of condemnation and to avoid vexation and ignominy; some, in the very midst of the curia, drained poison; and yet, their wounds bound up and half-alive, still palpitating, they were hauled off into prison. Not one of the punished was not cast down upon the Gemonian steps and dragged with a hook—twenty in one day were cast down and dragged, among them women and boys. Underage girls, because by received custom it was nefas that virgins be strangled, were first violated by the executioner, then strangled.

Mori volentibus vis adhibita vivendi. Nam mortem adeo leve supplicium putabat, ut cum audisset unum e reis, Carnulum nomine, anticipasse eam, exclamaverit: "Carnulus me evasit." Et in recognoscendis custodiis precanti cuidam poenae maturitatem respondit: "Nondum tecum in gratiam redii." Annalibus suis vir consularis inseruit, frequenti quodam convivio, cui et ipse affuerit, interrogatum eum subito et clare a quodam nano astante mensae inter copreas, cur Paconius maiestatis reus tam diu viveret, statim quidem petulantiam linguae obiurgasse, ceterum post paucos dies scripsisse senatui, ut de poena Paconi quam primum statueret.

Force to live was applied to those willing to die. For he considered death so light a punishment that, when he heard that one of the accused, by the name of Carnulus, had anticipated it, he exclaimed: "Carnulus has escaped me." And in reviewing the prisons, to a certain man begging for the maturity of his punishment he replied: "I have not yet come back into favor with you." A man of consular rank inserted in his Annals that, at a certain crowded banquet, at which he himself had also been present, he was suddenly and clearly asked by a certain dwarf standing at the table among the scullions why Paconius, a defendant on a charge of majesty (treason), lived so long; that immediately indeed he rebuked the petulance of the tongue, but after a few days wrote to the senate to decide as soon as possible concerning the punishment of Paconius.

[62] Auxit intenditque saevitiam exacerbatus indicio de morte filii sui Drusi. Quem cum morbo et intemperantia perisse existimaret, ut tandem veneno interemptum fraude Livillae uxoris atque Seiani cognovit, neque tormentis neque supplicio cuiusquam pepercit, soli huic cognitioni adeo per totos dies deditus et intentus, ut Rhodiensem hospitem, quem familiaribus litteris Romam evocarat, advenisse sibi nuntiatum torqueri sine mora iusserit, quasi aliquis ex necessariis quaestioni adesset, deinde errore detecto et occidi, ne vulgaret iniuriam. Carnificinae eius ostenditur locus Capreis, unde damnatos post longa et exquisita tormenta praecipitari coram se in mare iubebat, excipiente classiariorum manu et contis atque remis elidente cadavera, ne cui residui spiritus quicquam inesset.

[62] He increased and strained his savagery, exacerbated by the disclosure about the death of his son Drusus. While he supposed that he had perished by disease and intemperance, when at last he learned that he had been done away with by poison through the fraud of Livilla his wife and of Sejanus, he spared neither tortures nor the punishment of anyone, so devoted and intent for whole days upon this inquiry alone that, when it was reported to him that a Rhodian guest, whom he had summoned to Rome by friendly letters, had arrived, he ordered him to be tortured without delay, as though he were one of the intimates required to be present at an investigation; then, when the mistake was discovered, he even ordered him to be killed, lest he broadcast the injury. The place of his shambles is pointed out at Capri, whence he used to order the condemned, after long and exquisite torments, to be hurled headlong into the sea before his eyes, the hands of the marines catching them and with poles and oars crushing the corpses, so that no remnant of breath might inhere in anyone.

Excogitaverat autem inter genera cruciatus etiam, ut larga meri potione per fallaciam oneratos, repente veretris deligatis, fidicularum simul urinaeque tormento distenderet. Quod nisi eum et mors praevenisset et Thrasyllus consulto, ut aiunt, differre quaedam spe longioris vitae compulisset, plures aliquanto necaturus ac ne reliquis quidem nepotibus parsurus creditur, cum et Gaium suspectum haberet et Tiberium ut ex adulterio conceptum aspernaretur. Nec abhorret a vero; namque identidem felicem Priamum vocabat, quod superstes omnium suorum extitisset.

Moreover, he had devised among the kinds of torment even this: that, after loading them by deception with a copious draught of unmixed wine, he would suddenly, with their genitals tied, stretch them by the torment simultaneously of the fidiculae and of urine. And had not both death anticipated him and Thrasyllus by counsel, as they say, compelled him to defer certain things in the hope of a longer life, he would have been about to kill many more by far, and is believed not even to have spared the remaining grandsons, since he both held Gaius in suspicion and rejected Tiberius as conceived from adultery. Nor does this shrink from the truth; for again and again he called Priam “blessed,” because he had survived all his own.

[63] Quam inter haec non modo invisus ac detestabilis, sed praetrepidus quoque atque etiam contumeliis obnoxius vixerit, multa indicia sunt. Haruspices secreto ac sine testibus consuli vetuit. Vicina vero urbi oracula etiam dis[s]icere conatus est, sed maiestate Praenestinarum sortium territus destitit, cum obsignatas devectasque Romam non repperisset in arca nisi relata rursus ad templum.

[63] That in the midst of these things he lived not only hated and detestable, but over-fearful as well and even subject to contumely, there are many indications. He forbade the haruspices to be consulted in secret and without witnesses. He even tried to demolish the oracles near the city; but, terrified by the majesty of the Praenestine lots, he desisted, when he did not find them in the coffer—though sealed and conveyed to Rome—except after they had been carried back again to the temple.

Unum et alterum consulares oblatis provinciis non ausus a se dimittere usque eo detinuit, donec successores post aliquot annos praesentibus daret, cum interim manente officii titulo etiam delegaret plurima assidue, quae illi per legatos et adiutores suos exequenda curarent.

One and another of consular rank, with provinces offered, he did not dare to let depart from his side, but held them back until, after several years, he would appoint successors in their presence; meanwhile, with the title of the office remaining, he also continually delegated very many matters, which they took care to have executed through their legates and adjutors.

[64] Nurum ac nepotes numquam aliter post damnationem quam catenatos obsutaque lectica loco movit, prohibitis per militem obviis ac viatoribus respicere usquam vel consistere.

[64] His daughter-in-law and grandchildren he never moved from their place after the condemnation otherwise than in chains and in a sewn-up litter, with passers-by and wayfarers forbidden by the soldiery to look back anywhere or to halt.

[65] Seianum res novas molientem, quamvis iam et natalem eius publice celebrari et imagines aureas coli passim videret, vix tandem et astu magis ac dolo quam principali auctoritate subvertit. Nam primo, ut a se per speciem honoris dimitteret, collegam sibi assumpsit in quinto consulatu, quem longo intervallo absens ob id ipsum susceperat. Deinde spe affinitatis ac tribuniciae potestatis deceptum inopinantem criminatus est pudenda miserandaque oratione, cum inter alia patres conscriptos precaretur, mitterent alterum e consulibus, qui se senem et solum in conspectum eorum cum aliquo militari praesidio perduceret.

[65] Sejanus, contriving revolutionary changes, although he now saw that even his birthday was being publicly celebrated and golden images of him were being venerated everywhere, he at last with difficulty overthrew—and more by craft and guile than by imperial authority. For at first, that he might dismiss him from himself under the appearance of honor, he took a colleague to himself in his fifth consulship, which, after a long interval and while being absent, he had assumed for that very purpose. Then he accused him—deceived by the hope of affinity by marriage and of tribunician power and off his guard—with a shameful and pitiable oration, in which, among other things, he entreated the Conscript Fathers to send one of the consuls, to conduct him, an old man and alone, into their presence with some military escort.

Sic quoque diffidens tumultumque metuens Drusum nepotem, quem vinculis adhuc Romae continebat, solvi, si res posceret, ducemque constitui praeceperat. Aptatis etiam navibus ad quascumque legiones meditabatur fugam, speculabundus ex altissima rupe identidem signa, quae, ne nuntii morarentur, tolli procul, ut quidque factum foret, mandaverat. Verum et oppressa coniuratione Seiani nihilo securior aut constantior per novem proximos menses non egressus est villa, quae vocatur Ionis.

Thus also distrustful and fearing tumult, he had ordered that Drusus his grandson, whom he was still keeping at Rome in chains, be released, if the situation should require it, and be constituted leader. With ships too made ready for flight to whatever legions, he was meditating escape, keeping watch from a very high cliff for the signals which, so that messengers might not be delayed, he had ordered to be raised in the distance as each thing was done. But even with Sejanus’s conspiracy crushed, he was by no means more secure or more constant, and for the next nine months he did not go out of the villa which is called Ionis.

[66] Urebant insuper anxiam mentem varia undique convicia, nullo non damnatorum omne probri genus coram vel per libellos in orchestra positos ingerente. Quibus quidem diversissime adficiebatur, modo ut prae pudore ignota et celata cuncta cuperet, nonnumquam eadem contemneret et proferret ultro atque vulgaret. Quin et Artabani Parthorum regis laceratus est litteris parricidia et caedes et ignaviam et luxuriam obicientis monentisque, ut voluntaria morte maximo iustissimoque civium odio quam primum satis faceret.

[66] In addition, various revilings from every side burned his anxious mind, with none of the condemned failing to thrust upon him every kind of reproach, either to his face or by libels set up in the orchestra set up, heaping them upon him. By these, indeed, he was affected in the most diverse ways, at one time, for sheer shame, he would wish everything to be unknown and concealed; sometimes he would despise the same and bring them forth of his own accord and broadcast them. Nay even he was lacerated by the letters of Artabanus, king of the Parthians, charging him with parricides and slaughters and cowardice and luxury, and advising that by a voluntary death he should as soon as possible make satisfaction to the greatest and most righteous hatred of the citizens.

[67] Postremo semet ipse pertaesus, tali epistulae principio tantum non summam malorum suorum professus est: "Quid scribam vobis, p. c., aut quo modo scribam, aut quid omnino non scribam hoc tempore, dii me deaeque peius perdant quam cotidie perire sentio, si scio."

[67] At last, thoroughly wearied of himself, with such a beginning of a letter he all but professed the sum of his misfortunes: "What am I to write to you, Conscript Fathers, or in what manner am I to write, or what, at all, am I not to write at this time—may the gods and goddesses destroy me worse than I feel myself perishing day by day, if I know."

Existimant quidam praescisse haec eum peritia futurorum ac multo ante, quanta se quandoque acerbitas et infamia maneret, prospexisse; ideoque, ut imperium inierit, et patris patriae appellationem et ne in acta sua iuraretur obstinatissime recusasse, ne mox maiore dedecore impar tantis honoribus inveniretur. Quod sane ex oratione eius, quam de utraque re habuit, colligi potest; vel cum ait: similem se semper sui futurum nec umquam mutaturum mores suos, quam diu sanae mentis fuisset; sed exempli causa cavendum esse, ne se senatus in acta cuiusquam obligaret, quia aliquo casu mutari posset. Et rursus:

Some think that he foresaw these things by a skill in futurities and, long before, looked ahead to how great a bitterness and infamy would someday await him; and therefore, as soon as he entered upon the imperial power, he most stubbornly refused both the appellation “father of the fatherland” and that an oath be sworn to his acts, lest he should soon, with greater disgrace, be found unequal to such great honors. Which indeed can be gathered from the speech which he delivered about each matter; for instance, when he said: that he would always be like himself and would never change his habits, so long as he was of sound mind; but that, for the sake of example, care should be taken that the senate not oblige itself to the acts of any man, because by some chance he might be changed. And again:

"Si quando autem," inquit, "de moribus meis devotoque vobis animo dubitaveritis, – quod prius quam eveniat, opto ut me supremus dies huic mutatae vestrae de me opinioni eripiat – nihil honoris adiciet mihi patria appellatio, vobis autem exprobrabit aut temeritatem delati mihi eius cognominis aut inconstantiam contrarii de me iudicii."

"If ever, however," he said, "you should doubt my morals and my spirit devoted to you, – which, before it should come to pass, I wish that my last day may snatch me from this your changed opinion about me – the appellation 'Father of the Fatherland' will add no honor to me, but will reproach you either with the rashness of having conferred that cognomen upon me or with the inconstancy of a contrary judgment about me."

[68] Corpore fuit amplo atque robusto, statura quae iustam excederet; latus ab umeris et pectore, ceteris quoque membris usque ad imos pedes aequalis et congruens; sinistra manu agiliore ac validiore, articulis ita firmis, ut recens et integrum malum digito terebraret, caput pueri vel etiam adulescentis talitro vulneraret. Colore erat candido, capillo pone occipitium summissiore ut cervicem etiam obtegeret, quod gentile in illo videbatur; facie honesta, in qua tamen crebri et subiti tumores, cum praegrandibus oculis et qui, quod mirum esset, noctu etiam et in tenebris viderent, sed ad breve et cum primum e somno patuissent; deinde rursum hebescebant. Incedebat cervice rigida et obstipa, adducto fere vultu, plerumque tacitus, nullo aut rarissimo etiam cum proximis sermone eoque tardissimo, nec sine molli quadam digitorum gesticulatione.

[68] In body he was ample and robust, with a stature that exceeded the just measure; broad from the shoulders and chest, and in his other limbs down to the very feet equal and congruent; his left hand more agile and stronger, his joints so firm that he would bore a hole in a fresh and intact apple with a finger, and would wound the head of a boy or even a youth with a fillip. His complexion was fair, his hair behind the occiput let down lower so as even to cover the neck, which in him seemed a national trait; a comely face, in which, however, there were frequent and sudden swellings, with very large eyes, and which, what was marvelous, saw at night and even in darkness, but for a short time and as soon as they had opened from sleep; then again they would grow dull. He advanced with neck stiff and askew, his countenance for the most part drawn, generally silent, with no conversation or very rare even with those nearest, and that very slow, nor without a certain soft gesticulation of the fingers.

Quae omnia ingrata atque arrogantiae plena et animadvertit Augustus in eo et excusare temptavit saepe apud senatum ac populum professus naturae vitia esse, non animi. Valitudine prosperrima usus est, tempore quidem principatus paene toto prope inlaesa, quamvis a tricesimo aetatis anno arbitratu eam suo rexerit sine adiumento consiliove medicorum.

Which
all of them displeasing and full of arrogance, Augustus both observed in him and tried to excuse
often before the senate and the people, professing them to be vices of nature, not of the mind. He enjoyed the most prosperous health, indeed during almost the whole time of his principate nearly
unimpaired, although from the thirtieth year of his age he governed it by his own judgment without the aid
or counsel of physicians.

[69] Circa deos ac religiones neglegentior, quippe addictus mathematicae plenusque persuasionis cuncta fato agi, tonitrua tamen praeter modum expavescebat et turbatiore caelo numquam non coronam lauream capite gestavit, quod fulmine afflari negetur id genus frondis.

[69] About the gods and religions he was rather negligent, since he was addicted to mathematics (astrology) and full of the persuasion that everything is driven by fate; yet he was terrified of thunderclaps beyond measure, and with the sky more disturbed he never failed to wear a laurel crown upon his head, because that kind of foliage is said not to be blasted by lightning.

[70] Artes liberales utriusque generis studiosissime coluit. In oratione Latina secutus est Corvinum Messalam, quem senem adulescens observarat. Sed adfectatione et morositate nimia obscurabat stilum, ut aliquanto ex tempore quam a cura praestantior haberetur.

[70] He cultivated the liberal arts of both kinds most studiously. In Latin oration he followed Corvinus Messalla, whom, when a youth, he had observed as an old man. But by excessive affectation and over-fastidiousness he obscured his style, so that he was considered somewhat more excellent ex tempore than by careful elaboration.

Composuit et carmen lyricum, cuius est titulus "Conquestio de morte L. Caesaris." Fecit et Graeca poemata imitatus Euphorionem et Rhianum et Parthenium, quibus poetis admodum delectatus scripta omnium et imagines publicis bibliothecis inter veteres et praecipuos auctores dedicavit; et ob hoc plerique eruditorum certatim ad eum multa de his ediderunt. Maxime tamen curavit notitiam historiae fabularis usque ad ineptias atque derisum; nam et grammaticos, quod genus hominum praecipue, ut diximus, appetebat, eius modi fere quaestionibus experiebatur: "Quae mater Hecubae, quod Achilli nomen inter virgines fuisset, quid Sirenes cantare sint solitae." Et quo primum die post excessum Augusti curiam intravit, quasi pietati simul ac religioni satis facturus Minonis exemplo ture quidem ac vino verum sine tibicine supplicavit, ut ille olim in morte filii.

He also composed a lyric song, whose title is “Lamentation for the Death of Lucius Caesar.” He made Greek poems as well, imitating Euphorion and Rhianus and Parthenius; and being greatly delighted by these poets, he dedicated the writings of them all and their portraits in the public libraries among the ancient and foremost authors; and on account of this many of the learned vied to publish many things about them for him. Yet he was most devoted to knowledge of mythological history, even to the point of silliness and derision; for he courted grammarians—this class of men especially, as we have said—and would test them with questions generally of this sort: “Who was Hecuba’s mother? what name Achilles had among the maidens? what the Sirens were accustomed to sing?” And on the very first day after the passing of Augustus that he entered the Curia, as if to render satisfaction both to pietas and to religion, following the example of Minos he made a supplication with incense and wine indeed, but without a flute-player, as that man once did at the death of his son.

[71] Sermone Graeco quamquam alioqui promptus et facilis, non tamen usque quaque usus est abstinuitque maxime in senatu; adeo quidem, ut monopolium nominaturus veniam prius postularet, quod sibi verbo peregrino utendum esset. Atque etiam cum in quodam decreto patrum ἔμβλημα recitaretur, commutandam censuit vocem et pro peregrina nostratem requirendam aut, si non reperiretur, vel pluribus et per ambitum verborum rem enuntiandam. Militem quoque Graece testimonium interrogatum nisi Latine respondere vetuit.

[71] In Greek speech, although otherwise prompt and facile, he did not, however, use it everywhere and abstained from it especially in the senate; to such a degree that, when he was about to name a monopoly, he first asked leave, because he would have to use a foreign word. And even when in a certain decree of the senators the word emblem was read, he judged the term must be changed and that in place of the foreign a native one should be sought, or, if it could not be found, that the matter should be expressed by more words and by circumlocution. He also forbade a soldier, when examined for testimony in Greek, to answer except in Latin.

[72] Bis omnino toto secessus tempore Romam redire conatus, semel triremi usque ad proximos naumachiae hortos subvectus est disposita statione per ripas Tiberis, quae obviam prodeuntis submoveret, iterum Appia usque ad septimum lapidem; sed prospectis modo nec aditis urbis moenibus rediit, primo incertum qua de causa, postea ostento territus. Erat ei in oblectamentis serpens draco, quem ex consuetudine manu sua cibaturus cum consumptum a formicis invenisset, monitus est ut vim multitudinis caveret. Rediens ergo propere Campaniam Asturae in languorem incidit, quo paulum levatus Cerceios pertendit.

[72] Twice in all during his whole time of seclusion he tried to return to Rome,
once he was carried up by trireme as far as the gardens next to the Naumachia,
a station having been arranged along the banks of the Tiber, which should drive off those coming to meet him; again
by the Appian Way as far as the seventh milestone; but with the walls of the city merely looked upon and not entered
he went back, at first uncertain for what reason, later frightened by a portent. He had among his amusements
a serpent-dragon, which he was accustomed by habit to feed with his own hand; when he found it consumed by ants,
he was warned to beware the force of the multitude. Returning therefore in haste toward Campania, at Astura he fell into an illness,
by which, a little relieved, he made his way to Circeii.

Ac ne quam suspicionem infirmitatis daret, castrensibus ludis non tantum interfuit, sed etiam missum in harenam aprum iaculis desuper petit; statimque latere convulso et, ut exaestuarat, afflatus aura in graviorem recidit morbum. Sustentavit tamen aliquamdiu, quamvis Misenum usque devectus nihil ex ordine cotidiano praetermitteret, ne convivia quidem aut ceteras voluptates partim intemperantia partim dissimulatione. Nam Chariclen medicum, quod commeatu afuturus e convivio egrediens manum sibi osculandi causa apprehendisset, existimans temptatas ab eo venas, remanere ac recumbere hortatus est cenamque protraxit.

And lest he give any suspicion of infirmity, he not only attended the camp shows, but even attacked with javelins from above a boar that had been sent into the arena; and immediately, with his side wrenched and, as he had overheated, struck by a breeze, he relapsed into a more serious illness. Yet he held out for some time, although carried as far as Misenum, omitting nothing of his daily routine, not even banquets or the other pleasures, partly out of intemperance, partly out of dissimulation. For when Charicles the physician, being about to be absent on leave, as he departed from the dinner had taken his hand to kiss, he, thinking that his veins had been felt by him, urged him to remain and recline, and prolonged the meal.

Nec abstinuit consuetudine quin tunc quoque instans in medio triclinio astante lictore singulos valere dicentis appellaret.

Nor did he abstain from his custom, but even then, pressing on in the middle of the triclinium, with the lictor standing by, he addressed each man individually, bidding them “fare well.”

[73] Interim cum in actis senatus legisset dimissos ac ne auditos quidem quosdam reos, de quibus strictim et nihil aliud quam nominatos ab indice scripserat, pro contempto se habitum fremens repetere Capreas quoquo modo destinavit, non temere quicquam nisi ex tuto ausurus. Sed tempestatibus et ingravescente vi morbi retentus paulo post obiit in villa Lucullana octavo et septuagesimo aetatis anno, tertio et vicesimo imperii, XVII. Kal.

[73] Meanwhile, when in the acts of the senate he had read that certain defendants had been dismissed and not even heard, about whom he had written cursorily and nothing other than that they had been named by an informer, grumbling that he had been treated with contempt, he resolved to return to Capri by any means, intending to venture nothing rashly except from a position of safety. But detained by storms and by the increasing force of the illness, shortly thereafter he died in the Lucullan villa, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, in the twenty-third of his rule, 17. Kal.

Ap. Cn. Acerronio Proculo C. Pontio Nigr[in]o conss.

Apr. In the consulship of Gnaeus Acerronius
Proculus and Gaius Pontius Nigr[in]us, consuls.

Sunt qui putent venenum ei a Gaio datum lentum atque tabificum; alii, in remissione fortuitae febris cibum desideranti negatum; nonnulli, pulvinum iniectum, cum extractum sibi deficienti anulum mox resipiscens requisisset. Seneca eum scribit intellecta defectione exemptum anulum quasi alicui traditurum parumper tenuisse, dein rursus aptasse digito et compressa sinistra manu iacuisse diu immobilem; subito vocatis ministris ac nemine respondente consurrexisse nec procul a lectulo deficientibus viribus concidisse.

There are those who think a poison, slow and wasting, was given to him by Gaius; others, that in a remission of a fortuitous fever food was denied him when he desired it; some, that a pillow was thrown over him, when, the ring having been taken off him as he was failing, he soon on coming to asked for it. Seneca writes that, the failure being understood, he took off his ring and held it for a little as though about to hand it to someone, then fitted it again on his finger and, his left hand compressed, lay for a long time motionless; suddenly, the attendants having been called and no one answering, he got up and, his strength failing, fell down not far from the couch.

[74] Supremo natali suo Apollinem Temenitem et amplitudinis et artis eximiae, advectum Syracusis ut in bibliotheca templi novi poneretur, viderat per quietem affirmantem sibi non posse se ab ipso dedicari. Et ante paucos quam obiret dies, turris Phari terrae motu Capreis concidit. Ac Miseni cinis e favilla et carbonibus ad calficiendum triclinium inlatis, extinctus iam et diu frigidus, exarsit repente prima vespera atque in multam noctem pertinaciter luxit.

[74] On his final birthday he had seen in sleep Apollo Temenites, of outstanding magnitude and craftsmanship, brought from Syracuse to be placed in the library of the new temple, declaring to him that he could not be dedicated by him in person. And a few days before he died, the tower of the Pharos collapsed at Capri by an earthquake. And at Misenum, ash from embers and coals brought in for warming the triclinium, already extinguished and long cold, suddenly flared up at early evening and stubbornly shone into much of the night.

[75] Morte eius ita laetatus est populus, ut ad primum nuntium discurrentes pars: "Tiberium in Tiberim!" clamitarent, pars Terram matrem deosque Manes orarent, ne mortuo sedem ullam nisi inter impios darent, alii uncum et Gemonias cadaveri minarentur, exacerbati super memoriam pristinae crudelitatis etiam recenti atrocitate. Nam cum senatus consulto cautum esset, ut poena damnatorum in decimum semper diem differretur, forte accidit ut quorundam supplicii dies is esset, quo nuntiatum de Tiberio erat. Hos implorantis hominum fidem, quia absente adhuc Gaio nemo extabat qui adiri interpellarique posset, custodes, ne quid adversus constitutum facerent, strangulaverunt abieceruntque in Gemonias.

[75] At his death the populace rejoiced to such a degree that, at the first
announcement, as they ran about, some kept shouting: "Tiberius into the Tiber!", others were praying to Mother Earth
and the Manes, the gods of the Dead, not to grant the dead any seat save among the impious; others were threatening the corpse with the hook
and the Gemonian Steps, exasperated over the memory of former cruelty and also by recent atrocity. For when it had been provided by decree of the senate
that the punishment of the condemned should always be deferred to the tenth day, it chanced that the day of execution of certain men was that on which the report about Tiberius had come.
These men, imploring the good faith of their fellows, because with Gaius still absent there was as yet no one who could be approached and appealed to, the guards, lest they do anything against what had been established,
strangled and threw down on the Gemonian Steps.

Crevit igitur invidia, quasi etiam post mortem tyranni saevitia permanente. Corpus ut moveri a Miseno coepit, conclamantibus plerisque Atellam potius deferendum et in amphitheatro semiustilandum, Romam per milites deportatum est crematumque publico funere.

Accordingly resentment increased, as though the savagery of the tyrant persisted even after death. When the body began to be moved from Misenum, while most were shouting that it ought rather to be carried to Atella and half-burned in the amphitheater, it was transported to Rome by soldiers and cremated with a public funeral.

[76] Testamentum duplex ante biennium fecerat, alterum sua, alterum liberti manu, sed eodem exemplo, obsignaveratque etiam humillimorum signis. Eo testamento heredes aequis partibus reliquit Gaium ex Germanico et Tiberium ex Druso nepotes substituitque in vicem; dedit et legata plerisque, inter quos virginibus Vestalibus, sed et militibus universis plebeique Romanae viritim atque etiam separatim vicorum magistris.

[76] He had made a double testament two years before, one in his own hand, the other in his freedman’s hand, but to the same exemplar, and he had sealed it also with the seals of the very humblest. By that testament he left as heirs in equal shares Gaius, a grandson from Germanicus, and Tiberius, a grandson from Drusus, and he substituted them for each other in turn; and he gave legacies to many, among whom to the Vestal virgins, but also to all the soldiers and to the Roman plebs individually and even separately to the magistrates of the districts.