 Caesar Augustus, Part 3 of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Swetonius Tranquilius. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Swetonius Tranquilius, translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forester. Caesar Augustus, Part 3, paragraphs 33 through 50. He was himself assiduous in his functions as a judge, and would sometimes prolong his sittings even into the night. If he were indisposed, his litter was placed before the tribunal, or he administered justice reclining on his couch at home, displaying always not only the greatest detention, but extreme lenity. To save a culprit who evidently appeared guilty of parasite from the extreme penalty of being sewn up in a sack because none were punished in that manner, but such as confess the fact, he is said to have interrogated him thus. Surely you did not kill your father, did you? And when, in a trial of a case about a forged will, all those who had signed it were liable to the penalty of the Cornelian law, he ordered that his colleagues on the tribunal should not only be furnished with the two tablets by which they were decided, guilty or not guilty, but a third likewise, ignoring the offense of those who should appear to have given their signatures through any deception or mistake. All appeals and causes between inhabitants of Rome, he assigned every year to the praetor of the city, and where provincials were concerned to men of consular rank, to one of whom the business of each province was referred. Some laws he abrogated, and he made some new ones, such as the sumptuary law, that relating to adultery and violation of chastity, the law against bribery and elections, and likewise that for the encouragement of marriage. Having been more severe in his reform of this law than the rest, he found the people utterly adverse to submit to it, unless the penalties were abolished or mitigated, besides allowing an interval of three years after a wife's death and increasing the premiums on marriage. The equestrian order clamored loudly at a spectacle in the theater, for its total repeal, whereupon he sent for the children of Germanicus, and showed them, partly sitting upon his own lap and partly on their fathers, imitating by his looks and gestures, that they ought not to think at a grievance to follow the example of that young man. But finding that the force of law was eluded by marrying girls under the age of puberty and by frequent changes of wives, he limited the time for consummation after espousals, and imposed restrictions on divorce. By two separate scrutinies he reduced to their former number and splendor the senate, which had been swamped by a disorderly crowd, for they were now more than a thousand and some of them very mean persons, who, after Caesar's death, had been chosen by dint of interest and bribery, and so they had the nickname of Orchini among the people. The first of these scrutinies was left themselves, each senator naming another, but the last was conducted by himself and a grippa. On this occasion he is believed to have taken his seat, as he presided, with a coat of mail under his tunic and a sword by his side, and with ten of the stoutest men of senatorial rank who were his friends standing round his chair. Cordus Cremutius relates that no senator was suffered to approach him, except singly, and after having his bosom searched for secreted daggers. Some he obliged to have the grace of declining the office. These he allowed to retain the privileges of wearing the distinguishing dress, occupying the seats at the solemn spectacles, and a feasting publicly reserved to the senatorial order. Yet those who were chosen and approved of might perform their functions under more solemn obligations, and with less inconvenience, he ordered that every senator, before he took his seat in the house, should pay his devotions with an offering of frankincense and wine at the altar of that God in whose temple the Senate then assembled, and that their stated meetings should only be twice in the month, namely on the callons and ides, and that in the months of September and October, a certain number only, chosen by lot, such as the law required to give validity to a decree, should be required to attend. For himself he resolved to choose every six months a new council, by whom he might consult previously upon such affairs as he judged proper, and any time to lay before the full Senate. He also took the votes of the senators upon any subject of importance, not according to custom, nor in regular order, but as he pleased, that everyone might hold himself ready to give his opinion rather than a mere vote of assent. He also made several other alterations in the management of public affairs, among which were these following, that the acts of the Senate should not be punished, that the magistrates should not be sent into provinces immediately after the expiration of their office, that the pro-councils should have a certain sum assigned them out of the treasury from mules and tents, which used before to be contracted for by the government with private persons, that the management of the treasury should be transferred from the city-quistors to the praetors, or those who had already served in the latter office, and that the Semvary, who called together the court of the 100, which had been formally summoned by those who had filled the office of Quistor. To augment the number of persons employed in the administration of the state, he devised several new offices, such as surveyors of public buildings, of the roads, the aqueducts, and the bed of the Tiber, for the distribution of corn to the people, the trifecture of the city, a triumvirate for the election of the senators, and another for inspecting the several troops of the equestrian order, as often as it was necessary. He revived the office of censor, which had been long disused, and increased the number of praetors. He likewise required that whenever the consulship was conferred upon him, he should have two colleagues instead of one, but his proposal was rejected, all the senators declaring by acclamation that he abated his High Majesty quite enough and not filling the office alone, and consenting to share it with another. He was unsparing in the reward of military merit, having granted to above thirty generals the honor of the greater triumph, besides which he took care to have triumphal decorations voted by the Senate for more than that number. That the sons of senators might become early acquainted with the administration of affairs, he permitted them at the age when they took the garb of manhood, to assume also the distinction of the senatorian robe with its broad border, and to be present at the debates in the Senate House. When they entered the military service, he not only gave them the rank of military tribunes and legions, but likewise the command of the auxiliary horse, and that all might have the opportunity of acquiring military experience, he commonly joined two sons of senators in command of each troop of horse. He frequently reviewed the troops of the equestrian order, reviving the ancient custom of a cavalcade, which had been long laid aside, but he did not suffer anyone to be obliged by an accuser to dismount while he passed in review, as had formally been the practice. For, such as were infirm with age, or any weight deformed, he allowed them to send their horses before them, coming on foot to answer to their names, when the muster-roll was called over soon afterwards. He permitted those who had attained the age of thirty-five years, and desired not to keep the horse any longer, to have the privilege of giving it up. With the assistance of ten senators, he obliged each of the Roman knights to give an account of his life. In regard to those who fell under his displeasure, some were punished, others had a mark of infamy set against their names. The most part he only reprimanded, but not in the same terms. The mildest mode of reproof was by delivering them tablets, the contents of which, confined to themselves, they were to read on the spot. Some he disgraced for borrowing money at low interest, and letting it out again upon usurious profit. In the election of tribunes of the people, if there were not a sufficient number of senatorian candidates, he nominated others from the equestrian order, granting them the liberty, after the expiration of their office, to continue in whichsoever of the two orders they pleased. As most of the knights had been much reduced in their estates by the civil wars, and therefore durced not sit to see the public games in the theater, and the seats allotted to their order for fear of the penalty provided by the law in that case, he enacted that none reliable to it, who had themselves or their parents had ever possessed a knight's estate. He took the census of the Roman people, street by street, and that the people might not be too taken from their business to receive the distribution of corn. It was his intention to deliver tickets, three times a year, for four months respectively. But at their request, he continued the former regulation that they should receive their share monthly. He revived the former law of elections, endeavoring by various penalties to suppress the practice of bribery. Upon the day of election, he distributed to the Freedmen, the Fabian, and Skaptian tribes, in which he was himself enrolled, a thousand sistercies each, that they might look for nothing from any of the candidates. Considering it of extreme importance to preserve the Roman people pure, and untainted with a mixture of foreign or servile blood, he not only bestowed the freedom of the city with a sparing hand, but laid some restriction upon the practice of manumitting slaves. When Tiberius interceded with him the freedom of Rome, in behalf of a Greek client of his, he wrote to him for answer, I shall not grant it unless he comes himself and satisfies me that he has just grounds for the application. And when Livia begged the freedom of the city for a tributary gall, he refused it, but offered to release him from payment of taxes, saying, I shall sooner suffer some loss in my ex-checker than that the citizenship of Rome be rendered too common. Not content with interposing many obstacles to either the partial or complete emancipation of slaves, by quibbles respecting the number, condition, and difference of those who were to be manumitted, he likewise enacted that none who had been put in chains or tortured should ever obtain the freedom of the city in any degree. He endeavored also to restore the old habit and dress of the Romans, and seeing once, in an assembly of the people, a crowd of gray cloaks, he exclaimed with indignation, see there, Romanus rerum dominus, hechentum crei togatum. Rome's conquered sons, lords of the widespread globe, stalked proudly in the toga's graceful robe. And he gave orders to the ediles not to permit, in future, any Roman to be present in the forum or circus unless they took off their short coats and wore the toga. He displayed his munificence to all the ranks of the people on various occasions. However, upon bringing the treasure belonging to the kings of Egypt into the city, in his Alexandrian triumph, he made money so plentiful that interest fell, and the price of land rose considerably. And afterwards, as often as large sums of money came into his possession, by means of confiscations, he would lend it free of interest, for a fixed term, to such as could give security for the double of what was borrowed. The estate necessary to qualify a senator, instead of 800,000 sistercies, the former standard he ordered for the future to be 1200,000, and those who had not so much, he made good the deficiency. He often made donations to the people, but generally of different sums, sometimes 400, sometimes 300, or 250 sistercies upon which occasions he extended his bounty even to young boys, who before were not used to receive anything, until they arrived at 11 years of age. In a scarcity of corn, he would frequently let them have it at a varied low price, or none at all, and doubled the number of the money tickets. But to show that he was a prince who regarded more the good of his people than their applause, he reprimanded them very severely upon their complaining of the scarcity and dearness of wine. My son-in-law, Agrippa, he said, has sufficiently provided for quenching your thirst by the great plenty of water with which he has supplied the town. Upon their demanding a gift which he had promised them, he said, I am a man of my word. But upon their importuning him, for one which he had not promised, he issued a proclamation abrading them for their scandalous impudence. At the same time telling them, I shall now give you nothing, whatever I may have intended to do. With the same strict firmness, when, upon a promise he had made of a donative, he found many slaves had been emancipated and enrolled among the citizens, he declared that no one should receive anything who was not included in the promise, and he gave the rest less than he had promised them, in order that the amount he had set apart might hold out. On one occasion, in a season of great scarcity, which was difficult to remedy, he ordered out of the city the troops of slaves brought for sale, the gladiators belonging to the masters of defense, and all foreigners accepting physicians and the teachers of the liberal sciences. Part of the domestic slaves were likewise ordered to be dismissed. When, at last, plenty was restored, he writes thus, I was much inclined to abolish, for ever, the practice of allowing the people corn at the public expense, because they trust so much to it, that they are too lazy to till their lands. But I did not persevere in my design, as I felt that the practice would, some time or other, be revived by one ambitious of popular favor. However, he so managed the affair ever afterwards that so much account was taken of husbandmen and traders as of the idle populace. In the number, variety, and magnificence of his public spectacles, he surpassed all former examples. Four and twenty times, he says, he treated the people with games upon his own account, and three and twenty times for such magistrates who were either absent or not able to afford the expense. The performances took place sometimes in the different streets of the city, and upon several stages, by players in all languages. The same he did not only in the forum and amphitheater, but in the circus likewise, and in the septa. And sometimes he exhibited only the hunting of wild beasts. He entertained the people with wrestlers in the campus marshes, where wooden seats were erected for the purpose, and also with a naval fight, for which he excavated the ground near the Tiber, where there is now a grove of the Caesars. During these two entertainments he stationed guards in the city, lest, by robbers taking advantage of the small number of people left at home, it might be exposed to depredations. In the circus he exhibited chariot and foot races, and combats with wild beasts, in which the performers were often youths of the highest ranks. His favorite spectacle was the Trojan Game, acted by a select number of boys, and parties differing in age and station, thinking that it was a practice both excellent in itself, and sanctioned by ancient usage, that the spirit of the young nobles should be displayed in such exercises. Gaius Nonius Asparanus, who was lamed by a fall in this diversion, he presented with a golden collar, and allowed him in his posterity to bear the name of Torquati. But soon afterwards he gave up the exposition of this game, in consequence of a severe and bitter speech made in the senate by Ocinius Polio, the orator, in which he complained bitterly of the misfortune of Iserinius, his grandson, who likewise broke his leg in the same diversion. Sometimes he engaged Roman knights to act upon the stage, or to fight as gladiators, but only before the practice was prohibited by a decree of the senate. Thenceforth the only exhibition he made of that kind was that of a young man named Lucius, of a good family, who was not quite two feet in height and weighed only seventeen pounds, but had a stentorian voice. In one of his public spectacles he brought the hostages of the Parthians, the first ever sent to Rome from that nation through the middle of the amphitheater, and placed them in the second tier of seats above him. He used likewise at times when there were no public entertainments, if anything was brought to Rome which was uncommon and might gratify curiosity, to expose it to public view in any place whatever, as he did a rhinoceros in the septa, a tiger upon a stage, and a snake fifty cubits long in the cometium. It happened that in the Circassian games which he performed a consequence of a vow that he had taken ill, and obliged to attend the thensai reclining in a litter. Another time in the game celebrated for the opening of the theater of Marcellus, the joints of his curile chair happened to give way. He fell on his back. And in the games exhibited by his grandsons, when the people were in such consternation by an alarm raise that the theater was falling, that all his efforts to reassure them and keep them quiet failed, he moved from his place and seated himself in that part of the theater which was thought to be exposed to the most danger. He corrected the confusion and disorder with which the spectators took their seats at the public games, after an affront which was offered to a senator at Putioli, for whom, in a crowded theater, no one would make room. He therefore procured a decree of the senate, that in all public spectacles of any sort and in any place whatever, the first tier of benches should be left empty for the accommodation of senators. He would not even prevent the ambassadors of free nations, nor those which were allies of Rome to sit in the orchestra, having found that some man-humidded slaves had been sent under that character. He separated the soldierry from the rest of the people, and assigned to married plebeians their particular rows of seats. To the boys he assigned their own benches, and to their tutors the seats which were nearest it, ordering that none clothed in black should sit in the center of the circle, nor would he allow any women to witness the combats of gladiators, except from the upper part of the theater, although they formally used to take their places promiscuously with the rest of the spectators. To the Vestal Virgins he granted seats in the theater, reserved for them only, opposite the praetor's bench. He excluded, however, the whole female sex from seeing the wrestlers, so that in the games which he exhibited upon his accession to the office of high priest, he deferred producing a pair of combatants which the people called for, until the next morning, and, intimated by proclamation, his pleasure that no woman should appear in the theater before a five o'clock. He generally viewed the Circassian games himself from the upper rooms of the houses of his friends, or freedmen, sometimes from the place appointed for the statues of the gods sitting in the company with his wife and children. He occasionally absented himself from the spectacles for several hours, and occasionally for whole days, but not without first making an apology and appointing substitutes to preside in his stead. When present he never attended to anything else, either to avoid the reflections which he used to say were commonly made upon his father Caesar, for perusing letters in memorials, and making rescripts during the spectacles, or from the real pleasure he took in attending those exhibitions of which he made no secret, he often candidly owning it. This he manifested frequently by presenting honorary crowns and handsome rewards to the best performers. In the games exhibited by others, and he was never present in any performances of the Greeks without rewarding the most deserving according to their merit. He took particular pleasure in witnessing pugilistic contests, especially those of the Latins, not only between combatants who had been trained scientifically, whom he often used to match with the Greek champions, but even between mobs at the lower classes fighting in streets and tilting at random without any knowledge of the art. In short, he honored with his patronage all sorts of persons who contributed in any way to the success of the public entertainments. He not only maintained but enlarged the privileges of the wrestlers. He prohibited combats of the gladiators where no quarter was given. He deprived the magistrates of the power of correcting the stage players, which by an ancient law was allowed them at all times and in all places, restricting their jurisdiction entirely to the time of performance and misdemeanors in the theaters. He would, however, admit of no abatement and exacted with the utmost rigor the greatest exertions of the wrestlers and gladiators in their several encounters. He went so far in restraining the licentiousness of stage players that upon discovering that Stefania, a performer of the highest class, had married a woman with her hair cropped and dressed in boys' clothes to await upon him at table. He ordered him to be whipped through all three theaters and then banished him. Highless, an actor of pantomines, upon a complaint against him by the praetor, he commanded to be scourged in the court of his own house, which, however, was open to the public. In Pilates he not only banished from the city, but from Italy also, for pointing with his finger at a spectator, by whom he was hissed and turning the eyes of the audience upon him. Having thus regulated the city and its concerns, he augmented the population of Italy by planting in it no less than twenty-eight colonies and greatly improving it by public works and a beneficial application of the revenues. In rights and privileges he rendered it in a measure equal to the city itself, by inventing a new kind of suffrage, which the principal officers and magistrates of the colonies might take at home and forward under seal to the city against the time of the elections. To increase the number of persons of condition and of children among the lower ranks he granted the petitions of all those who requested the honor of doing military service on horseback as knights, provided their demands were seconded by the recommendation of the town in which they lived, and when he visited the several districts of Italy he distributed a thousand sistercies ahead to such of the lower class as presented him with sons or daughters. The most important provinces, which could not with ease or safety be entrusted to the government of annual magistrates, he reserved for his own administration. The rest he distributed by lot amongst the proconsuls, but sometimes he made exchanges and frequently visited most of both kinds in person. Some cities an alliance with Rome, but which the great licentiousness were hastening to ruin, he deprived of their independence. Others which were much in debt he relieved and rebuilt such as had been destroyed by earthquakes. To those who could produce any instance of their having deserved well of the Roman people he presented the freedom of Latium or even that of the city. There is not I believe a province except Africa and Sardinia which he did not visit. After forcing sex this Pompeius to take refuge in those provinces he was indeed preparing to cross over from Sicily to them but was prevented by continual and violent storms and afterwards there was no occasion or call for such a voyage. Kingdoms of which he had made himself master by the right of conquest a few only accepted he either restored to their former possessors or conferred upon aliens. Between kings of alliance with Rome he encouraged most intimate union, being always ready to promote or favor any proposal of marriage or friendship amongst them and indeed treated them all with the same consideration as if they were members and parts of the empire. To such as them as were miners or lunatics he presented guardians until they arrived at age or recovered their senses and the sons of many of them he brought up and educated with his own. With respect to the army he distributed the legions and auxiliary troops throughout the several provinces. He stationed a fleet at Mycenum and another at Ravenna for the protection of the upper and lower seas. A certain number of the forces were selected to occupy the post in the city and partly for his own body guard but he dismissed the Spanish guard which he retained about him until the fall of Antony and also the Germans whom he had amongst his guards until the defeat of Varus. Yet he never permitted a greater force than three cohorts in the city and had no Praetorian camps. The rest he quartered in the neighborhood of the nearest towns in winter and summer camps. All the troops throughout the empire he reduced to one fixed model with regard to their pay and their pensions, determining these according to their rank in the army the time they had served and their private means so that after their discharge they might not be tempted by age or necessities to join the agitators for a revolution. For the purpose of providing a fund always ready to meet their pay and pensions he instituted a military exchequer and appropriated two taxes to that object. In order to obtain the earliest intelligence of what was passing in the provinces he established posts consisting at first of young men stationed at moderate distances along the military roads and afterwards of regular couriers with fast vehicles which appeared to him the most commodious because the persons who were the bearers of dispatches written on the spot might then be questioned about the business as occasioned occurred. In sealing letters patent, rescripts, or epistles he had first used the figure of a sphinx afterwards the head of Alexander the Great and at last his own engraved by the hand of discorides which practice was retained by the succeeding emperors. He was extremely precise in dating his letters putting down exactly the time of day or night at which they were dispatched. End of Caesar Augustus part 3 of his clemency and moderation there are abundant and signal instances for not to enumerate how many in what persons of the adverse party he pardoned received into favor and suffered to rise to the highest eminence in the state he thought it's efficient to punish Junius Novates and Cassius Patevinus who were both plebeians one of them with a fine and the other with an easy banishment although the former had published in the name of young Agrippa a very scurrilous letter against him and the other declared openly at an entertainment where there was a great deal of company that he neither wanted inclination or courage to stab him. In the trial of Emilius Elianus of Cordova when among other charges exhibited against him it was particularly insisted upon that he used to culminate Caesar he turned round to the accuser and said with an air and tone of passion I wish you could make that appear I shall let Elianus know that I have a tone too and shall speak sharper of him than he ever did of me nor did he I either then or afterwards make any further inquiry into the affair and when Tiberius in a letter complained of the affront with great earnestness he returned him an answer in the following terms do not my dear Tiberius give way to the ardor of youth in this affair nor be so indignant that any person should speak ill of me it is enough for us if we can prevent anyone from really doing us mischief although he knew that it had been customary to decree temples in honor of the pre-counciles yet he would not permit them to be erected in any of the provinces unless in the joint names of himself and Rome within the limits of the city he positively refused any honor of that kind he melted down all the silver statues which had been erected to him and converted the whole into tripods which he consecrated to the Palatine Apollo and when the people important him to accept the dictatorship he bent down on one knee with his toga thrown over his shoulders and his breast exposed to view begging to be excused he always abhorred the title of lord as he omined an offensive and when in a play performed at the theater at which he was present these words were introduced oh just and gracious lord and the whole company with joyful acclamations testify their approbation of them as applied to him he instantly put a stop to their indecent flattery by waving his hand and frowning sternly and next day publicly declared his displeasure in a proclamation he never afterwards would suffer himself to be addressed in that manner even by his own children or grandchildren either ingest or earnest and forbade them the use of all such complimentary expressions to one another he rarely entered any city or town or departed from it except in the evening or the night to avoid giving any person the trouble of complimenting him during his consul ships he commonly walked the streets on foot but at other times rode in a close carriage he admitted to court even plebeians in common with people of the higher ranks receiving the petitions of those who approached him with so much affability that he once jacuzzi rebuked a man by telling him you present your memorial with as much hesitation as if you were offering money to an elephant on senate days he used to pay his respects to the conscript fathers only in the house addressing them each by name as they said without any prompter and on his departure he bade each of them farewell while they retained their seats in the same manner he maintained with many of them a constant intercourse of mutual civilities giving them his company upon occasions of any particular festivity in their families until he became advanced in years and was accommodated by the crowd at a wedding being informed that galas tyrinius a senator with whom he had only a slight acquaintance had suddenly lost his side and under that privation had resolved to starve himself to death he paid him a visit and by his consulatory admonitions diverted him from his purpose on his speaking in the senate he has been told by one of the members i did not understand you and by another i would contradict you could i do it with safety and sometimes upon his being so much offended at the heat with which the debates were conducted in the senate as to quit the house in anger some of the members have repeatedly explained surely the senators ought to have liberty of speech on matters of government and testius labio in the election of a new senate when each as he was named chose another nominated marcus lapidas who had formally been augustus enemy and was then in banishment and being asked by the letter is there no other person more deserving he replied every man has his own opinion nor was anyone ever molested for his freedom of speech although it was carried to the extent of insolence even when some infamous libels against him were dispersed in the senate house he was neither disturbed nor did he give himself much trouble to refute them he would not so much as order an inquiry to be made after the authors but only proposed that for the future those who published libels or lampooms in a borrowed name against any person should be called to account being provoked by some petulant jests which were designed to render him odious he answered them by a proclamation and yet he prevented the senate from passing an act to restrain the liberties which were taken with others in people's wills whenever he attended at the election of magistrates he went around the tribes with the candidates of his nomination and begged the votes of the people in the usual manner he likewise gave his own vote in his tribe as one of the people he suffered himself to be summoned as a witness upon trials and not only to be questioned but to be cross-examined with the utmost patience and building his forum he restricted himself in the side not presuming to compel the owners of the neighboring houses to give up their property he never recommended his sons to the people without adding these words if they deserve it and upon the audience rising on their entry in the theater while they were yet minors and giving them applause in a standing position he made it a matter of serious complaint he was desirous that his friends should be great and powerful in the state but have no exclusive privileges or be exempt from the laws which governed others when his friend is known as an intimate friend of his was tried upon a charge of administering poison at the instance of Cassius Severus he consulted the senate for their opinion what was his duty under the circumstances for said he I'm afraid lest if I should stand by him in the cause I may be supposed to screen a guilty man and if I do not to desert and prejudge a friend with the unanimous concurrence therefore of the senate he took his seat amongst his advocates for several hours but without giving him the benefit of speaking to character as was usual he likewise appeared for his clients as on behalf of scuterias an old soldier of his who brought an action for slander he never relieved anyone from prosecution but in a single instance in the case of a man who had given information of the conspiracy of morena and that he did only by prevailing upon the accuser in open court to drop his prosecution how much he was beloved for his worthy conduct in all these respects it is easy to imagine I say nothing of the decrees of the senate and his honor which may seem to have resulted from compulsion or deference the roman knights voluntarily and with one accord always celebrated his birth for two days together and all ranks of the people yearly and performance of a vow they had made threw a piece of money into the cursin lake as an offering for his welfare they likewise on the calendar of January presented for his acceptance new year's gifts in the capital though he was not present with which donations he purchased some costly images of the gods which he erected in several streets of the city as that of apollos and delirious jupiter targoidos and others when his house on the palatine hill was accidentally destroyed by fire the veteran soldiers the judges the tribes and even the people individually contributed according to the ability of each for rebuilding it but he would accept only of some small portion out of the several sums collected and refused to take from any one person more than a single denarius upon his return home from any of the provinces they attended him not only with joyful acclamations but with songs it is also remarked that as often as he entered the city the infliction of punishment was suspended for the time the whole body of the people upon a sudden impulse and with unanimous consent offered him the title of father of his country it was announced to him first at antium by a deputation from the people and upon his declining the honor they repeated their offer on his return to Rome in a full theater when they were crowned with laurel the senate soon afterwards adopted the proposal not in the way of acclamation or decree but by commissioning messala in an unanimous vote to complement him with it in the following terms with hearty wishes for the happiness and prosperity of yourself and your family scissor augustus for we think with us most effectually pray for the lasting welfare of the state the senate in agreement with the roman people salute you by the title of father of your country to this compliment augustus replied with tears in his eyes in these words for i give them exactly as i have done those of messala having now arrived at the summit of my wishes all conscript fathers what else have i to bag of the immortal gods with the continuance of this your affection for me to the last moments of my life to the physician antonius musa who had cured him of a dangerous illness they erected a statue near that of asculapius by a general subscription some heads of families order in their wills that their heirs should lead victims to the capital with a tablet carried before them and pay their valves because augustus still survived some italian cities appointed the day upon which he first visited them to be then sforth the beginning of their year in most of the provinces besides directing temples and altars instituted games to be celebrated to his honor in most towns every five years the kings his friends and allies built cities in their respective kingdoms to which they gave the name of sazeria and all with one consent resolved to finish at their common expense the temple of jupiter olympus at aphins which had been begun long before and consecrated to his genius they frequently also left their kingdoms led aside the badges of royalty and assuming the toga attended and pay their respects to him daily in the manner of clients to their patrons not only at roam but when he was traveling through the provinces having thus given an account of the manner in which he filled his public offices both civil and military and his conduct in the government of the empire both in peace and war i shall now describe his private and domestic life his habits at home and among his friends and dependents and the fortune attending him in those scenes of retirement from his youth to the day of his death he lost his mother in his first consulship and his sister octavia when he was in the 54th year of his age he behaved towards them both with the utmost kindness whilst living and after the disease paid the highest honors to their memory he was contracted when very young to the daughter of publius servilius isaricus but upon his reconciliation with anthony after their first rupture the armies on both sides insisting on a family alliance between them he married anthony stepdaughter claudia the daughter of fulvia by publius claudias although at that time she was scarcely marriageable and upon a difference arising with his mother-in-law fulvia he divorced her untouched and a pure virgin soon afterwards he took to wife scribonia who had before been twice married to men of consular rank and was a mother by one of them with her likewise he parted being quite tied out as he himself writes with the perverseness of her temper and immediately took livia drusilla though then pregnant from her husband tiberius nero and she had never any rival in his love and esteem by scribonia he had a daughter named julia but no children by livia although extremely desires of issue she indeed conceived once but miscarried he gave his daughter julia in the first instance to marcellus the sister's son who had just completed his minority and after his death to marcus agrippa having prevailed with his sister to yield her son-in-law to his wishes for at that time agrippa was married to one of the marcellus and had children by her agrippa dying also he for a long time thought of several matches for julia and even the equestrian order and at last resolved upon selecting tiberius for his stepson and he obliged him to part with his wife at that time pregnant and who had already brought him a child mark antony writes that he first contracted julia to his son and afterwards to cotizel king of the gete demanding at the same time the king's daughter in marriage for himself he had three grandsons by agrippa and julia namely kaius lyceus and agrippa and two granddaughters julia and agrippina julia he married to lyceus paulus the censor's son and agrippina to germanicus his sister's grandson kaius and lyceus he adopted at home by the ceremony of purchase from their father advanced them while yet very young to offices in the state and when they were council's elect send them to visit the provinces and armies in bringing up his daughter and granddaughters he accustomed them to domestic employments and even spinning and obliged them to speak and act everything openly before the family that it might be put down in the diary he so strictly prohibited them from all converse with strangers that he once wrote a letter to lyceus venezius a handsome young man of a good family in which he told him you have not behaved very modestly in making a visit to my daughter at baye he usually instructed his grandsons himself in reading swimming and other rudiments of knowledge and he labored nothing more than to perfect them in the imitation of his handwriting he never subbed but he had them sitting at the foot of his couch nor even traveled but with them in a chariot before him or riding beside him but in the midst of all his joy and hopes in his numerous and well regulated family his fortune failed him the two julius his daughter and granddaughter abandoned themselves to such courses of lewdness and debauchery that he banished them both kaius and lyceus he lost within the space of 18 months the former diane in lycia and the letter at marseille his third grandson agrippa with his stepson tiberius he adopted in the forum by a law passed for the purpose by the sections but he soon afterwards discarded agrippa for his course and unruly temper and confined him at serendim he bore the death of his relations with more patience than he did their disgrace for he was not overwhelmed by the loss of kaius and lyceus but in the case of his daughter he stated the facts to the senate in a message read to them by the questor not having the heart to be present himself indeed he was so much ashamed of her infamous conduct that for some time he avoided all company and had thoughts of putting her to death it is certain that when one phoebe a frid woman and confident of hers hanged herself about the same time he said i had rather be the father of phoebe than of julia in her banishment he would not allow her the use of wine nor any luxuring dress nor would he suffer her to be waited upon by any male servant either freeman or slave without his permission and having received an exact account of his age stature complexion and walk marks or scars he had about him at the end of five years he removed her from the island where she was confined to the continent and treated her with less severity but could never be prevailed upon to recall her when the roman people interposed on her behalf several times with much opportunity all the reply he gave was i wish you had all such daughters and wives as she is he likewise forbade a child of which his granddaughter julia was delivered after sentence had passed against her to be either owned as a relation or brought up a grippa who was equally intractable and whose folly increased every day he transported to an island and placed a guard of soldiers about him procuring at the same time an act of the senate for his confinement there during life upon any mention of him and the two julias he would say with a heavy sigh i thought felon agamos temenai agonos would i were wifeless or had childless died nor did he usually call them by any other name than that of his three impostors or cancers he was cautious in forming friendships but clung to them with great constancy not only rewarding the virtues and merits of his friends according to their deserts but bearing likewise with their faults and vices provided that they were of a venial kind for amongst all his friends we scarcely find any who fell into disgrace with him except salvidiana's rufus whom he raised to the consulship and carnelius gallus whom he made prefect of egypt both of them men of the lowest extraction one of these being engaged in plotting a rebellion he delivered over to the senate for condemnation and the other on account of his ungrateful and malicious temper he forbade his house and his living in any of the provinces when however gallus being denounced by his accusers and sentenced by the senate was driven to the desperate extremity of laying violent hands upon himself he commended indeed the attachment to his person of those who manifested so much indignation but he shed tears and lamented his unhappy condition that i alone said he cannot be allowed to resent the misconduct of my friends in such a way only as i would wish the rest of his friends of all orders flourished during their whole lives both in power and wealth in the highest ranks of their several orders notwithstanding some occasional lapses for to say nothing of others he sometimes complained that the grippa was hasty and was sent as a tatler the forming heaven thrown up all his employments and retired to mitilani on suspicion of some slight coolness and from jealousy that marcellus received greater marks of favor and the latter having confidentially parted to his wife torrentia the discovery of morena's conspiracy he likewise expected from his friends at their deaths as well as during their lives some proofs of their reciprocal attachment for though he was far from coveting their property and indeed would never accept of any legacy left him by a stranger yet he pondered in a melancholy mood over their last words not being able to conceal his chagrin if in their wills they made but a slight or no very honorable mention of him nor his joy on the other hand if they expressed a grateful sense of his favors in a hearty affection for him and whatever legacies or shares of their property were left him by such as were parents he used to restore to their children either immediately or if they were underage upon the day of their assuming the manly dress or of their marriage with interest as a patron and master his behavior in general was mild and conciliating but when occasion required it he could be severe he advanced many of his freedmen to posters of honor and great importance as listeners and saladas and others and when his slave cosmos had reflected bitterly upon him he resented the injury no further than by putting him in fetters when his two were diametes left him to the mercy of a wild boar which suddenly attacked him while they were walking together he considered it rather a cowardice than a breach of duty and turned an occurrence of no small hazard into a jest because there was no navery in his two words conduct he put to death proculus one of his most favorite freedmen for maintaining a criminal commerce with other men's wives he broke the legs of his secretary phallus for taking a bribe of five hundred denarii to discover the contents of one of his letters and the tutor and other attendants of his son kaius having taken advantage of his sickness and death to give loose to their insolence and rapacity in the province he governed he caused heavy weights to be tied about their necks and had them thrown into a river and his early youth various aspersions of an infamous character were heaped upon him sexist Pompey reproached him with being an effeminate fellow and marcus anthony with earning his adoption from his uncle by prostitution luscious anthony likewise marx brother charges him with pollution by Caesar and that for a gratification of 300 000 he had submitted to all his hurtiest in the same way in spain adding that he used to cinch his legs with burnt nutshells to make the hair become softer nay the whole conquers of the people had some public diversions in the theater when the following sentence was recited alluding to the gallic priest of the mother of the gods beating a drum with desne would kinaidos or bendigito temperate seal with his orb the wanton's finger play applied the passage to him with great applause that he was guilty of various acts of adultery it's not denied even by his friends but they allege in excuse for it that he engaged in those intrigues not from lewdness but from policy in order to discover more easily the designs of his enemies through their wives mar anthony besides the precipitate marriage of livia charges him with taking the wife of a man of consular rank from table in the presence of her husband into a bed chamber and bringing her again to the entertainment with her ears very red and her hair in great disorder that he had divorced scribonia for resenting too freely the excessive influence which one of his mistresses had gained over him that his friends were employed to pimp for him and accordingly obliged both matrons and ripe virgins to strip for a complete examination of their persons in the same manner as if the ranias the dealer in slaves had them under sail and before they came to an open rupture he writes to him in a familiar manner thus why are you changed towards me because i lie with a queen she's my wife is this a new thing with me or have i not done so for these nine years and do you take freedoms with drusilla only may health and happiness so attend you as when you read this letter you are not in delians with tertula refila or soviet titania or all of them what matters it to you where or upon whom you spend your manly vigor end of caesar augustus part four caesar augustus part five of the lives of the twelve caesars by gaius suetonius tranquillis this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by limi the lives of the twelve caesars by gaius suetonius tranquillis translated by alexander thompson and edited by t forster augustus caesar part five paragraph 70 to 89 a private entertainment which he gave commonly called the supper of the twelve gods and at which the guests were dressed in the habit of gods and goddesses while he personated apollo himself afforded subject of much conversation and was imputed to him not only by anthony in his letters who likewise names all the parties concerned but in the following well known anonymous verses adulteria when malia lake beheld in mingled train 12 mortals eight 12 deities in vain caesar assumed what was apollo's do and wine and lust inflamed the motley crew at the foul side the gods avert their eyes and from his throne great jove indignant flies what rendered this supper more obnoxious to public censure was that it happened at a time when there was a great scarcity and almost a famine in the city the day after there was a cry current among the people that the gods had eaten up all the corn and that caesar was indeed apollo but apollo determined under which title that god was worshiped in some quarter of the city he was likewise charged with being excessively fond of fine furniture and Corinthian vessels as well as with being addicted to gaming for during the time of the prescription the following line was written upon his statue my father was a silversmith my dealings are in brass because it was believed that he had put some persons upon the list of the proscribed only to obtain the Corinthian vessels in their possession and afterwards in the Sicilian war the following epigram was published post-quambis class evictus now is predicted ali quando would win cut looted acid way aliam twice having lost the fleet in luckless fight to win at last he games both day and night with respect to the charge or imputation of loathsome impurity before mentioned he very easily refuted it by the chastity of his life at the very time when it was made as well as ever afterwards his conduct likewise gave the lie to that of luxurious extravagance in his furniture when upon the taking of alexandria he reserved for himself nothing of the royal treasures but a porcelain cup and soon afterwards melted down all the vessels of gold even such as were intended for common use but his amorous propensities never left him and as he grew older as is reported he was in the habit of the Boschian young girls who were procured for him from all quarters even by his own life to the observations on his gaming he paid not the smallest regard but played in public but purely for his diversion even when he was advanced in years and not only in the month of december but at other times and upon all days whether festivals or not this evidently appears from a letter under his own hand in which he says I subbed my dear Tiberius with the same company we had besides veniceus and sylvius the father we gained that supper like old fellows both yesterday and today and as anyone threw upon the tally aces or sixes he put down for every talus a denarius all which was gained by him who threw a venus in another letter he says we had my dear Tiberius a pleasant time of it during the festival of Minerva for we played every day and kept the gaming board warm your brother uttered many exclamations at a desperate run of ill fortune but recovering by degrees and unexpectedly he in the end lost not much I lost 20,000 cestresses for my part but then I was profusely generous in my play as I commonly am for had I insisted upon the stakes which I declined or kept what I gave away I should have won about 50,000 but this I like better for it will raise my character for generosity to disguise in a letter to his daughter he writes thus I have sent you 250 denarii which I gave to every one of my guests in case they were inclined at supper to divert themselves with the tally where the game of even or odd in other matters it appears that he was moderate in his habits and free from suspicion of any kind of vice he lived at first near the roman forum above the ringmaker's stairs in the house which had once been occupied by calvas the orator he afterwards moved to the palatine hill where he resided in a small house belonging to ortensias no way remarkable either for size or ornament the piazza's being but small the pillars of elven stone and the rooms without anything of marble or fine paving he continued to use the same bed chamber both winter and summer during 40 years for though he was sensible that the city did not agree with his health in the winter he nevertheless resided constantly in it during that season if at any time he wished to be perfectly retired and secure from interruption he shut himself up in an apartment at the top of his house which he called his syracuse or techno for or he went to some villa belonging to his freedmen near the city but when he wasn't disposed he commonly took up his residence in the house of mesinas of all the places of retirement from the city chiefly frequented those upon the seacoast and the islands of campania or the towns nearest the city such as lanuvium pernasty and tibbor where he often used to sit for the administration of justice in the porticoes of the temple of hercules he had a particular version to large and sumptuous palaces and some which had been raised at a vast expense by his granddaughter julia he leveled to the ground those of his own which were far from being spacious he adorned not so much with statues and pictures as with walks and groves and things which were curious either for their antiquity or rarity such as at capri the huge limbs of sea monsters and wild beasts which some effect to call the bones of giants and also the arms of ancient heroes his frugality in the furniture of his house appears even at this day from some beds and tables still remaining most of which are scarcely elegant enough for a private family it is reported that he never lay upon a bed but such as was low and meanly furnished he seldom wore any garment but what was made by the hands of his wife sister daughter and granddaughters his togas were neither scanty nor full and the clavas was neither remarkably broad or narrow his shoes were a little higher than common to make him appear taller than he was he had always clothes and shoes fit to appear in public ready in his bedchamber for any sudden occasion at his table which was always plentiful and elegant he constantly entertained company but was very scrupulous in the choice of them both as to rank and character hilarious messala informs us that he never admitted any freedmen to his table except minas when rewarded with the privilege of citizenship for betraying Pompey's fleet he writes himself that he invited to his table a person in whose villa he lodged and who had formerly been employed by him as a spy he often came late to table and withdrew early so that the company began supper before his arrival and continued at table after his departure his entertainments consisted of three entries were at most of only six but if his fare was moderate his courtesy was extreme for those who were silent or talked and whispers he encouraged to join in the general conversation and introduced buffoons and stage players or even low performers from the circus and very often itinerant humorists to enliven the company festivals and holidays he usually celebrated very expensively but sometimes only with merriment in the Saturnalia but at any other time when the fancy took him he distributed to his company clothes gold and silver sometimes coins of all sorts even of the ancient kings of Rome and of foreign nations sometimes nothing but towels sponges rakes and tweezers and other things of that kind with tickets on them which were enigmatic and had a double meaning he used likewise to sell by lot among his guests articles of very unequal value and pictures with their fronts reversed and so by the unknown quality of the lot disappoint or gratify the expectation of the purchasers the sort of traffic went round the whole company everyone being obliged to buy something and to run the chance of loss or gain with the rest he ate sparingly for i must not omit even this and commonly used the plain diet he was particularly fond of coarse bread small fishes new cheese made of cow's milk and green figs of the sort which bear fruit twice a year he did not wait for supper but took food at any time and in any place when he had an appetite the following passages relative to the subject i have transcribed from his letters i ate a little bread and some small dates in my carriage again in returning home from the palace in my litter i ate an ounce of bread and a few raisins again no Jew my dear Tiberius every keeps such street fast upon the Sabbath as i have today for while in the bath and after the first hour of the night i only ate two biscuits before i began to be rubbed with oil from this great indifference about his diet he sometimes sucked by himself before his company began or after they had finished and would not touch a morsel at table with his guests he was by nature extremely sparing in the use of wine Cornelius Nepus says that he used to drink only three times at supper in the camp at Modena and when he indulged himself the most he never exceeded a pint or if he did his stomach rejected it of all wines he gave the preference to the retian was scarcely ever drank any in the daytime instead of drinking he used to take a piece of bread dipped in cold water or a slice of cucumber or some leaves of lettuce or a green sharp juicy apple after a slightly past at noon he used to seek repose dressed as he was and with his shoes on his feet covered and his hand held before his eyes after supper he commonly withdrew to his study a small closet where he sat late until he had put down in his diary all or most of the remaining transactions of the day which he had not before registered he would then go to bed but never slept above seven hours at most and that not without interruption for he would wake three or four times during that time if he could not again fall asleep as sometimes happened he called for someone to read or tell stories to him until he became drowsy and then his sleep was usually protracted till after they break he never liked to lie awake in the dark without somebody to sit by him very early rising was apt to disagree with him on which account if he was obliged to rise but times for any civil or religious functions in order to guard as much as possible against inconvenience resulting from it he used to lodge in some apartment near the spa belonging to any of his attendants if at any time a fit of drowsiness seized him in passing along the streets his litter was sat down while he snatched a few moments sleep in person he was handsome and graceful through every period of his life but he was negligent in his dress and so careless about dressing his hair that he usually had it done in great haste by several barbers at a time his beard he sometimes clipped and sometimes shaved and either rather rose during the operation his countenance either when discoursing or silent was so calm and serene that a goal of the first rank declared amongst his friends that he was so softened by it as to be restrained from throwing him down a precipice in his passage over the Alps when he had been admitted to approach him under pretence of conferring with him his eyes were bright and piercing and he was willing it should be thought that there was something of a divine vigor in them he was likewise not a little pleased to see people upon his looking steadfastly at them lower their countenances as if the sun shone in their eyes but in his old age he saw varying perfectly with his left eye his teeth were thin set small and scaly his hair a little curled and inclining to a yellow collar his eyebrows met his ears were small and he had an equiline nose his complexion was betwixt brown and fair his stature would glow though Julius Marathas his freedman says he was five feet and nine inches in height this however was so much concealed by the just proportion of his limbs that he was only perceivable upon comparison with some taller person standing by him he's sad to have been born with many spots upon his breasts and belly answering to the figure order and number of the stars in the constellation of the bear he had beside several colossities resembling scars occasioned by an itching in his body and the constant and violent use of the strigel in being rubbed he had a weakness in his left hip thigh and leg in so much that he often halted on that side but he received much benefit from the use of sand and reeds he likewise sometimes found the forefinger of his right hand so weak that when it was benumbed and contracted with cold to use it in writing he was obliged to have recourse to a circular piece of horn he had occasionally a complaint in the bladder but upon voiding some stones in his urine he was relieved from that pain during the whole course of his life he suffered at times dangerous fits of sickness especially after the conquest of cantabria when his liver being injured by a deflection upon it he was reduced to such a condition that he was obliged to undergo a desperate and doubtful method of cure for warm applications have no effect Antonius Musa directed the use of those which were cold he was likewise subject to fits of sickness at stated times every year for about his birthday he was commonly a little indisposed in the beginning of the spring he was attacked with an inflammation on the midriff and when the wind was southerly with a cold in his head by all these complaints his constitution was so shattered that he could not easily bear either heat or cold in winter he was protected against the inclemency of the weather by a thick toga four tunics a shirt a flannel stomacher and swathings upon his legs and tides in summer he lay with the doors of his bedchamber open and frequently in a piazza refreshed by a bubbling fountain and a person standing by to fan him he could not bear even the winter sun and at home never walked in the open air without a broad brimmed hat on his head he usually traveled in the litter and by night and so slow that he was two days and going to Pernassia or Tiber and if he could go to any place by sea he preferred that mode of traveling he carefully nourished his health against his many infirmities avoiding chiefly the free use of the bath but he was often rubbed with oil and sweated in a stove after which he was washed with tepid water warmed either by a fire or by being exposed to the heat of the sun when upon account of his nerves he was obliged to have recourse to seawater or the waters of obola he was contented with sitting over a wooden tub which he called by his Spanish name Dureta and plunging his hands and feet in the water by turns as soon as the civil wars were ended he gave up writing and other military exercises in the campus marshes and took to playing at ball or football but soon afterwards used no other exercise than that of going abroad in his litter or walking towards the end of his walk he would run leaping wrapped up in a short cloak or cape for amusement he would sometimes angle or play with dyes, paddles or nuts with little boys collected from various countries and particularly moors and syrians for their beauty or amusing talk but dwarfs and such as were in any way deformed he held in abhorrence as lusus naturae natures abortions and of evil omen from early youth he devoted himself with great diligence and application to the study of eloquence and the other liberal arts in the war of Modena notwithstanding the weighty affairs in which he was engaged he is said to have read written and declined every day he never addressed the senate the people or the army but in a premeditated speech though he did not want the talent of speaking extemper on the spur of the occasion unless his memory should fail him as well as to prevent the loss of time in getting up his speeches it was his general practice to recite them in his intercourse with individuals and even with his wife Olivia upon subjects of importance he wrote on his tablets all he wished to express lest if he spoke extemper he should say more or less than was proper he delivered himself in a sweet and peculiar tone in which he was diligently instructed by a master of elocution but when he had a code he sometimes employed a herald to deliver his speeches to the people he composed many tracts and prose on various subjects some of which he read occasionally in the circle of his friends as to an auditory among these was his rescript to Brita's respecting Cato most of the pages he read himself although he was advanced in years but becoming fatigued he gave the rest to Tiberius to finish he likewise read over to his friends his exhortations to philosophy and the history of his own life which he continued in 13 books as far as the Contabrian War but no farther he likewise made some attempts at poetry there is extant one book written by him in examiner verse of which both the subject and title is Sicily there's also a book of epigrams no larger than the last which he composed almost entirely while he was in the bath these are all his poetical compositions for though he began a tragedy with great zest becoming dissatisfied with the style he obliterated the whole and his friends saying to him what is your adjuncts doing he answered my adjuncts has met with a sponge he cultivated a style which was neat and chased avoiding frivolous or harsh language as well as absolute words which he calls disgusting his chief object was to deliver his thoughts with all possible perspicuity to attain this end and that he might nowhere perplex or retard the reader or hearer he made no scruple to add prepositions to his verbs or to repeat the same conjunction several times which when omitted occasion some little obscurity but give a grace to the style those who used affected language or adopted absolute words he despised as equally faulty though in different ways he sometimes indulged himself in jesting particularly with his friend miscellaneous whom he rallied upon all occasions for his fine phrases and ventured by imitating his way of talking nor did his spirit iberius who was fond of obsolete and far-fetched expressions he charges my Anthony with insanity writing rather to make men stare than to be understood and by way of sarcasm upon his depraved and fickle taste in the choice of words he writes to him thus and are you yet in doubt whether it's simber anus or veranias flakas be more proper for your imitation whether you will adopt words which celestius christus has borrowed from the orignis of cattle or do you think that the verbose empty bombast of asiatic orators is fit to be chance fused into our language and in a letter where he commands the talent of his granddaughter agrippina he says but you must be particularly careful both in writing and speaking to avoid affectation in ordinary conversation he made use of several peculiar expressions as appears from his letters in his own handwriting in which now and then when he means to intimate that some persons would never pay their debts he says they will pay at the greek ellens and when he advised patients in the present posture of affairs he would say let us be content with our cattle to describe anything in haste he said it was sooner done than asparagus cooked he constantly puts baqueolos for stultus poleiacius for pulus guacchiarrosus for chiarritus guapide sejabere for male and vetizare for languere which is commonly called lacanizare likewise simus for sumus domus for domus in the genitive singular with respect to the less two peculiarities less any person should imagine that they were only slips of his pen and not customary with him he never varies i have likewise remarked the singularity in his handwriting he never divides his words so as to carry the letters which cannot be inserted at the end of a line to the next but puts them below the other enclosed by a bracket he did not adhere strictly to autography as laid down by the grammarians but seems to have been of the opinion of those who think that we ought to write as we speak for as to his changing and omitting not only letters but whole syllables it is a vulgar mistake nor should i have taken notice of it but that it appears strange to me that any person should have told us that he sent a successor to a consular lieutenant of a province as an ignorant illiterate fellow upon his observing that he had written ixi for ipsi when he had occasion to write in cipher he put b for a c for b and so forth and instead of z a a he was no less fond of the greek literature in which he made considerable proficiency having had apollodorus of pergamas for his master in rhetoric whom though much advanced in years he took with him from the city when he was himself very young to apollonia afterwards being instructed in philology by sepharis he received into his family arias the philosopher and his sons dionysius and nikonor but he never could speak the greek tongue readily nor even ventured to compose in it for if there was occasion for him to deliver his sentiments in that language he always expressed what he had to say in latin and gave it another to translate he was evidently not unacquainted with the poetry of the greeks and had a great taste for the ancient comedy which he often brought upon the stage in his public spectacles in reading the greek and latin authors he paid particular attention to precepts and examples which might be useful in public or private life those he used to extract verbatim and gave to his domestics or sent to the commanders of the armies the governors of the provinces or the magistrates of the city when any of them seemed to stand in need of admonition he likewise read whole books to the senate and frequently made them known to the people by his addicts such as the orations of quintus metellus for the encouragement of marriage and those of retilius on the style of building to show the people that he was not the first who had promoted those objects but that the ancients likewise had thought him worthy their attention he patronized the men of genius of that age in every possible way he would hear them read their works with a great deal of patience and good nature and not only poetry and history but orations and dialogues he was displeased however that anything should be written upon himself except in a grave manner and by men of the most eminent abilities and he enjoined the preachers not to suffer his name to be made too common in the contests among orators and poets in the theaters and of caesar augustus part five caesar augustus part six of the lives of the twelve caesars by gaius suetonius tranquilus this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by lenis the lives of the 12 caesars by gaius suetonius tranquilus translated by alexander thompson and edited by t forester augustus caesar part six paragraphs 90 to 101 we have the following account of him respecting his belief in omens and such like he had so great a dread of thunder and lightning that he always carried about him a sealed skin by way of preservation and upon any apprehension of a violent storm he would retire to some place of concealment in a volt underground having formerly been terrified by a flash of lightning while traveling in the night as we have already mentioned he neither slighted his own dreams nor those of other people relating to himself at the battle of filipi although he had resolved not to stir out of his tent on account of his being indisposed yet being warned by a dream of one of his friends he changed his mind and well it was that he did so for in the enemy's attack his couch was pierced and cut to pieces on the supposition of his being in it he had many frivolous and frightful dreams during the spring but in the other parts of the year they were less frequent and more significant upon his frequently visiting a temple near the capital which he had dedicated to jupiter tonus he dreamt that jupiter capitalinas complained that his worshipers were taken from him and that upon this he replied he had only given him the thunderer for his porter he therefore immediately suspended little bells around the summit of the temple because such commonly hung at the gates of great houses in consequence of a dream too he always on a certain day of the year begged alms of the people reaching out his hand to receive the doll which they offered him some signs and omens he regarded as infallible if in the morning his shoe was put on wrong the left instead of the right that boated some disaster if when he commenced a long journey by seerland there happened to fall a missling rain he held it to be a good sign of a speedy and happy return he was much affected likewise with anything out of the common course of nature a palm tree which chance to grow up between some stones in the court of his house he transplanted into a court where the images of the household gods replaced and took all possible care to make it thrive in the island of capri some decayed branches of an old elix which hung drooping to the ground recovered themselves upon his arrival at which he was so delighted that he made an exchange with the republic of naples of the island of inaria ischia for that of capri he likewise observed certain days as never to go from home the day after denundie nor to begin any serious business upon the gnomes avoiding nothing else in it as he writes to tiberias then it's unlucky name with regard to the religious ceremonies of foreign nations he was a strict observer of those which had been established by ancient custom but others he held in no esteem for having been initiated at afiens and coming afterwards to hear a cause of roam relative to the privileges of the priests of the etic seris when some of the mysteries of their sacred rites were to be introduced in the pleadings he dismissed those who sat upon the bench as judges with him as well as the bystanders and buried the argument upon those points himself but on the other hand he not only declined in his progress through egypt to go out of his way to pay a visit to epis but he likewise commended his grandson kaius for not paying his devotions at Jerusalem in his passage through judaea since we are upon this subject he may not being proper to give an account of the omens before and at his birth as well as afterwards which gave hopes of his future greatness and the good fortune that constantly attended him a part of the wall of veletrai having in former times been struck with thunder the response of the soothsayers was that a native of that town would sometime or other arrive at supreme power relying on which prediction the veletrians both then and several times afterwards made war upon the roman people to their own ruin at last it appeared by the event that the omen had portended the elevation of augustus julius mirathus informs us that a few months before his birth there happened that roman prodigy by which was signified that nature was in travail with a king for the roman people and that the senate in alarm came to the resolution that no child born that year should be brought up but that those amongst them whose wives were pregnant to secure to themselves a chance of that dignity took care that the decree of the senate should not be registered in the treasury i find in the theological books of esclipiades the mendizian that etia upon attending at midnight a religious solemnity in honor of apollo when the rest of the matrons retired home fell asleep on her couch in the temple and that a serpent immediately crept to her and soon after withdrew she awakened upon it purified herself as usual after the embraces of her husband and instantly there appeared upon her body a mark in the form of a serpent which she never after could efface and which obliged her during the subsequent part of her life to decline the use of the public baths augustus it was added was born in the tenth month after and for that reason was thought to be the son of apollo the same etia before her delivery dreamed that her bowels stretched to the stars and expended through the whole circuit of heaven and earth his father octavius likewise dreamt that a son being issued from his wife's womb upon the day he was born the senate being engaged in a debate on catalyne's conspiracy and octavius in consequence of his wife's being in childbirth coming late into the house it is a well-known fact that publius negedius upon hearing the occasion of his coming so late and the hour of his wife's delivery declared that the world had got a master afterwards when octavius upon marching with his army through the deserts of thrace consulted the oracle in the grove of father bachas with barbarous rites concerning his son he received from the priests an answer to the same purpose because when they poured wine upon the altar there burst out so prodigious a flame that it ascended above the roof of the temple and reached up to the heavens a circumstance which had never happened to anyone but alexander the great upon his sacrificing at the same altars a next night he dreamt that he saw his son under a more than human appearance with thunder and a scepter and the other insignia of jupiter optimus maximus having on his head a radiant crown mounted upon a chariot decked with laurel and drawn by six pair of milk white horses whilst he was yet an infant as kaius dresses relates being laid in his cradle by his nurse and in a low place the next day he was not to be found and after he had been sought for a long time he was at last discovered upon a lofty tower lying with his face towards the rising sun when he first began to speak he ordered the frogs that happened to make a troublesome noise upon an estate belonging to the family near the town to be silent and there goes a report that frogs never croaked there since that time as he was dining in a grove at the fourth milestone on the companion road an eagle suddenly snatched the piece of bread out of his hand and soaring to a prodigious height after hovering came down most unexpectedly and returned it to him quintus catalyst had a dream for two nights successively after his dedication of the capital the first night he dreamt that jupiter out of several boys of the order of the nobility who were playing about his altar selected one into whose bosom he put the public seal of the commonwealth which he held in his hand but in his vision the next night he saw in the bosom of jupiter capitalinas the same boy whom he ordered to be removed but it was forbidden by the god who declared that it must be brought up to become the guardian of the state the next day meeting augustus with whom till that hour he had not the least acquaintance and looking at him with admiration he said he was extremely like the boy he had seen in his dream some give a different account of catalyst's first dream namely that jupiter upon several noble lads requesting of him that they might have a guardian had pointed to one amongst them to whom they were to prefer their requests and putting his fingers to the boy's mouth to kiss he afterwards applied them to his own marcus cicero as he was attending kaius Caesar to the capital happened to be telling some of his friends a dream which he had the preceding night in which he saw a commonly youth let down from heaven by a golden chain who stood at the door of the capital and had a whip put into his hands by jupiter and immediately upon side of augustus who had been sent for by his uncle Caesar to the sacrifice and was as yet perfectly unknown to most of the company he affirmed that it was the very boy he had seen in his dream when he assumed the manly toga his sanatorium tunic becoming loose in the seam on each side fell at his feet some would have this to forbode that the order of which that was the badge of distinction would sometime or other be subject to him jillian Caesar in cutting down a wood to make room for his camp near mondah happened to light upon a palm tree and ordered it to be preserved as an omen of victory from the root of this tree there put out immediately a sucker which in a few days grew to such a height as not only to equal but to overshadow it and afford room for many nests of wild pigeons which built in it though that species of bird particularly avoids a hard and rough leaf it is likewise reported that Caesar was chiefly influenced by this prodigy to prefer his sister's grandson before all others for his successor in his retirement at apollonia he went with his friend a grippa to visit theogenes the astrologer in his gallery on the roof a grippa who first consulted the fates having great and almost incredible fortunes predicted of him augustus did not choose to make known his nativity and persisted for some time in the refusal from a mixture of shame and fear lest his fortunes should be predicted as inferior to those of a grippa being persuaded however after much opportunity to declare it theogenes started up from his seat and paid him adoration not long afterwards augustus was so confident on the greatness of his destiny that he published his horoscope and struck a silver coin bearing upon it the sign of capricorn under the influence of which he was born after the death of Caesar upon his return from apollonia as he was entering the city on a sudden in a clear and bright sky a circle resembling the rainbow surrounded the body of the sun and immediately afterwards the tomb of julia Caesar's daughter was struck by lightning in his first consulship whilst he was observing the auguries 12 vultures presented themselves as they had done to rumulus and when he offered sacrifice the livers of all the victims were folded inward in the lower part the circumstance which was regarded by those present who had skill in things of that nature as an indubital prognostic of great and wonderful fortune he certainly had a presentiment of the issue of all his wars when the troops of the triumvirate were collected about bologna an eagle which sat upon his tent and was attacked by two crows beat them both and struck them to the ground in the view of the whole army who then inferred that this card would arise between the three colleagues which would be attended with the like event and it accordingly happened at Philippi he was assured of success by a the salient upon the authority as he pretended of the divine Caesar himself who had appeared to him while he was traveling in a by-road at Perugia the sacrifice not presenting any favorable intimations the contrary he ordered fresh victims the enemy however carrying off the sacred things in a sudden sally it was agreed amongst the augurs that all the dangers and misfortunes which had threatened the sacrificer would fall upon the heads of those who had got possession of the entrails and accordingly so it happened the day before the sea fight near Sicily as he was walking upon the shore a fish leaped out of the sea and laid itself at his feet at axiom while he was going down to his fleet to engage the enemy he was mad by an ass with a fellow driving it the name of the man was eutichus and that of the animal Nikon after the victory he erected the brazen statue to each in a temple built upon the spot where he had encamped his death of which i shall now speak and his subsequent deification were intimated by divers manifest prodigies as he was finishing the senses amidst a great crowd of people in the campus marshes an eagle hovered around him several times and then directed its course to a neighboring temple where it settled upon the name of a grippa and at the first letter upon observing this he ordered his colleague Tiberius to put up the vows which it is usual to make on such occasions for the succeeding lustrum for he declared he would not meddle with what it was probable he should never accomplish though the tables were already drawn for it about the same time the first letter of his name in an inscription upon one of his statues was struck out by lightning which was interpreted as a prestige that he would live only a hundred days longer the letter c denoting that number and that he would be placed amongst the gods as either which is the remaining part of the word Caesar signifies in the tuscan language a god being therefore about dispatching Tiberius Relyricum and designing to go with him as far as Beneventum but being detained by several persons who applied to him respecting causes they had depending he cried out and it was afterwards regarded as an omen of his death not all the business in the world shall detain me at home one moment longer and setting out upon his journey he went as far as Astura whence contrary to his custom he put to sea in the night time as there was a favorable wind his melody proceeded from diarrhea notwithstanding which he went round the coast of Campania in the adjacent islands and spent four days in that of Capri where he gave himself up entirely to repose and relaxation happening to sail by the bay of Puteoli the passengers and mariners aboard the ship of Alexandria just then arrived clad all in white with chaplets upon their heads and offering incense loaded him with praises and joyful acclamations crying out by you we live by you we sail securely by you enjoy our liberty and our fortunes at which being greatly pleased he distributed to each of those who attended him 40 gold pieces requiring from them an assurance on oath not to employ the sum given them in any other way than the purchase of alexandrian merchandise and during several days afterwards he distributed toge and palia among other gifts on condition that the roman should use the greek and the Greeks the roman dress in language he likewise constantly attended to see the boys perform their exercises according to an ancient custom still continued at Capri he gave them likewise an entertainment in his presence and not only permitted but required from them the utmost freedom ingesting and scrambling for fruit victuals and other things which he threw amongst them in a word he indulged himself in all the ways of amusement he could contrive he called an island near capri aprigolpolis the city of the dulittles from the indolent life which several of his party led there a favorite of his one masgabas he used to call tistes as if he had been the planter of the island and observing from his room a great company of people with torches assembled at the tomb of these masgabas who died the year before he uttered very distinctly this verse which he made extemporal this too the tumble blazing with lights i see the founder's tomb then turning to thercilus a companion of tiberias who reclined on the other side of the table he asked him who knew nothing about the matter what poet he thought was the author of that verse and on his hesitating to reply he added another honored with torches masgabas you see and put the same question to him concerning that likewise the latter replying that whoever might be the author they were excellent verses he set up a great laugh and fell into an extraordinary vein of jesting upon it soon afterwards passing over the naples although at that time greatly disordered in his bowels but the frequent returns of his disease he set out the exhibition of the gymnastic games which were performed in his honor every five years and proceeded with tiberias to the place intended but on his return his disorder increasing he stopped at nola sent for tiberias back again and had a long discourse with him in private after which he gave no further attention to business of any importance upon the day of his death he now and then inquired if there was any disturbance in the town on his account and calling for a mirror he ordered his hair to become and his shrunk cheeks to be adjusted then asking his friends who were admitted into the room do you think that i have acted my part on the stage of life well he immediately subjoined if i'll be right with joy your voices raise and allow the praises to the actor's praise after which having dismissed them all whilst he was inquiring of some persons who were just arrived from rome concerning drusas's daughter who wasn't the best state of health he expired suddenly amidst the kisses of livia and with these words livia lived mindful of our union and now farewell dying a very easy death and such as he himself had always wished for for as often as he heard that any person had died quickly and without pain he wished for himself and his friends the like elthanasian and easy death for that was the word he made use of he betrayed with one symptom before he breathed his last of being delirious which was this he was all in a sudden much frightened and complained that he was carried away by 40 men but this was rather repressed than any delirium for precisely that number of soldiers belonging to the praetorian cohort carried out his corpse he expired in the same room in which his father octavius had died when the two sexes pompey and epileus were councils upon the 14th of the callons of september the 19th of august at the ninth hour of the day being 76 years of age wanting only 35 days his remains were carried by the magistrates of the municipal towns and colonies from nola to bovilae and in the nighttime because of the season of the year during the intervals the body lay in some basilica or great temple of each town at bovilae it was met by the equestrian order who carried it to the city and deposited it in the vestibule of his own house the senate proceeded with so much zeal in the arrangement of his funeral and paying honor to his memory that among several other proposals somewhere for having the funeral procession made through the triumphal gate preceded by the image of victory which is in the senate house and the children of highest rank and of both sexes singing the funeral dirge others proposed that on the day of the funeral they should lay aside their gold rings and wear rings of iron and others that his bones should be collected by the priests of the principal colleges one likewise proposed to transfer the name of august to september because he was born in the latter but died in the former another moved that the whole period of time from his birth to his death should be called the augustan age and been certain in the calendar under that title but at last it was judged proper to be moderate in the honors paid to his memory two funeral orations were pronounced in his praise one before the temple of gileus by tiberias and the other before the rostra under the old ships by drosses tiberias son the body was then carried upon the shoulders of senators into the campus marches and they are burned a man of praetorian rank affirmed upon oath that he saw his spirit ascend from the funeral pile to heaven the most distinguished persons of the equestrian order barefooted and with their tunics lose gathered up his relics and deposited them in the mausoleum which had been built in his sixth consulship between the flaminian way and the bank of the tiber at which time likewise he gave the groves and walks about it for the use of the people he had made a will a year and four months before his death upon the third of the knowns of april the eleventh of april in the consulship of lucius plankus and kaius cilius it consisted of two skins of parchment written partly in his own hand and partly by his fridman polybius and hilarion and had been committed to the custody of the vestal virgins by whom it was now produced with three codicelles on their seal as well as the will all these were opened and read in the senate he appointed as his direct heirs tiberias for two-thirds of his estate and lilia for the other third both of whom he desired to assume his name the heirs in remainder were drusas tiberias's son for one-third and germanicus with his three sons for the residue in the third place failing them for his relations and several of his friends he left in legacies to the roman people 40 millions of sisterces to the tribes three millions five hundred thousand to the praetorian troops of thousand each man to the city cohorts five hundred and to the legions and soldiers three hundred each which several sums he ordered to be paid immediately after his death haven't taken duke here that the money should be ready in his ex shaker for the rest he ordered different times of payment in some of his bequests he went as far as 20 000 sisters for the payment of which he allowed the 12 month a legend for this procrastination the scantiness of his estate and declaring that not more than 150 millions of sisters would come to these heirs notwithstanding that during the 20 preceding years he had received in legacies from his friends the sum of 1400 millions almost the whole of which with his two paternal estates and others which had been left him he had spent in the service of the state he left orders that the two julias his daughter and granddaughter if anything happened to them should not be buried in his tomb with regard to the three codicils before mentioned in one of them he gave orders about his funeral another contained the summary of his acts which he intended should be inscribed on brazen plates and placed in front of his mausoleum in the third he had drawn up a concise account of the state of the empire the number of troops enrolled what money there was in the treasury the revenue and arrears of taxes the which were added the names of the freedmen and slaves from whom the several accounts might be taken end of caesar augustus