 Nero Part 2 of The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. 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 Philippa. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forrester. Nero Part 2 Paragraphs 19 to 31. Twice only he undertook any foreign expeditions, one to Alexandria and the other to Achaia, but he abandoned the prosecution of the former on the very day fixed for his departure, by being deterred both by ill omens and the hazard of the voyage. For while he was making the circuit of the temples, having seated himself in that a vesta, when he attempted to rise, the skirt of his robe stuck fast, and he was instantly seized with such a dimness in his eyes that he could not see a yard before him. In Achaia he attempted to make a cut through the Isthmus, and having made a speech encouraging his Praetorians to set about the work, on a signal given by sound of trumpet, he first broke ground with a spade, and carried off a basket full of earth upon his shoulders. He made preparations for an expedition to the pass of the Caspian Mountains, forming a new legion out of his late levies in Italy, of men all six feet high, which he called the phalanx of Alexander the Great. These transactions, in part unexceptionable and in part highly commendable, I have brought into one view, in order to separate them from the scandalous and criminal part of his conduct, of which I shall now give an account. During the other liberal arts which he was taught in his youth, he was instructed in music, and immediately after his advancement to the empire, he sent for Terpnos, a performer upon the harp, who flourished at that time with the highest reputation. Sitting with him for several days following, as he sang and played after supper until late at night, he began by degrees to practice upon the instrument himself. Nor did he omit any of those expedients which artists in music adopt for the preservation and improvement of their voices. He would lie upon his back with a sheet of lead upon his breast, clear his stomach and bowels by vomits and clisters, and forbear the eating of fruits or food prejudicial to the voice. Encouraged by his proficiency, though his voice was naturally neither loud nor clear, he was desirous of appearing upon the stage, frequently repeating amongst his friends a Greek proverb to this effect, that no one had any regard for music which they never heard. Accordingly he made his first public appearance at Naples, and although the theatre quivered with a sudden shock of an earthquake, he did not desist until he had finished the piece of music he had begun. He played and sung in the same place several times, and for several days together, taking only now and then a little respite to refresh his voice. Impatient of retirement it was his custom to go from the bath to the theatre, and after dining in the orchestra, amidst a crowded assembly of the people, he promised them in Greek that after he had drunk a little he would give them a tune which would make their ears tingle. Being highly pleased with the songs that were sung in his praise by some Alexandrians belonging to the fleet just arrived at Naples, he sent for more of the like singers from Alexandria. At the same time he chose young men of the equestrian order and about five thousand robust young fellows from the common people on purpose to learn various kinds of applause called bombi, imbriques, and testae, which they were to practice in his favour whenever he performed. They were divided into several parties, and were remarkable for their fine heads of hair, and were extremely well dressed with rings upon their left hands. The leaders of these bands had salaries of forty thousand, sostercies allowed them. At Rome, also being extremely proud of his singing, he ordered the games called Neronia to be celebrated before the time fixed for their return. All now becoming important to hear his heavenly voice, he informed them that he would gratify those who desired it at the gardens. But the soldiers then on guard, seconding the voice of the people, he promised to comply with their request immediately, and with all his heart. He instantly ordered his name to be entered upon the list of musicians who proposed to contend, and having thrown his lot into the urn among the rest, took his turn, and entered, attended by the prefects of the Praetorian cohorts bearing his harp, and followed by the military tribunes and several of his intimate friends. After he had taken his station and made the usual prelude, he commanded Cluvius Rufus, a man of consular rank, to proclaim in the theatre that he intended to sing the story of Nairobi. This he accordingly did, and continued it until nearly ten o'clock, but deferred the disposal of the crown and the remaining part of the solemnity until the next year, that he might have more frequent opportunities of performing. But that being too long, he could not refrain from often appearing as a public performer during the interval. He made no scruple of exhibiting on the stage, even in the spectacles presented to the people by private persons, and was offered by one of the Praetors no less than a million of cisterces for his services. He likewise sang tragedies in a mask, the visors of the heroes and gods, as also of the heroines and goddesses, being formed into a resemblance of his own face and that of any woman he was in love with. Amongst the rest he sung Kanake in labour, Orestes the murderer of his mother, Oedipus blinded, and Hercules mad. In the last tragedy it is said that a young sentinel posted at the entrance of the stage seeing him in a prison dress and bound with fetters, as the fable of the play required, ran to his assistants. He had from his childhood an extravagant passion for horses, and his constant talk was of the Secensian races, notwithstanding it was prohibited him. Being once among his fellow pupils, the case of a charioteer of the Green Party who was dragged around the circus at the tail of his chariot, and being reprimanded by his tutor for it, he pretended that he was talking of Hector. In the beginning of his reign he used to amuse himself daily with chariots drawn by four horses made of ivory upon a table. He attended at all the lesser exhibitions in the circus set first privately, but at last openly, so that nobody ever doubted of his presence on any particular day, nor did he conceal his desire to have the number of the prizes doubled, so that the races being increased accordingly, the diversion continued until a late hour, the leaders of parties refusing now to bring out their companies for any time less than the whole day. Upon this he took a fancy for driving the chariot himself, and that even publicly. Having made his first experiment in the gardens, amidst crowds of slaves and other rabble, he had length performed in the view of all the people in the Circus Maximus, whilst one of his freedmen dropped the napkin in the place where the magistrates used to give the signal. Not satisfied with exhibiting various specimens of his skill in those arts at Rome, he went over to Achia, as has been already said, principally for this purpose. The several cities in which solemn trials of musical skill used to be publicly held had resolved to send him the crowns belonging to those who bore away the prize. These he accepted so graciously, that he not only gave the deputies he brought them an immediate audience, but even invited them to his table. Being requested by some of them to sing at supper, and prodigiously applauded, he said, the Greeks were the only people who had an ear for music, and were the only good judges of him and his attainments. Without delay he commenced his journey, and on his arrival at Cassiope exhibited his first musical performance before the altar of Jupiter Cassius. He afterwards appeared at the celebration of all public games in Greece, for such as fell in different years he brought within the compass of one, and some he ordered to be celebrated a second time in the same year. At Olympia likewise, contrary to custom, he appointed a public performance in music, and that he might meet with no interruption in this employment, when he was informed by his freedman Helius that affairs at Rome required his presence. He wrote to him in these words, Though now all your hopes and wishes are for my speedy return, yet you ought rather to advise and hope that I may come back with a character worthy of Nero. During the time of his musical performance, nobody was allowed to stir out of the theatre upon any account, however necessary, in so much that it is said some women with child were delivered there. Many of the spectators being quite wearied with hearing and applauding him, because the town gates were shut, slipped privately over the walls, or counterfeiting themselves dead, were carried out for their funeral. With what extreme anxiety he engaged in these contests, with what keen desire to bear away the prize, and with how much awe of the judges, is scarcely to be believed. As if his adversaries had been on a level with himself, he would watch them narrowly, defame them privately, and sometimes upon meeting them, rail at them in very scurrilous language, or bribe them if they were better performers than himself. He always addressed the judges with the most profound reverence before he began, telling them he had done all things that were necessary by way of preparation, but that the issue of the approaching trial was in the hand of fortune, and that they, as wise and skillful men, ought to exclude from their judgment things merely accidental. Upon their encouraging him to have a good heart, he went off with more assurance, but not entirely free from anxiety, interpreting the silence and modesty of some of them into sourness and ill-nature, and saying that he was suspicious of them. In these contests he adhered so strictly to the rules that he never durst spit, nor wiped the sweat from his forehead in any other way than with his sleeve. Having in the performance of a tragedy dropped his scepter, and not quickly recovering it. He was in a great fright lest he should be set aside for the miscarriage, and could not regain his assurance until an actor who stood by saw he was certain it had not been observed in the midst of the acclamations and exultations of the people. When the prize was adjudged to him, he always proclaimed it himself, and even ended the lists with the heralds. That no memory or the least monument might remain of any other victor in the sacred Grecian games, he ordered all their statues and pictures to be pulled down, dragged away with hooks, and thrown into the common sewers. He drove the chariot with various numbers of horses, and at the Olympic Games with no fewer than ten, though in a poem of his he had reflected upon Mithridates for that innovation. Being thrown out of his chariot, he was again replaced but could not retain his seat, and was obliged to give up before he reached the goal, but was crowned notwithstanding. On his departure he declared the whole province a free country, and conferred upon the judges in the several games the freedom of Rome with large sums of money. All these favours he proclaimed himself with his own voice from the middle of the stadium during the solemnity of the Isthmian Games. On his return from Greece, arriving at Naples, because he had commenced his career as a public performer in that city, he made his entrance in a chariot drawn by white horses through a breach in the city wall, according to the practice of those who were victorious in the sacred Grecian Games. In the same manner he entered Antium, Alba and Rome. He made his entry into the city, riding in the same chariot in which Augustus had triumphed, in a purple tunic and a cloak embroidered with golden stars, having on his head the crown won at Olympia, and in his right hand that which was given him at the Parthian Games. The rest being carried in a procession before him, with inscriptions denoting the places where they had been won, from whom and in what plays or musical performances, whilst the train followed him, with loud acclamations crying out that they were the emperor's attendants and the soldiers of his triumph. Having then caused an arch of the Circus Maximus to be taken down, he passed through the breach as also through the Velabrum and the Forum, to the Palatine Hill and the Temple of Apollo. Over as he marched along, victims were slain, while the streets were strewn with saffron, and birds, chaplets and sweet-meats scattered abroad. He suspended the sacred crowns in his chamber about his beds, and caused statues of himself to be erected in the attire of a harper, and as his likeness stamped upon the coin in the same dress. After this period he was so far from abating anything of his application to music, that for the preservation of his voice he never addressed the soldiers but by messages, or with some person to deliver his speeches for him, when he thought fit to make his appearance amongst them. Nor did he ever do anything either ingest or earnest, without a voice-master standing by, to caution him against overstraining his vocal organs, and to apply a hand-gearchief to his mouth, when he did. He offered his friendship, or avowed open enmity to many, according as they were lavish or sparing in giving him their applause. Petulancy, lewdness, luxury, avarice, and cruelty he practised at first with reserve and in private, as if prompted to them only by the folly of youth, but even then the world was of opinion that they were the faults of his nature, and not of his age. After it was dark he used to enter the taverns disguised in a cap or a wig, and ramble about the streets in sport, which was not void of mischief. He used to beat those he met coming home from supper, and if they made any resistance would wound them and throw them into the common sewer. He broke open and robbed shops, establishing an auction at home for selling his booty. In the scuffles which took place on those occasions he often ran the hazard of losing his eyes and even his life, being beaten almost to death by a senator for handling his wife indecently. After this adventure he never again ventured abroad at that time of night without some tribunes following him at a little distance. In the daytime he would be carried to the theatre incognito in a litter, placing himself upon the upper part of the proscenium, where he not only witnessed the quarrels which arose on account of the performances, but also encouraged them. When they came to blows and stones and pieces of broken benches began to fly about, he threw them plentifully amongst the people, and once even broke a pritil's head. His vices gaining strength by degrees he laid aside his jocular amusements and all disguise, breaking out into enormous crimes without the least attempt to conceal them. His revels were prolonged from midday to midnight, while he was frequently refreshed by warm baths and in the summertime by such as were cooled with snow. He often supped in public, in the Narmakia was the Sluces shut, or in the Campus Marshus, or the Circus Maximus, being weighted upon a table by common prostitutes of the town, and Syrian strumpets and glee-girls. As often as he went down the Tiber to Ostia, or coasted through the Gulf of Bayi, booths furnished as brothels and eating-houses were erected along the shore and river-banks, for which stood matrons who, like boards and hostesses, allured him to land. It was also his custom to invite himself to supper with his friends, at one of which was expended no less than four millions of cisterces in chaplets, and at another something more in roses. Besides the abuse of free-born lads and the debauch of married women, he committed a rape upon Rubria, a vestal virgin. He was upon the point of marrying Akte, his freedwoman, having suborned some men of consular rank to swear that she was of royal descent. He gelded the boy's sporus, and endeavoured to transform him into a woman. He even went so far as to marry him with all the usual formalities of a marriage settlement, the rose-coloured nuptial veil, and a numerous company at the wedding. When the ceremony was over he had him conducted like a bride to his own house, and treated him as his wife. It was jocularly observed by some person that it would have been well for mankind had such a wife fallen to the lot of his father, Demitius. This sporus he carried about with him in a litter round the solemn assemblies and fares of Greece, and afterwards at Rome through the Sigilaria, dressed in the richer tire of an empress, kissing him from time to time as they rode together. Horty entertained an incestuous passion for his mother, but was deterred by her enemies, for fear that this haughty and overbearing woman should by her compliance get him entirely into her power and govern in everything was universally believed, especially after he had introduced amongst his concubines a strumpet who was reported to have a strong resemblance to Agrippina. He prostituted his own chastity to such a degree that after he had defiled every part of his person with some unnatural pollution, he at last invented an extraordinary kind of diversion, which was to be let out of a den in the arena, covered with the skin of a wild beast, and then assail with violence the private parts both of men and women while they were bound to stakes. After he had vented this furious passion upon them, he finished the play in the embraces of his freedman Doriferus, to whom he was married in the same way that Sporus had been married to himself, imitating the cries and shrieks of young virgins when they are ravished. I have been informed from numerous sources that he firmly believed no man in the world to be chased or any part of his person undefiled, but that most men concealed that vice and were cunning enough to keep it secret. To those therefore who frankly owned their unnatural lewdness he forgave all other crimes. He thought that there was no other use of riches and money than to squander them away profusely, regarding all those assorted riches who kept their expenses within due bounds, and extolling those as truly noble and generous souls who lavished away and wasted all they possessed. He praised and admired his uncle Caius upon no account more than for squandering in a short time the vast treasure left him by Tiberius. Interestingly he was himself extravagant and profuse beyond all bounds. He spent upon Tiridates eight hundred thousand cisterces a day, a sum almost incredible, and at his departure presented him with upwards of a million. He likewise bestowed upon Minecretis the Harper and Spichillo the gladiator, the estates and houses of men who had received the honour of a triumph. He enriched the usurer, Cercopithecus Penerotes, with estates both in town and country, and gave him a funeral in pomp and magnificence little inferior to that of princes. He never wore the same garment twice. He has been known to stake four hundred thousand cisterces on a throw of the dice. It was his custom to fish, with a golden net drawn by silken cords of purple and scarlet. It is said that he never travelled with less than a thousand baggage carts, the mules being all shod with silver, and the drivers dressed in scarlet jackets of the finest Canusian cloth, with a numerous train of footmen and troops of mazacans with bracelets on their arms and mounted upon horses in splendid trappings. In nothing was he more prodigal than in his buildings. He completed his palace by continuing it from the Palatine to the Esquiline Hill, calling the building at first only the Passage, but after it was burnt down and rebuilt the Golden House. Of its dimensions and furniture it may be sufficient to say thus much. The porch was so high that there stood in it a colossal statue of himself, a hundred and twenty feet in height, and the space included in it was so ample that it had triple porticoes a mile in length, and a lake like a sea, surrounded with buildings which had the appearance of a city. Within its area were cornfields, vineyards, pastures and woods containing a vast number of animals of various kinds both wild and tame. In other parts it was entirely overlaid with gold, and adorned with jewels and mother of pearl. The supper-rooms were vaulted, and compartments of the ceilings inlaid with ivory were made to revolve and scatter flowers, while they contained pipes which shed ungulance upon the guests. The chief's banqueting-room was circular, and revolved perpetually, night and day, in imitation of the motion of the celestial bodies. The bards were supplied with water from the sea and the albula. On the dedication of this magnificent house after it was finished, all he said in approval of it was that he had now a dwelling fit for a man. He commenced making a pond for the reception of all the hot streams from Baye, which he designed to have continued from Mizanem to the Avernian lake in a conduit enclosed in galleries, and also a canal from Avernem to Ostia that ships might pass from one to the other without a sea voyage. The length of the proposed canal was one hundred and sixty miles, and it was intended to be of breadth sufficient to permit ships with five banks of oars to pass each other. For the execution of these designs he ordered all prisoners in every part of the Empire to be brought to Italy, and that even those who were convicted of the most heinous crimes in lieu of any other sentence should be condemned to work at them. He was encouraged to all this wild and enormous profusion not only by the great revenue of the Empire, but by the sudden hopes given him of an immense hidden treasure which Queen Dido upon her flight from Tyre had brought with her to Africa. This a Roman knight pretended to assure him on good grounds, was still hid there in some deep caverns, and might with a little labour be recovered. Nero Part 2 Nero Part 3 of The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranculis 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 Philippa The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranculis Translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forrester Nero Part 3 Paragraphs 32 to 40 But being disappointed in his expectations of this resource, and reduced to such difficulties for want of money, that he was obliged to defer paying his troops and the rewards due to the veterans, he resolved upon supplying his necessities by means of false accusations and plunder. In the first place he ordered that if any freedman without sufficient reason bore the name of the family to which he belonged, the half, instead of three-fourths of his estate, should be brought into the Exchequer at his decease. Also that the estates of all such persons as had not in their wills been mindful of their prince should be confiscated, and that the lawyers who had drawn or dictated such wills should be liable to a fine. He ordained likewise that all words and actions upon which any informer could ground a prosecution should be deemed treason. He demanded an equivalent for the crowns which the cities of Greece had at any time offered him in the solemn games. Having for bad anyone to use the colours of amethyst and Tyrian purple, he privately sent a person to sell a few ounces of them upon the day of the Nundini, and then shut up all the merchant's shops on the pretext that his edict had been violated. It is said that as he was playing and singing in the theatre, observing a married lady dressed in the purple which he had prohibited, he pointed her out to his brocuretors, upon which she was immediately dragged out of her seat and not only stripped of her clothes, but her property. He never nominated a person to any office without saying to him, You know what I want, and let us take care that nobody has anything he can call his own. At last he rifled many temples of the rich offerings with which they were stored, and melted down all the gold and silver statues, and amongst them those of the Panates which Galba afterwards restored. He began the practice of parasite and murder with Claudius himself, for although he was not the contriver of his death, he was privy to the plot. Nor did he make any secret of it, but used afterwards to commend in a Greek proverb, mushrooms as food fit for the gods, because Claudius had been poisoned with them. He'd reduced his memory both by word and deed in the grossest manner, one while charging him with folly, another with cruelty. For he used to say by way of jest that he had ceased morari amongst men, pronouncing the first syllable long, and treated as null many of his decrees and ordinances as made by a doting old blockhead. He enclosed the place where his body was burnt with only a low wall of rough masonry. He attempted to poison Britannicus, as much out of envy because he had a sweeter voice as from apprehension of what might ensue from the respect which the people entertained for his father's memory. He employed for this purpose a woman named Locusta, who had been a witness against some person's guilty of like practices. But the poison she gave him, working more slowly than he expected only causing a purge, he sent for the woman and beat her with his own hand, charging her with administering an antidote instead of poison, and upon her alleging an excuse that she had given Britannicus but a gentle mixture in order to prevent suspicion, think you, said he, that I am afraid of the Julian law, and obliged her to prepare in his own chamber and before his eyes as quick and strong a dose as possible. This he tried upon a kid, but the animal lingering for five hours before it expired, he ordered her to go to work again. And when she had done he gave the poison to a pig, which dying immediately he commanded the potion to be brought into the eating room and given to Britannicus while he was at supper with him. The prince had no sooner tasted it than he sunk on the floor, nearer meanwhile pretending to the guests that it was only a fit of the falling sickness to which he said he was subject. He buried him the following day, in a mean and hurried way, during violent storms of rain. He gave Locusta a pardon and rewarded her with a great estate in land, placing some disciples with her to be instructed in her trade. His mother being used to make strict inquiry into what he said or did, and to reprimand him with the freedom of a parent, he was so much offended that he endeavored to expose her to public resentment by frequently pretending a resolution to quit the government and retire to Rhodes. Soon afterwards he deprived her of all honour and power, took from her the guard of Roman and German soldiers, banished her from the palace and from his society, and persecuted her in every way he could contrive, employing persons to harass her when at Rome with lawsuits, and to disturb her in her retirement from town with the most scurrilous and abusive language following her about by land and sea. But being terrified with her menaces and violent spirit, he resolved upon her destruction, and Thrice attempted it by poison. Finding, however, that she had previously secured herself by antidotes, he contrived machinery by which the floor over her bed-chamber might be made to fall upon her while she was asleep in the night. This design miscarrying likewise, through the little caution used by those who were in the secret, his next strategy was to construct a ship which could be easily shivered in hopes of destroying her either by drowning or by the deck above her cabin crushing her in its fall. Accordingly, under colour of a pretended reconciliation, he wrote her an extremely affectionate letter inviting her to buy a to celebrate with him the Festival of Minerva. He had given private orders to the captains of the galleys which were to attend her to shatter to pieces the ship in which she had come by falling foul of it, but in such a manner that it might appear to be done accidentally. He prolonged the entertainment for the more convenient opportunity of executing the plot in the night, and at her return from Baoli, instead of the old ship which had conveyed her to buy, he offered that which he had contrived for her destruction. He attended her to the vessel in a very cheerful mood, and at parting with her kissed her breasts, after which he sat up very late in the night, waiting with great anxiety to learn the issue of his project. But receiving information that everything had fallen out contrary to his wish, and that she had saved herself by swimming, not knowing what course to take, upon her freedman, Lucius Agarina, springing word with great joy that she was safe and well, he privately dropped upon by him. He then commanded the freedman to be seized and put in chains, under pretense of his having been employed by his mother to assassinate him, at the same time ordering her to be put to death, and giving out that to avoid punishment for her intended crime, she had laid violent hands upon herself. Other circumstances still more horrible are related on good authority, as that he went to view her corpse, and handling her limbs pointed out some blemishes, and commended other points, and that growing thirsty during the survey he called for drink. Yet he was never afterwards able to bear the stings of his own conscience for this atrocious act, although encouraged by the congratulatory addresses of the army, the senate, and people. He frequently affirmed that he was haunted by his mother's ghost, and persecuted with the whips and burning torches of the furies. Nay, he attempted by magical rites to bring up her ghost from below and soften her rage against him. When he was in Greece he durst not attend the celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries, at the initiation of which impious and wicked persons are warned by the voice of the herald from approaching the rites. Besides the murder of his mother, he had been guilty of that of his aunt, for being obliged to keep her bed in consequence of a complaint in her bowels, he paid her a visit, and she, being then advanced in years, stroking his downy chin in the tenderness of affection, said to him, May I but live to see the day when this is shaved for the first time, and I shall then die contented. He turned, however, to those about him, made a gist of it, saying that he would have his beard immediately taken off, and ordered the physicians to give her more violent purgatives. He seized upon her estate before she had expired, suppressing her will, that he might enjoy the whole himself. He had besides Octavia two other wives, Poppea Sabina, whose father had borne the office of Quistor, and who had been married before to a Roman knight, and after her Statilia Messalina, great-granddaughter of Taurus, who was twice consul, and received the honour of the triumph. To obtain possession of her he put to death her husband Atticus Vestinus, who was then consul. He soon became disgusted with Octavia, and ceased from having any intercourse with her, and being censured by his friends for it, he replied, she ought to be satisfied with having the rank and appendages of his wife. Soon afterwards he made several attempts, but in vain, to strangle her, and then divorced her for barrenness. But the people disapproving of the divorce, and making severe comments upon it, he also banished her. At last he put her to death upon a charge of adultery so impudent and false, that when all those who were put to the torture positively denied their knowledge of it, he suborned his pedagogue, Anaquitas, to affirm that he had secretly intrigued with and debauched her. He married Poppaea twelve days after the divorce of Octavia, and entertained a great affection for her, but nevertheless killed her, with a kick which he gave her when she was big with child, and in bad health, only because she found fault with her for returning late from driving his chariot. He had by her a daughter, Claudia Augusta, who died an infant. There was no person at all connected with him who escaped his deadly and unjust cruelty, and a pretense of her being engaged in a plot against him, he put to death Antonia, Claudius's daughter, who refused to marry him after the death of Poppaea. In the same way he destroyed all who were allied to him, either by blood or by blood, amongst whom was young Aulus Platinas. He first compelled him to submit to his unnatural lust, and then ordered him to be executed, crying out, Let my mother bestow her kisses on my successor, thus defiled, pretending that he had been his mother's paramour, and by her encouraged to aspire to the empire. His stepson, Rufinas Crispinas, Poppaea's son, though a minor, he ordered to be drowned in the sea while he was fishing by his own slaves, because he was reported to act frequently amongst his play-fellows the part of a general or an emperor. He banished Tuscus, his nurse's son, for presuming, when he was procurator of Egypt, to wash in the bards which had been constructed in expectation of his own coming. Seneca, his preceptor, he forced to kill himself, though upon his desiring leave to retire, and offering to surrender his estate, he solemnly swore that there was no foundation for his suspicions, and that he would perish himself sooner than hurt him. Having promised Burrus, the Praetorian prefect, a remedy for a swelling in his throat, he sent him poison. Some old rich freedmen of Claudius, who had formerly not only promoted his adoption, but were also instrumental to his advancement to the empire, and had been his governors, he took off by horizon, given them in their meat or drink. Nor did he proceed with less cruelty against those who were not of his family. A blazing star which is vulgarly supposed to portend destruction to kings and princes, appeared above the horizon several nights excessively. He felt great anxiety on account of this phenomenon, and being informed by one Babelus, an astrologer, that princes were used to expiate such omens by the sacrifice of illustrious men, and so avert the danger foreboded to their own persons, by bringing it on the heads of their chief men, he resolved on the destruction of the principal nobility in Rome. He was the more encouraged to do this because he had some plausible pretense for carrying it into execution from the discovery of two conspiracies against him, the former and more dangerous of which was that formed by Piso, and discovered at Rome, the other was that of Vinicius at Beneventum. The conspirators were brought to their trials loaded with triple fetters. Some ingenuously confessed the charge, others avowed that they thought the design against his life an act of favour for which he was obliged to them, as it was impossible in any other way than by death to relieve a person rendered infamous by crimes of the greatest enormity. The children of those who had been condemned were banished to the city, and afterwards either poisoned or starved to death. It is asserted that some of them with their tutors and the slaves who carried their satchels were all poisoned together at one dinner, and others not suffered to seek their daily bread. From this period he butchered without distinction or quarter all whom his caprice suggested as objects for his cruelty, and upon the most frivolous pretenses. To mention only a few. Salvidianus or fetus was accused of letting out three taverns attached to his house in the forum to some cities for the use of their deputies at Rome. The charge against Cassius Longinas, a lawyer who had lost his sight, was that he kept amongst the busts of his ancestors that of Caus Cassius, who was concerned in the death of Julius Caesar. The only charge objected against Pytus Thracea was that he had a melancholy cast of features and looked like a schoolmaster. He allowed but one hour to those whom he obliged to kill themselves, and to prevent delay he sent them physicians to cure them immediately if they lingered beyond that time, for so he called, bleeding them to death. There was at that time an Egyptian of a most voracious appetite who would digest raw flesh or anything else that was given him. It was credibly reported that the emperor was extremely desirous of furnishing his living men to tear and devour. Being elated with his great success in the perpetration of crimes, he declared that no prince before himself ever knew the extent of his power. He threw out strong intimations that he would not even spare the senators who survived, but would entirely extirpate that order, and put the provinces and armies into the hands of the Roman knights and his own freedmen. It is certain that he never gave of vouchsafe to allow anyone the customary kiss either on entering or departing or even returned a salute. And at the inauguration of a work the cut through the isthmus he with a loud voice omits the assembled multitude uttered a prayer that the undertaking might prove fortunate for himself and the Roman people without taking the smallest notice of the senate. He spared moreover neither the people of Rome nor the capital of his country. Somebody in conversation saying when I am dead let fire devour the world. Nay, said he, let it be while I am living. And he acted accordingly for pretending to be disgusted with the old buildings and the narrow and winding streets he set the city on fire so openly that many of consular rank caught his own household servants on their property with tow and torches in their hands but dust not metal with them. There being near his golden house some granaries, the site of which he exceedingly coveted they were battered as if with machines of war and set on fire the walls being built of stone. During six days and seven nights this terrible devastation continued the people being obliged to fly to the tombs and monuments for lodging and shelter. Meanwhile a vast number of stately buildings the houses of generals celebrated in former times and even then still decorated with the spoils of war were laid in ashes as well as the temples of the gods which had been vowed and dedicated by the kings of Rome and afterwards in the Punic and Gallic wars. In short everything that was remarkable and worthy to be seen which time had spurred. This fire he beheld from a tower house of Meccanus and being greatly delighted as he said with the beautiful effects of the conflagration he sung a poem to the ruin of Troy in the tragic dress he used on the stage. To turn this calamity to his own advantage by plunder and wrapping he promised to remove the bodies of those who had perished in the fire and clear the rubbish at his own expense suffering no one to meddle with the remains of their property he not only received but exacted contributions on account of the loss until he had exhausted the means both of the provinces and private persons. To these terrible and shameful calamities brought upon the people by their prince were added some proceeding from misfortune. Such were a pestilence by which within the space of one autumn there died no less than thirty thousand persons as appeared from the registers in the temple of Lubitina a great disaster in Britain where two of the principal towns belonging to the Romans were plundered and a dreadful havoc made both amongst our troops and allies a shameful discomforture of the army of the east where in Armenia the legions were obliged to pass under the yoke and it was with great difficulty that Syria was retained. Amidst all these disasters it was strange and indeed particularly remarkable that he bore nothing more patiently than the scurrilous language and railing abuse which was in everyone's mouth treating no class of persons with more gentleness than those who assailed him with invective and lampoons. Many things of that kind were posted up about the city or otherwise published both in Greek and Latin, such as these and Alcmaeon, Nero too the lustful Nero worst of all the crew fresh from his bridle their own mother's slew sprung from Ineos pious wise and great who says that Nero is degenerate safe through the flames one bore his sire the other to save himself to cough his loving mother D'um tendit kitaram nostre D'um cornoa partus nostre erit payan ille heccate belletes his liar to harmony our Nero strings his arrows are the plane the pathian wings ours call the tuneful pien famed in war the other Phoebus name the god who shoots afar D'umus fiet weos migrate quidites sinon et weos occupatista D'umus all Rome will be one house to vei fly should it not stretch to vei by and by but he neither made any inquiry after the authors nor when information was laid before the senate against some of them would he allow a severe sentence to be passed Isidorus the cynic philosopher said to him aloud as he was passing along the streets you sing them as fortunes of now play as well but behave badly yourself and Datus a comic actor when repeating these words in the piece farewell father farewell mother mimicked the gestures of persons drinking and swimming significantly alluding to the deaths of Claudius and Agrippina and on uttering the last clause orcus will be stuck it pedes you stand this moment on the brink of orcus he plainly intimated his application of it to the precarious position of the senate yet Nero only banished the player and philosopher from the city and Italy either because he was insensible to shame or from apprehension that if he discovered his vexation still keener things might be said of him the world after tolerating such an emperor for little less than fourteen years at length for sook him the ghouls headed by Julius Vindex who at that time governed the province as proprytor being the first to revolt Nero had been formerly told by astrologers that it would be his fortune to be at last deserted by all the world and this occasion that celebrated saying of his an artist can live in any country by which he meant to offer as an excuse for his practice of music that it was not only his amusement as a prince but might be his support and reduced to a private station yet some of the astrologers promised him in his forlorn state the rule of the east and some in express words the kingdom of Jerusalem but the greater part of them flattered him with assurances of his being restored to his former fortune and being most inclined to believe the latter prediction upon losing Britain and Armenia he imagined he had run through all the misfortunes which the fates had decreed him but when upon consulting the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi he was advised to beware of the 73rd year as if he were not to die till then never thinking of Galba's age he conceived such hopes not only of living to advanced years but of constant and singular good fortune that having lost some things of great value by shipwreck he scrupled not to say amongst his friends that the fishes would bring them back to him at Naples he heard of the election in Gaul on the anniversary of the day on which he killed his mother and bore it with so much unconcern as to excite a suspicion that he was really glad of it since he had now a fair opportunity of plundering those wealthy provinces by the right of war immediately going to the gymnasium he witnessed the exercise of the wrestlers with the greatest delight being interrupted at supper with letters which brought yet worse news he expressed no greater resentment than only to threaten the rebels for eight days together he never attempted to answer any letters nor give any orders but buried the whole affair in profound silence End of Nero Part 3 Nero Part 4 of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Sotonius Tranquilis 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 Philippa The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Sotonius Tranquilis translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forrester Nero Part 4 paragraphs 41 to 57 Being roused at last by numerous proclamations of Vindex treating him with reproaches and contempt he in a letter to the senate exorted them to avenge his wrongs and those of the Republic desiring them to excuse his not appearing in the senate house because he had got cold but nothing so much gulped him as to find himself railed at as a pitiful harper and instead of Nero styled Enobarbus which being his family name since he was up braided with it he declared that he would resume it and lay aside the name he had taken by adoption passing by the other accusations as wholly groundless he earnestly refuted that of his want of skill in an art upon which he had bestowed so much pains and in which he had arrived at such perfection asking frequently those about him if they knew any one who was a more accomplished musician but being alarmed by messengers after messengers of ill news from Gaul he returned in great consternation to Rome on the road his mind was somewhat relieved by observing the frivolous omen of a Gaulish soldier defeated and dragged by the hair by a Roman knight which was sculptured on a monument so that he leapt for joy and adored the heavens even then he made no appeal either to the senate or people but calling together some of the leading men at his own house he held a hasty consultation upon the present state of affairs and then during the remainder of the day carried them about with him to view some musical instruments of a new invention which were played by water exhibiting all the parts and discoursing upon the principles and difficulties of the contrivance which he told them he intended to produce in the theatre if Vindex would give him leave soon afterwards he received intelligence that Galba and the Spaniards had declared against him upon which he fainted and losing his reason lay a long time speechless, apparently dead as soon as recovered from this state of stupefaction he tore his clothes, beat his head crying out, it is all over with me his nurse endeavouring to comfort him and telling him that the like things had happened to other princes before him he replied I am beyond all example wretched, for I have lost an empire whilst I am still living he nevertheless abated nothing of his luxury and inattention to business nay, on the arrival of good news from the provinces he at a sumptuous entertainment sung with an air of merriment some jovial verses upon the leaders of the revolt were made public and accompanied them with suitable gestures being carried privately to the theatre he sent word to an actor who was applauded by the spectators that he had it all his own way now that he himself did not appear on the stage at the first breaking out of these troubles it is believed that he had formed many designs of a monstrous nature although conformable enough to his natural disposition these were to send new governors and commanders to the provinces and the armies and employ assassins to butcher all the former governors and commanders as men unanimously engaged in a conspiracy against him to massacre the exiles in every quarter and all the Gaulish population in Rome the former lest they should join the insurrection the latter as privy to the designs of their countrymen and ready to support them to abandon Gaul itself to be wasted and plundered by his armies to poison the whole senate at a feast to fire the city and then let loose the wild beasts upon the people in order to impede their stopping the progress of the flames but being deterred from the execution of these designs not so much by remorse of conscience as by despair of being able to affect them and judging an expedition into Gaul necessary he removed the consuls from their office before the time of its expiration was arrived and in their room assumed the consulship himself as if the fates had decreed that Gaul should not be conquered but by a consul upon assuming the Fasciis after an entertainment at the palace as he walked out of the room leaning on the arms of some of his friends he declared that as soon as he arrived in the province he would make his appearance amongst the troops unarmed and do nothing but weep and that after he had brought the mutineers to repentance he would the next day in the public rejoicings sing songs of triumph which he must now without loss of time apply himself to compose in preparing for this expedition his first care was to provide carriages for his musical instruments and machinery to be used upon the stage to have the hair of the concubines he carried with him dressed in the fashion of men and to supply them with battle axes and Amazonian bucklers he summoned the city tribes to enlist but no qualified persons appearing he ordered all masters to send a certain number of slaves the best they had not accepting their stewards and secretaries he commanded the several orders of the people to bring in a fixed proportion of their estates as they stood in the censor's books all tenants of houses and mansions to pay one year's rent forthwith into the Exchequer and with unheard of strictness would receive only new coin of the purest silver and the finest gold in so much that most people refused to pay crying out unanimously that he ought to squeeze the informers and oblige them to surrender their gains the general odium in which he was held received an increase by the great scarcity of corn and an occurrence connected with it for as it happened just at that time that arrived from Alexandria a ship which was said to be freighted with dust for the wrestlers belonging to the emperor this so much inflamed the public rage that he was treated with the utmost abuse and scurrility upon the top of one of his statues was placed the figure of a chariot with a Greek inscription that now indeed he had a race to run let him be gone a little bag was tied about another with a ticket containing these words what could I do truly thou hast merited the sack some person likewise wrote on the pillars in the forum that he had even woke the cocks with his singing and many in the night time pretending to find fault with their servants frequently called for a vindex he was also terrified with manifest warnings both old and new arising from dreams, auspices and omens he had never been used to dream before the murder of his mother after that event he fancied in his sleep that he was steering a ship and that the rudder was forced from him that he was dragged by his wife Octavia into a prodigiously dark place and was at one time covered over the vast swarm of winged ants and at another surrounded by the national images which were set up near Pompey's theatre and hindered from advancing father that a Spanish genet he was fond of had his hindaparts so changed as to resemble those of an ape and having his head only left unaltered, nade very harmoniously the doors of the mausoleum of Augustus flying open of themselves there issued from it a voice calling on him by name the lares being adorned with fresh garlands on the callens the first of January fell down during the preparations for sacrificing to them while he was taking the omens Sporus presented him with a ring the stone of which had carved upon it the rape of prosopene when a great multitude of the several orders was assembled to attend at the solemnity of making vows to the gods it was a long time before the keys of the capital could be found and when in a speech of his to the senate against Vindex these words were read that the miscreants should be punished and soon make the end they merited they all cried out you will do it Augustus it was likewise remarked that the last tragic piece which he sung was Oedipus in exile and that he fell as he was repeating this verse Canen, Manoge, Singamos, Meter, Pater wife, mother, father forced me to my end meanwhile on the arrival of the news that the rest of the armies had declared against him he tore to pieces the letters which were delivered to him at dinner over through the table and dashed with violence against the ground two favourite cups which he called homers because some of that poet's verses will cut upon them speaking from La Custa a dose of poison which he put up in a golden box he went into the civilian gardens and then dispatching a trusty freedman to Ostia with orders to make ready a fleet he endeavoured to prevail with some tribunes and centurions of the Praetorian guards to attend him in his flight but part of them showing no great inclination to comply others absolutely refusing and one of them crying out aloud say, is it then so sad a thing to die? he was in great perplexity whether he should submit himself to Galba or apply to the Parthians for protection or else appear before the people dressed in mourning and upon the rostra in the most piteous manner beg pardon for his past misdemeanours and if he could not prevail request of them to grant him at least the Government of Egypt a speech to this purpose was afterwards found in his writing case but it seems that he does not venture upon this project for fear of being torn to pieces before he could get to the Forum deferring therefore his resolution until the next day he awoke about midnight and finding the guards withdrawn he leapt out of bed and sent round for his friends but none of them vouchsaving any message in reply he went with a few attendants to their houses the doors being everywhere shut and no one giving him any answer he returned to his bed-chamber whence those who had the charge of it had all now eloped some having gone one way and some another carrying off with them his bedding and box of poison he then endeavoured to find Spiculus the gladiator or someone to kill him but not being able to procure anyone what said he have I then neither friend nor foe and immediately ran out as if he would throw himself into the Tiber this furious impulse subsiding he wished for some place of privacy where he might collect his thoughts and his freedmen fell on offering him his country house between the Solarian and Nementan roads about four miles from the city he mounted a horse barefoot as he was and in his tunic only slipping over it an old soiled cloak with his head muffled up and a handkerchief before his face and four persons only to attend him of whom Sporus was won he was suddenly struck with horror by an earthquake and by a flash of lightning which darted full in his face and heard from the neighbouring camp the shouts of the soldiers wishing his destruction and prosperity to Galba he also had a traveller they met on the road say they're in pursuit of Nero and another ask is there any news in the city about Nero uncovering his face when his horse was started by the scent of a carcass which lay in the road and saluted by an old soldier who had been discharged from the guards when they came to the lane which turned up to the house they quitted their horses and with much difficulty he wound among bushes and briars and along a track through a bed of rushes over which they spread their cloaks for him to walk on having reached a wall at the back of the villa Thayon advised him to hide himself a while in a sand pit when he replied he was still alive staying there some little time while preparations were made for bringing him privately into the villa he took up some water out of a neighbouring tank in his hand to drink saying this is Nero's distilled water then his cloak having been torn by the brambles he pulled out the thorns which stuck in it at last being admitted creeping upon his hands and knees through a hole made for him in the wall he lay down in the first closet he came to upon a miserable pallet with an old coverlet thrown over it and being both hungry and thirsty though he refused some core spread that was brought him he drank a little warm water all who surrounded him now pressing him to save himself from the indignities which were ready to befall him he ordered a pit to be sunk before his eyes of the size of his body and the bottom to be covered with pieces of marble put together if any could be found about the house water and wood to be got ready for immediate use about his corpse weeping at everything that was done and frequently saying what an artist is now about to perish meanwhile letters being brought in by a servant belonging to Feon he snatched them out of his hand and there read that he had been declared an enemy by the senate and that search was making for him that he might be punished according to the ancient custom of the Romans he then inquired what kind of punishment that was and being told that the practice was to strip the criminal naked and scourge him to death while his neck was fastened within a forked steak he was so terrified that he took up two daggers which he had brought with him and after feeling the points of both put them up again saying the fatal hour is not yet come one while he begged of spore us to wail and lament another while he entreated that one of them would set an example by killing himself and then again he condemned his own want of resolution in these words I yet live to my shame and disgrace this is not becoming for Nero it is not becoming thou autist in such circumstances to have a good heart come then courage man the horsemen who had received orders to bring him away alive were now approaching the house as soon as he heard them coming he uttered with a trembling voice the following verse he drove a dagger into his throat being assisted in the act by Epaphroditus his secretary a centurion bursting in just as he was half dead and applying his cloak to the wound pretending that he was come to his assistance he made no other reply but this it is too late and is this your loyalty immediately after pronouncing these words he expired with his eyes fixed and starting out of his head to the terror of all who beheld him he had requested of his attendance as the most essential favour that they would let no one have his head but that by all means his body might be burnt entire and this Icalus Galbus Friedman granted he had but a little before been discharged from the prison into which he had been thrown when the disturbances first broke out the expenses of his funeral amounted to two hundred thousand cisterces the bed upon which his body was carried to the pile and burnt being covered with the white robes interwoven with gold which he had worn upon the callons of January proceeding his nurses Ecloga and Alexandra with his concubine Actae deposited his remains in the tomb belonging to the family of the Demishi which stands upon the top of the hill of the gardens and is to be seen from the campus marshes in that monument a coffin of porphyry with an altar of marble of lunar over it is enclosed by a wall built of stone brought from Thassos in stature he was a little below the common height his skin was foul and spotted his hair inclined to yellow his features were agreeable rather than handsome his eyes grey and dull his neck was thick his belly prominent his legs very slender his constitution sound for though excessively luxurious in his mode of living he had in the course of fourteen years only three fits of sickness which were so slight that he neither forbore the use of wine nor made any alteration in his usual diet in his dress and the care of his person he was so careless that he had his hair cut in rings one above another and when in a cire he let it grow long behind and he generally appeared in public in the loose dress which he used at table with a handkerchief about his neck and without either a girdle or shoes he was instructed when a boy in the rudiments of almost all the liberal sciences but his mother diverted him from the study of philosophy as unsuited to one destined to be an emperor and his preceptor Seneca discouraged him from reading the ancient orators that he might longer secure his devotion to himself therefore having a turn for poetry he composed verses both with pleasure and ease nor did he as something publish those of other writers as his own several little pocketbooks and loose sheets have come into my possession which contains some well-known verses in his own hand and written in such a manner that it was very evident from the blotting and interlining that they had not been transcribed from a copy nor dictated by another, but were written by the composer of them he had likewise great taste for drawing and painting as well as for moulding statues in plaster but above all things he most eagerly coveted popularity being the rival of every man who obtained the applause of the people for anything he did it was the general belief that after the crowns he won by his performances on the stage he would the next last room have taken his place among the wrestlers at the Olympic Games for he was continually practising that art nor did he witness the gymnastic games in any part of Greece otherwise than sitting upon the ground in the stadium as the umpires do and if a pair of wrestlers happened to break the bounds he would with his own hands drag them back into the centre of the circle because he was thought to equal Apollo in music and the sun in chariot driving he resolved also to imitate the achievements of Hercules and they say that a lion was got ready for him to kill either with a club or with a close hug in view of the people in the amphitheatre which he was to perform naked towards the end of his life he publicly vowed that if his power in the state was securely re-established he would in the spectacles which he intended to exhibit in honour of his success include a performance upon organs as well as upon flutes and bagpipes and on the last day of the games would act in the play and take the part of turnous as we find it in Virgil and there are some who say that he put to death the player Paris as a dangerous rival he had an insatiable desire to immortalise his name and acquire a reputation which had last through all succeeding ages but it was capriciously directed he therefore took from several things and places their former appellations and gave them new names derived from his own he called the month of April Neroneus and designed changing the name of Rome into that of Neropolis he held all religious rights in contempt except those of the Syrian goddess but at last he paid her so little reverence that he made water upon her being now engaged in another superstition in which only he obstinately persisted for having received from some obscure plebeian a little image of a girl as a preservative against plots and discovered a conspiracy immediately after he constantly worshipped his imaginary protectress as the greatest amongst the gods offering to her three sacrifices daily he was also desirous to have it supposed that he had by revelations from this deity a knowledge of future events a few months before he died he attended a sacrifice according to the Etruscan rites but the omens were not favourable he died in the 32nd year of his age upon the same day on which he had formally put Octavia to death and the public joy was so great upon the occasion that the common people ran about the city with caps upon their heads some however were not wanting who for a long time decked his tomb with spring and summer flowers sometimes they placed his image upon the rostra, dressed in robes of state at another they published proclamations in his name as if he was still alive and would shortly return to Rome and take vengeance on all his enemies Vologesis, king of the Parthians when he sent ambassadors to the senate to renew his alliance with the Roman people earnestly requested that due honor should be paid to the memory of Nero and to conclude when twenty years afterwards at the time I was a young man some person of obscure birth gave himself out for Nero that name secured him so favourable a reception from the Parthians that he was very zealously supported and it was with much difficulty that they were prevailed upon to give him up End of Nero All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Andrew Coleman The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquilus translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forrester Galba Part 1 The race of the Caesars became extinct in Nero an event prognosticated by various signs two of which were particularly significant formerly when Livia, after her marriage with Augustus was making a visit to her villa at Veii an eagle flying by let drop upon her lap a hen with a sprig of laurel in her mouth just as she had seized it Livia gave orders to have the hen taken care of and the sprig of laurel set and the hen reared such a numerous brood of chickens that the villa to this day is called the Villa of the Hens The laurel groves flourished so much that the Caesars procured thence the boughs and crowns they bore at their triumphs it was also their constant custom to plant others on the same spot immediately after a triumph and it was observed that a little before the death of each prince the tree which had been set by him died away but in the last year of Nero the whole plantation of laurels perished to the very roots and the Hens all died about the same time the temple of the Caesars being struck with lightning the heads of all the statues in it fell off at once and Augustus's scepter was dashed from his hands Nero was succeeded by Galba who was not in the remotest degree allied to the family of the Caesars but without doubt a very noble extraction being descended from a great and ancient family for he always used to put amongst his other titles upon the basis of his statues his being great grandson to Quintus Catulus Capt Linus and when he came to be emperor he set up the images of his ancestors in the hall of the palace according to the inscriptions on which he carried up his pedigree on the father's side to Jupiter and by the mothers to pacify the wife of Minos to give even a short account of the whole family would be tedious I shall therefore only slightly notice that branch of it from which he was descended why or whence the first of the Sulpicii who had the cognomen of Galba was so called is uncertain some more of opinion that it was because he set fire to a city in Spain after he had a long time attacked it to no purpose with torches dipped in the gum called Galbanum others said he was so named because in a lingering disease he made use of it as a remedy wrapped up in wool others on account of his being prodigiously corpulent such a one being called in the language of the Gauls Galba or on the contrary because he was of a slender habit of body like those insects which breed in a sort of oak and are called Galbi Sergius Galba a person of consular rank and the most eloquent man of his time gave a luster to the family history relates that when the Prytor of Spain he perfidiously put to the sword 30,000 Lucitanians and by that means gave occasion to the war of Viriatus his grandson being incensed against Julius Caesar who's left hand and he had been in Gaul because he was through him disappointed of the consulship joined with Cassius and Brutus in the conspiracy against him for which he was condemned by the pedian law for the grandfather and father of the emperor Galba the grandfather was more celebrated for his application to study than for any figure he made in the government for he rose no higher than the Prytor ship but published a large and not uninteresting history his father attained to the consulship he was a short man and humpbacked but a tolerable orator at an industrious pleader he was twice married the first of his wives was Mamia Akaiaka daughter of Catulus and great-granddaughter of Lucius Mamias who sacked Corinth and the other, Livia Oculina a very rich and beautiful woman by whom it is supposed he was courted for the nobleness of his descent they say that she was further encouraged to persevere in her advances by an incident which evinced of his disposition upon her pressing her suit he took an opportunity when they were alone of stripping off his toga and showing her the deformity of his person that he might not be thought to impose on her he had by Akaiaka two sons Caius and Sergius the elder of these, Caius having very much reduced his estate, retired from town and being prohibited by Tiberius from standing for a pro-consulship in his year put an end to his own life the emperor Sergius Galba was born in the consulship of Marcus Verliarius Messala at Nius Lentulus upon the 9th of the Calens of January in a villa standing upon a hill near Terechina on the left-hand side of the road to Fundi being adopted by his step-mother he assumed the name of Livia with the cognomen of Achela and changed his prinomen for he afterwards used that of Lucius instead of Sergius until he arrived at the imperial dignity it is well known that when he came once amongst other boys of his own age to pay his respects to Augustus the latter pinching his cheek said to him and thou child too will to taste our imperial dignity Tiberius likewise being told that he would come to be emperor but at an advanced age exclaimed let him live then since that does not concern me when his grandfather was offering sacrifice to avert some ill-omen from lightning the entrails of the victim were snatched out of his hand by an eagle and carried off into an oak tree loaded with acorns upon this the soceus said that the family would come to be masters of the empire but not until many years had elapsed at which he smiling said I when a mule comes to bear a foal when Galba first declared against Nero nothing gave him so much confidence of success as a mule's happening at that time to have a foal and whilst all others were shocked at the occurrence as a most inauspicious prodigy he alone regarded it as a most fortunate omen calling to mind the sacrifice and saying of his grandfather when he took upon him the manly habit he dreamt that the goddess Fortune said to him I stand before your door weary and unless I am speedily admitted I shall fall into the hands of the first who comes to seize me on his awaking when the door of the house was opened he found a breezin' statue of the goddess above a cubit long close to the threshold which he carried with him to Tusculum where he used to pass the summer season and having consecrated it in an apartment of his house he ever after worshipped it with a monthly sacrifice at an anniversary vigil though but a very young man he kept up an ancient but obsolete custom and now nowhere observed except in his own family which was to have his freedmen and slaves appear in a body before him twice a day morning and evening to offer him their salutations amongst other liberal studies he applied himself to the law he married Lepida by whom he had two sons but the mother and children all dying he continued a widower nor could he be prevailed upon to marry again not even Agrippina herself at that time left a widow by the death of Demetius who had employed all her blandishments to allure him to her embraces while he was a married man in so much that Lepida's mother when in company with several married women rebuked her for it and even went so far as to cuff her most of all he courted the empress Livia by whose favour while she was living he made a considerable figure and narrowly missed being enriched by the will which he left at her death in which she distinguished him from the rest of the legates by a legacy of 15 millions of cisterces but because the son was expressed in figures and not in words at length he was reduced by her air Tiberius to 500,000 and even this he never received filling the great offices before the age required for it by law during his pritorship at the celebration of games in honour of the goddess Flora he presented the new spectacle of elephants walking upon ropes he was then governor of the province of Aquitania for near a year and soon afterwards took the consulship in the usual course and held it for six months it so happened that he succeeded Lucius Demisius the father of Nero and was succeeded by Selvius Otho father to the emperor of that name so that his holding it between the sons of these two men looked like a presage of his future advancement to the empire being appointed by Caius Caesar to supersede Gaitulicus in his command the day after his joining the legions he put a stop to their plaudits in a public spectacle by Eshungenorda that they should keep their hands under their cloaks immediately upon which the following verse became very common in the camp Learn soldier now in arms to use your hands it is Galba not Gaitulicus commands with equal strictness he would allow of no petitions for leave of absence from the camp he hardened the soldiers both old and young by constant exercise and having quickly reduced within their own limits the barbarians who had made inroads into gall upon Caius's coming into Germany he so far recommended himself and his army to that emperor's approbation that amongst the innumerable troops drawn from all the provinces of the empire none met with higher commendation or greater rewards from him he likewise distinguished himself by heading Ganesc court with a shield in his hand and running at the side of the emperor's chariot 20 miles together upon the news of Caius's death though many earnestly pressed him to lay hold of that opportunity of seizing the empire he chose rather to be quiet on this account he was in great favor with Claudius and being received into the number of his friends stood so high in his good opinion that the expedition to Britain was for some time suspended because he was suddenly seized with a slight indisposition he governed Africa as proconsul for two years being chosen out of the regular course to restore order in the province which was in great disorder from civil dissensions and the alarms of the barbarians his administration was distinguished by great strictness and equity even in matters of small importance a soldier upon some expedition being charged with selling in a great scarcity of corn a bushel of wheat which was all he had left for a hundred denarii he forbade him to be relieved by anybody when he came to be in want himself and accordingly he died of famine when sitting in judgment a cause being brought before him about some beast of burden the ownership of which was claimed by two persons the evidence being slight on both sides and it being difficult to come at the truth he ordered the beast to be led to a pond at which he had used to be watered with his head muffled up and the covering being there removed that he should be the property of the person whom he followed of his own accord after drinking for his achievements both at this time in Africa and formally in Germany he received the triumph ornaments and three saccadotal appointments one among the 15 another in the college of Titius and a third amongst the Augustals and from that time to the middle of Nero's reign he lived for the most part in retirement he never went abroad so much as to take the air without a carriage attending him in which there was a million of Cisterces in gold ready at hand until at last at the time he was living in the town of Fundi the province of Hispania Terecanensis was offered to him after his rival in the province whilst he was sacrificing in a temple a boy who attended with a censer became all on a sudden grey-headed this instant was regarded by some as a token of an approaching revolution in the government and that an old man would succeed a young one that is that he would succeed Nero and not long after a thunderbolt falling into a lake in a cantabria twelve axes were found in it a manifest sign of the supreme power he governed the province during eight years his administration being of an uncertain and capricious character at first he was active vigorous and indeed excessively severe in the punishment of offenders four a money dealer having committed some fraud in the way of his business he cut off his hands and nailed them to his counter another who had poisoned an orphan to whom he was guardian and next heir to the estate he crucified on this delinquent imploring the protection of the law and crying out that he was a Roman citizen he affected to afford him some alleviation and mitigate his punishment by a mark of honour ordered a cross higher than usual and painted white but by degrees he gave himself up to a life of indolence and inactivity from the fear of giving Nero any occasion of jealousy and because, as he used to say nobody was obliged to render an account of their leisure as he was holding a court of justice on the circuit at New Carthage when he received intelligence of the insurrection in Gaul and while the lieutenant of Aquitania was soliciting his assistance letters were brought from Vindex requesting him to assert the rights of mankind and put himself at their head to relieve them from the tyranny of Nero without any long demure he accepted the invitation from a mixture of fear and hope for he had discovered that private orders had been sent by Nero to his procurators in the province to get him dispatched and he was encouraged to the enterprise as well by several auspices and omens as by the prophecy of a young woman of good family the more so because the priest of Jupiter at Clunia admonished by a dream had discovered in the recesses of the temple some verses similar to those in which he had delivered her prophecy these had also been uttered by a girl under divine inspiration about two hundred years before the import of the verses was that in time Spain should give the world a lord and master taking his seat on the tribunal therefore as if there was no other business than the manumitting of slaves he had the effigies of a number of persons who had been condemned and put to death by Nero for him whilst a noble youth stood by who had been banished and whom he had purposely sent for from one of the neighbouring Balearic Arles and lamenting the condition of the times and being there upon unanimously saluted by the title of emperor he publicly declared himself only the lieutenant of the senate and people of Rome then shutting the courts he levied legions and auxiliary troops among the provincials besides his veteran army consisting of one legion two wings of horse and three cohorts out of the military leaders most distinguished for age and prudence he formed a kind of senate with whom to advise upon all matters of importance as often as occasion should require he likewise chose several young men of the equestrian order who were to be allowed the privilege of wearing the gold ring and being called the reserve should mount guard before his bed-chamber instead of the legionary soldiers he likewise issued proclamations throughout the provinces of the empire exorting all to rise in arms unanimously and aid the common cause by all the ways and means in their power about the same time in fortifying a town which he had pitched upon for a military post a ring was found of antique workmanship in the stone of which was engraved the goddess victory with a trophy presently after a ship of alexandria arrived at Dirtosa loaded with arms without any person to steer it also much as a single sailor or passenger on board from this instant nobody entertained the least out but the war upon which they were entering was just and honourable and favoured likewise by the gods when all on a sudden the whole design was exposed to failure one of the two wings of horse repenting of the violation of their oath to Nero attempted to desert him upon his approach to the camp and were with some difficulty kept in their duty and some slaves who had been presented to him by a freedman of Nero's on purpose to murder him had liked to have killed him as he went through a narrow passage to the bath being overheard to encourage one another not to lose the opportunity they were called to an account concerning it and recourse being had the torture a confession was extorted from them End of Galba Part 1 Recording by Andrew Coleman Galba Part 2 from the lives of the 12 Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus 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 Andrew Coleman the lives of the 12 Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forrester Galba Part 2 These dangers were followed by the death of Vindex at which being extremely discouraged as if fortune had quite forsaken him he had thoughts of putting an end to his own life but receiving advice by his messengers from Rome that Nero was slain and that all had taken an oath to him as emperor he laid aside the title of lieutenant and took upon him that of Caesar putting himself upon his march in his generals cloak and a dagger hanging from his neck before his breast he did not resume the use of the toga until Nymphidius Sabinus prefect of the Praetorian Guards at Rome with the two lieutenants Pontius Capito in Germany and Claudius Massa in Africa who opposed his advancement were all put down rumours of his cruelty and avarice had reached the city before his arrival such as that he had punished some cities of Spain and Gaul for not joining him readily by the imposition of heavy taxes and some by levelling their walls and had put to death the governors and procurators with their wives and children likewise that a golden crown of 15 pounds weight taken out of the temple of Jupiter with which he was presented by the people of Taricona he had melted down and had exacted from them three ounces which were wanting in the weight this report of him was confirmed and increased as soon as he entered the town for some seamen who had been taken from the fleet and enlisted among the troops by Nero he obliged to return to their former condition but they refusing to comply and obstinately clinging to the more honourable service under their eagles and standards he not only dispersed them by a body of horse but likewise decimated them he also disbanded a cohort of Germans which had been formed by the preceding emperors for their bodyguard and upon many occasions found very faithful and sent them back into their own country without giving them any gratuity pretending that they were more inclined to favour the advancement of Nias Dolabela in those gardens they encamped than his own the following ridiculous stories were also related of him but whether with or without foundation I know not such as that when at more sumptuous entertainment than usual was served up he fetched a deep groan that when one of the stewards presented him with an account of his expenses he reached him a dish of legumes from his table as a reward for his care and diligence and when Canis the Piper had played much to his satisfaction he presented him with his own hand five denarii taken out of his pocket his arrival therefore in town was not very agreeable to the people and this appeared at the next public spectacle for when the actors in a farce began a well known song Venit yo simas sa villa lo Claude Pate from his village comes all the spectators with one voice went on with the rest repeating and acting the first verse several times over he possessed himself of the imperial power with more favour and authority than he administered it although he gave many proofs of his being an excellent prince but these were not so grateful to the people as his misconduct was offensive he was governed by three favourites who because they lived in the palace and were constantly about him obtained the name of his pedagogues these were Titus Vinius who had been his lieutenant in Spain a man of insatiable avarice Cornelius Laco who from an assessor to the prince was advanced to be prefect of the Praetorian Guards a person of intolerable arrogance as well as indolence at his freedmen Ikelis dignified a little before with the privilege of wearing the gold ring and the use of the cognomen Marcianus who became a candidate for the highest honour within the reach of any person of the equestrian order he resided himself so implicitly into the power of those three favourites who governed in everything according to the capricious impulse of their vices and tempers and his authority was so much abused by them that the tenor of his conduct was not very consistent with itself at one time he was more rigorous and frugal at another more lavish and negligent than became a prince who had been chosen by the people and was so far advanced in years he condemned some men of the first rank of the Praetorian and equestrian orders upon a very slight suspicion and without trial he rarely granted the freedom of the city to anyone and the privilege belonging to such as had three children only to one or two and that with great difficulty and only for a limited time when the judges petitioned to have a sixth decree added to their number he not only denied them the vacation which had been granted them by Claudius for the winter and the beginning of the year it was thought that he likewise intended to reduce the offices held by senators and men of the equestrian order to a term of two years continuance and to bestow them only on those who were unwilling to accept them and had refused them all the grants of Nero he recalled saving only the tenth part of them for this purpose he gave a commission to fifty Roman knights with orders that if players or wrestlers had sold what had been formally given them it should be exacted from the purchasers since the others having no doubt spent the money were not in a condition to pay but on the other hand he suffered his attendance of freedmen to sell or give away the revenue of the state or immunities from taxes and to punish the innocent and the pardoned criminals at pleasure nay, when the Roman people were very clamorous for the punishment of Halotus and Tiggerlinus to of the most mischievous amongst all the emissaries of Nero he protected them and even bestowed on Halotus one of the best procurations in his disposal and as to Tiggerlinus he even reprimanded the people for their cruelty by a proclamation in his conduct he incurred the hatred of all orders of the people but especially of the soldiery for their commanders having promised them in his name a donative larger than usual upon their taking the oath to him before his arrival at Rome he refused to make it good frequently bragging that it was his custom to choose his soldiers not by them thus the troops became exasperated against him in all quarters the Praetorian guards he alarmed with apprehensions of danger and unworthy treatment disbanding many of them occasionally as disaffected to his government and favourers of Nymphidius but most of all the army in Upper Germany was incensed against him as being defrauded of the rewards due to them for the service they had rendered in the insurrection of the Gauls under Vindex they were therefore the first who ventured to break into open mutiny refusing upon the cannons of January to take any oath of allegiance except to the senate and they immediately dispatched deputies to the Praetorian troops to let them know they did not like the emperor who had been set up in Spain and to desire that they would make choice of another who might meet with the approbation of all the armies upon receiving intelligence of this imagining that he was slighted not so much on account of his age as for having no children he immediately singled out of the company of young persons of rank who came to pay their compliments to him Pizzo Frugui Lycianianus a use of noble descent and great talents for whom he had before contracted such a regard that he had appointed him in his will the heir both of his sons in his will the heir both of his estate and name him he now styled his son and taking him to the camp adopted him in the presence of the assembled troops but without making any mention of a donative this circumstance afforded the better opportunity to Marcus Salveus Otho of accomplishing his object six days after the adoption many remarkable prodigies had happened from the very beginning of his reign which forewarned him of his approaching fate in every town through which he passed in his way from Spain to Rome victims were slain on the right and left of the roads and one of these which was a ball being maddened with the stroke of the axe broke the rope with which it was tied and running straight against his chariot with his four feet elevated bespattered him with blood likewise as he was alighting one of the guard being pushed forward by the crowd had very nearly wounded him with his lance and upon his entering the city and afterwards the palace he was welcomed with an earthquake and a noise like the bellowing of cattle these signs of ill fortune were followed by some that were still more apparently such out of all his treasures he had selected a necklace of jewels and jewels to adorn his statue of fortune at Tusculum but it's suddenly occurring to him that it deserved a more august place he consecrated it to the capitaline Venus and next night he dreamt that fortune appeared to him complaining that she had been defrauded of the present intended her and threatening to resume what she had given him terrified at this denunciation at break of day he sent forward some persons to Tusculum to make preparations for a sacrifice which might avert the displeasure of the goddess and when he himself arrived at the place he found nothing but some hot embers upon the altar and an old man in black standing by holding a little incense in the glass and some wine in an earthen pot it was remarked to that whilst he was sacrificing upon the callons of January the chaplet fell from his head and upon his consulting the bullets for Romans they flew away further upon the day of his adopting Piso when he was to harangue the soldiers the seat which he used upon those occasions through the neglect of his attendance was not placed according to custom upon his tribunal and in the senate house his co-old chair was set with the back forward the day before he was slain as he was sacrificing in the morning the auger warned him from time to time to be upon his guard for that he was in danger from assassins and that they were near at hand soon after he was informed that Otto was in possession of the Praetorian camp and though most of his friends advised him to repair thither immediately in hopes that he might quell the tumult by his authority and presence he resolved to do nothing more than keep close within the palace and secure himself by guards of the literally soldiers who were courted in different parts about the city he put on a linen coat of mail however remarking at the same time that it would avail him little against the points of so many sorts but being tempted out by false reports which the conspirators had purposely spread to induce him to venture abroad some few of those about him to hastily assuring him that the tumult had ceased the mutineers were apprehended and the rest coming to congratulate him resolved to continue firm in their obedience he went forward to meet them with so much confidence that upon a soldier's boasting that he had killed Otto he asked him by what authority and proceeded as far as the forum there the knights appointed to dispatch him making their way through the crowd of citizens upon seeing him at a distance halted a while after which galloping up to him now abandoned by all his attendants they put him to death some authors relate that upon their first approach he cried out what do you mean fellow soldiers I am yours and you are mine and promised them a donative but the generality of writers relate that he offered his throat to them saying do your work and strike since you are resolved upon it it is remarkable that not one of those who were at hand ever made any attempt to assist the emperor and all who were sent for disregarded the summons except a troop of Germans they in consideration of his late kindness in showing them particular attention during his sickness which prevailed in the camp flew to his aid but came too late for being not well acquainted with the town they had taken a circuitous route he was slain near the curtain lake and there left until a common soldier returning from the receipt of his allowance of corn throwing down the load which he carried cut off his head there being upon it no hair by which he might hold it he hid it in the bosom of his dress but afterwards thrusting his thumb into the mouth he carried it in that manner to Otto who gave it to the drudges and slaves who attended the soldiers and they fixing it upon the point of a spear carried it in derision round the camp crying out as they went along you take your fill of joy in your old age they were irritated to this pitch of rude banter by a report spread a few days before that upon someone's commending his person they were still florid and vigorous he replied eti moiminos empedoi estin my strength as yet has suffered no decay a freedman of petrobuses who himself had belonged to Nero's family purchased the head from them at the price of a hundred gold pieces and threw it into the place where by Galba's order his patron had been put to death at last after some time his steward Agius buried it with the rest of his body in his own gardens near the Orillian way in person he was of a good size bald before with blue eyes and an aquiline nose and his hands and feet were so distorted with a gout that he could neither wear a shoe nor turn over the leaves of a book or so much as hold it he had likewise an excrescence in his right side which hung down to that degree that it was with difficulty kept up by a bandage he is reported to have been a great eter and usually took his breakfast in the winter time before day at supper he fed very heartily giving the fragments which were left by handfuls to be distributed amongst the attendants in his lust he was more inclined to the male sex and such of them too as were old it is said of him that in Spain when Ikelis an old catamite of his brought him the news of Nero's death he not only kissed him lovingly before company but begged of him to remove all impediments and then took him aside into a private apartment he perished in the 73rd year of his age and the 7th month of his reign the senate as soon as they could with safety ordered a statue to be erected for him upon the naval column in that part of the forum where he was slain but Vespasian cancelled the decree upon a suspicion that he had sent assassins from Spain into Judea to murder him end of Galba recording by Andrew Coleman