 Preface 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 Graham Redman. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. Translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forester. Preface. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was the son of a Roman knight who commanded a legion on the side of Otho at the battle which decided the fate of the Empire in favour of Vitellius. From incidental notices in the following history, we learn that he was born towards the close of the reign of Vespasian who died in the year 79 of the Christian era. He lived till the time of Hadrian, under whose administration he filled the office of secretary until, with several others, he was dismissed for presuming on familiarities with the Empress Sabina of which we have no further account than that they were unbecoming his position in the Imperial Court. How long he survived this disgrace, which appears to have befallen him in the year 121, we are not informed but we find that the leisure afforded him by his retirement was employed in the composition of numerous works of which the only portions now extant are collected in the present volume. Several of the younger Pliny's letters are addressed to Suetonius with whom he lived in the closest friendship. They afford some brief but generally pleasant glimpses of his habits and career and in a letter in which Pliny makes application on behalf of his friend to the Emperor Trajan for a mark of favour, he speaks of him as a most excellent, honourable and learned man whom he had the pleasure of entertaining under his own roof and with whom the nearer he was brought into communion the more he loved him. The plan adopted by Suetonius in his lives of the Twelve Caesars led him to be more diffuse on their personal conduct and habits than on public events. He writes memoirs rather than history. He neither dwells on the civil wars which sealed the fall of the Republic nor on the military expeditions which extended the frontiers of the Empire nor does he attempt to develop the causes of the great political changes which marked the period of which he treats. When we stop to gaze in a museum or gallery on the antique busts of the Caesars we perhaps endeavour to trace in their sculptured physiognomy the characteristics of those princes who, for good or evil, were in their times masters of the destinies of a large portion of the human race. The pages of Suetonius will amply gratify this natural curiosity. In them we find a series of individual portraits sketched to the life with perfect truth and rigorous impartiality. Laup remarks of Suetonius. He is scrupulously exact and strictly methodical. He omits nothing which concerns the person whose life he is writing. He relates everything but paints nothing. His work is in some sense a collection of anecdotes but it is very curious to read and consult. Combining as it does amusement and information Suetonius' lives of the Caesars was held in such estimation that so soon after the invention of printing as the year 1500 no fewer than 18 editions had been published and nearly 100 have since been added to the number. Critics of the highest rank have devoted themselves to the task of correcting and commenting on the text and the work has been translated into most European languages. Of the English translations that of Dr Alexander Thompson published in 1796 has been made the basis of the present. He informs us in his preface that a version of Suetonius was with him only a secondary object. His principal design being to form a just estimate of Roman literature and to elucidate the state of government and the manners of the times for which the work of Suetonius seemed a fitting vehicle. His translation, however, was very diffuse and retained most of the inaccuracies of that of Clarke on which it was founded. Considerable care therefore has been bestowed in correcting it with the view of producing as far as possible a literal and faithful version. To render the works of Suetonius as far as they are extant complete his lives of eminent grammarians, rhetoricians and poets of which a translation has not before appeared in English are added. These lives abound with anecdote and curious information connected with learning and literary men during the period of which the author treats. T. F. End of Preface Recording by Graham Redman Julius Caesar part one 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 Graham Redman The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forester Julius Caesar part one paragraphs one to nineteen Julius Caesar the Divine lost his father when he was in the sixteenth year of his age and the year following being nominated to the office of high priest of Jupiter he repudiated Caesusia who was very wealthy although her family belonged only to the equestrian order and to whom he had been contracted when he was a mere boy. He then married Cornelia the daughter of Sinner who was four times consul and had by her shortly afterwards a daughter named Julia resisting all the efforts of the dictator Sinner to induce him to divorce Cornelia he suffered the penalty of being stripped of his sacerdotal office his wife's dowry and his own patrimonial estates and being identified with the adverse faction was compelled to withdraw from Rome after changing his place of concealment nearly every night although he was suffering from a quatern ague and having effected his release by bribing the officers who had tracked his footsteps he at length obtained a pardon through the intercession of the Vestal Virgins and of Mamercas Emilius and Aurelius Cotter his near relatives we are assured that when Silla having withstood for a while the entreaties of his own best friends persons of distinguished rank at last yielded to their importunity he exclaimed either by a divine impulse or from a shrewd conjecture your suit is granted and you may take him among you but no, he added, that this man for whose safety you are so extremely anxious will someday or other be the ruin of the party of the nobles in defence of which you are lead with me for in this one Caesar you will find many Amarius his first campaign was served in Asia on the staff of the Preter Marcus Thermus and being dispatched into Bithynia to bring thence a fleet he loitered so long at the court of Nicomedes as to give occasion to reports of a criminal intercourse between him and that prince which received additional credit from his hasty return to Bithynia under the pretext of recovering a debt due to a freedman his client the rest of his service was more favourable to his reputation and when Metellini was taken by storm he was presented by Thermus with the civic crown he served also in Cilicia under Sevillea Cisoricus but only for a short time as upon receiving intelligence of Silla's death he returned with all speed to Rome in expectation of what might follow from a fresh agitation set on foot by Marcus Lepidus distrusting however the abilities of this leader and finding the times less favourable for the execution of this project than he had at first imagined he abandoned all thoughts of joining Lepidus although he received the most tempting offers soon after this civil discord was composed he preferred a charge of extortion against Cornelius Dolabella a man of consular dignity who had obtained the honour of a triumph on the acquittal of the accused he resolved to retire to Rhodes with the view not only of avoiding the public odium which he had incurred but of prosecuting his studies with leisure and tranquility under Apollonius the son of Molon at that time the most celebrated master of rhetoric while on his voyage thither in the winter season he was taken by pirates near the island of Pharmacusa and detained by them burning within Dignation for nearly forty days his only attendance being a physician and two chamberlains for he had instantly dispatched his other servants and the friends who accompanied him to raise money for his ransom fifty talents having been paid down he was landed on the coast when having collected some ships he lost no time in putting to sea in pursuit of the pirates and having captured them inflicted upon them the punishment with which he had often threatened them in jest at that time Mithridates was ravaging the neighbouring districts and on Caesar's arrival at Rhodes that he might not appear to lie idle while danger threatened the allies of Rome he passed over into Asia and having collected some auxiliary forces and driven the king's governor out of the province retained in their allegiance the cities which were wavering and ready to revolt having been elected military tribune the first honour he received from the suffrages of the people after his return to Rome he zealously assisted those who took measures for restoring the tribunation authority which had been greatly diminished during the usurpation of Scylla he likewise by an act which Plotius at his suggestion propounded to the people obtained the recall of Lucius Sinner his wife's brother and others with him who having been the adherents of Lepidus in the civil disturbances had after that consul's death fled to Satorius which law he supported by a speech during his queestership he pronounced funeral errations from the rostra according to custom in prayers of his aunt Julia and his wife Cornelia in the panegyric on his aunt he gives the following account of her own and his father's genealogy on both sides my aunt Julia derived her descent by the mother from a race of kings and by her father from the immortal gods for the Marcii Regis her mother's family deduced their pedigree from Ancus Marshus and the Juliae her father's from Venus of which stock we are a branch we therefore unite in our descent the sacred majesty of kings the chiefest among men and the divine majesty of gods to whom kings themselves are subject to supply the place of Cornelia he married Pompea the daughter of Quintus Pompeus and granddaughter of Lucius Silla but he afterwards divorced her upon suspicion of her having been debauched by Publius Claudius for so current was the report that Claudius had found access to her disguised as a woman during the celebration of a religious solemnity that the senate instituted an inquiry respecting the profanation of the sacred rites Father Spain fell to his lot as queester when there as he was going the circuit of the province by commission from the preter for the administration of justice and had reached Gades seeing a statue of Alexander the great in the temple of Hercules his side deeply as if weary of his sluggish life for having performed no memorable actions at an age at which Alexander had already conquered the world he therefore immediately sued for his discharge with the view of embracing the first opportunity which might present itself in the city of entering upon a more exalted career in the stillness of the night following he dreamt that he lay with his own mother but his confusion was relieved and his hopes were raised to the highest pitch by the interpreters of his dream who expounded it as an omen that he should possess universal empire for that the mother who in his sleep he had found submissive to his embraces was no other than the earth the common parent of all mankind quitting therefore the province before the expiration of the usual term he betook himself to the Latin colonies for then eagerly agitating the design of obtaining the freedom of Rome and he would have stirred them up to some bold attempt had not the consuls to prevent any commotion detained for some time the legions which had been raised for service in Cilicia but this did not deter him from making soon afterwards a still greater effort within the precincts of the city itself for only a few days before he entered upon the Edileship he incurred a suspicion of having engaged in a conspiracy with Marcus Crassus a man of consular rank to whom were joined Publius Silla and Lucius Autronius who after they had been chosen consuls were convicted of bribery the plan of the conspirators was to fall upon the senate at the opening of the new year and murder as many of them as should be thought necessary upon which Crassus was to assume the office of dictator and appoint Caesar his master of the horse when the Commonwealth had been thus ordered according to their pleasure the consulship was to have been restored to Silla and Autronius mention is made of this plot by Tannousius Geminus in his history by Marcus Bibulus in his edicts and by Curio the father in his errations Cicero likewise seems to hint at this in a letter to Axius where he says that Caesar had in his consulship secured to himself that arbitrary power to which he had aspired when he was Edile Tannousius adds that Crassus from remorse or fear did not appear upon the day appointed for the massacre of the senate for which reason Caesar omitted to give the signal which according to the plan concerted between them he was to have made the agreement Curio says was that he should shake off the toga from his shoulder we have the authority of the same Curio and of Marcus Actorius Neso for his having been likewise concerned in another conspiracy with young Cnius Piso to whom upon a suspicion of some mischief being meditated in the city the province of Spain was decreed out of the regular course it is said to have been agreed between them that Piso should head a revolt in the provinces whilst the other should attempt to stir up an insurrection at Rome using as their instruments the lambreini and the tribes beyond the Po but the execution of this design was frustrated in both quarters by the death of Piso in his Edile ship he not only embellished the commission and the rest of the forum with the adjoining halls but adorned the capital also with temporary piazzas constructed for the purpose of displaying some part of the super abundant collections he had made for the amusement of the people he entertained them with the hunting of wild beasts and with games both alone and in conjunction with his colleague on this account he obtained the whole credit of the expense to which they had jointly contributed in so much that his colleague Marcus Bibulus could not forbear remarking that he was served in the manner of Pollux for as the temple erected in the forum to the two brothers went by the name of Castor alone so his and Caesar's joint munificence was imputed to the latter only to the other public spectacles exhibited to the people Caesar added a fight of gladiators but with fewer pairs of competence than he had intended for he had collected from all parts so great a company of them that his enemies became alarmed and a decree was made restricting the number of gladiators which anyone was allowed to retain at Rome having thus conciliated popular favor he endeavored through his interest with some of the tribunes to get Egypt assigned to him as a province by an act of the people the pretext alleged for the creation of this extraordinary government was that the Alexandrians had violently expelled their king whom the Senate had complimented with the title of an ally and friend of the Roman people this was generally resented but not withstanding there was so much opposition from the faction of the nobles that he could not carry his point in order therefore to diminish their influence by every means in his power he restored the trophies erected in honor of Gaius Marius on account of his victories over Jugertha, the Symbrai and the Teutonai which had been demolished by Silla and when sitting in judgment upon murderers he treated those as assassins who in the late prescription had received money from the treasury for bringing in the heads of Roman citizens although they were expressly accepted in the Cornelian laws he likewise suborned someone to prefer an impeachment for treason against Gaius Riberius by whose his special assistants the Senate had a few years before put down Lucius Saturninus the seditious tribune and being drawn by law to judge on the trial he condemned him with so much animosity that upon his appealing to the people no circumstance availed him so much as the extraordinary bitterness of his judge having renounced all hope of obtaining Egypt for his province he stood candidate for the office of Chief Pontiff to secure which he had recourse to the most profuse bribery calculating on this occasion the enormous amount of the debts he had contracted he is reported to have said to his mother when she kissed him at his going out in the morning to the assembly of the people I will never return home unless I am elected Pontiff in effect he left so far behind him two most powerful competitors who were much his superiors both in age and rank that he had more votes in their own tribes than they both had in all the tribes together after he was chosen Preta the conspiracy of Catiline was discovered and while every other member of the Senate voted for inflicting capital punishment on the accomplices in that crime he alone proposed that the delinquents should be distributed for safe custody among the towns of Italy their property being confiscated he even struck such terror into those who were advocates for greater severity by representing to them what universal odium would be attached to their memories by the Roman people that Decius Silanus consul-elect did not hesitate to qualify his proposal it not being very honorable to change it by a lenient interpretation as if it had been understood in a harsher sense than he intended and Caesar would certainly have carried his point having brought over to his side a great number of the Senators among whom was Cicero the consul's brother had not a speech by Marcus Cato infused new vigor into the resolutions of the Senate he persisted however in obstructing the measure until a body of the Roman knights who stood under arms as a guard threatened him with instant death if he continued his determined opposition they even thrust at him with their drawn swords so that those who sat next to him moved away and a few friends with no small difficulty protected him by throwing their arms round him and covering him with their togas at last deterred by this violence he not only gave way but absented himself from the Senate House during the remainder of that year upon the first day of his pretership he summoned Quintus Catulus to render an account to the people respecting the repairs of the capital proposing a decree for transferring the office of curator to another person but being unable to withstand the strong opposition made by the aristocratical party whom he perceived quitting in great numbers their attendance upon the new consuls and fully resolved to resist his proposal he dropped the design he afterwards approved himself a most resolute supporter of Sicilius Metullus tribune of the people who in spite of all opposition from his colleagues had proposed some laws of a violent tendency until they were both dismissed from office by a vote of the Senate he ventured notwithstanding to retain his post and continue in the administration of justice but finding that preparations were made to obstruct him by force of arms he dismissed the Lictors through off his gown and betook himself privately to his own house with the resolution of being quiet in a time so unfavorable to his interests he likewise pacified the mob which two days afterwards flocked about him and in a riotous manner made a voluntary tender of their assistance in the vindication of his honour this happening contrary to expectation the Senate who met in haste on account of the tumult gave him their thanks by some of the leading members of the house and sending for him after high commendation of his conduct cancelled their form of vote and restored him to his office but he soon got into fresh trouble being named amongst the accomplices of Catiline both before Novius Niger the Queester by Lucius Vetschus the Informer and in the Senate by Quintus Curius to whom a reward had been voted for having first discovered the designs of the conspirators Curious affirmed that he had received his information from Catiline Vetschus even engaged to produce in evidence against him his own handwriting given to Catiline Caesar feeling that this treatment was not to be borne appealed to Cicero himself whether he had not voluntarily made a discovery to him of some particulars of the conspiracy and so balked Curious of his expected reward he therefore obliged Vetschus to give pledges for his behaviour seized his goods and after heavily finding him and seeing him almost torn in pieces before the rostra threw him into prison to which he likewise sent Novius the Queester for having presumed to take an information against a magistrate of superior authority at the expiration of his pretership he obtained by lot the father Spain and pacified his creditors who were for detaining him by finding sure it is for his debts contrary however to both law and custom he took his departure before the usual equipage and outfit were prepared it is uncertain whether this precipitancy arose from the apprehension of an impeachment with which he was threatened on the expiration of his former office or from his anxiety to lose no time in relieving the allies who implored him to come to their aid he had no sooner established tranquility in the province than without waiting for the arrival of his successor he returned to Rome with equal haste to sue for a triumph and the consulship the day of election however being already fixed by proclamation he could not legally be admitted a candidate unless he entered the city as a private person on this emergency he solicited a suspension of the laws in his favor but such an indulgence being strongly opposed he found himself under the necessity of abandoning all thoughts of a triumph lest he should be disappointed of the consulship of the two other competitors for the consulship Lucius Lucius and Marcus Bibulus he joined with the former upon condition that Lucius being a man of less interest but greater affluence should promise money to the electors in their joint names upon which the party of the nobles dreading how far he might carry matters in that high office with a colleague disposed to concur in and second his measures advised Bibulus to promise the voters as much as the other and most of them contributed towards the expense Cato himself admitting that bribery under such circumstances was for the public good he was accordingly elected consul jointly with Bibulus actuated still by the same motives the prevailing party took care to assign provinces of small importance to the new consuls such as the care of the woods and roads Caesar incensed at this indignity endeavoured by the most assiduous and flattering attentions to gain to his side Cnius Pompey at that time dissatisfied with the Senate for the backwardness they showed to confirm his acts after his victories over Mithridates he likewise brought about a reconciliation between Pompey and Marcus Crassus who had been at variance from the time of their joint consulship in which office they were continually clashing and he entered into an agreement with both that nothing should be transacted in the government which was displeasing to any of the three End of Julius Caesar Part 1 Recording by Graham Redmond Julius Caesar Part 2 of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Swetonius 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 Graham Redmond The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Swetonius Tranquillus translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forester Julius Caesar Part 2 Paragraphs 20 to 33 Having entered upon his office he introduced a new regulation that the daily acts both of the senate and people should be committed to writing and published He also revived an old custom that an officer should precede him and his lictors follow him on the alternate months when the faeces were not carried before him Upon preferring a bill to the people for the division of some public lands he was opposed by his colleague whom he violently drove out of the forum Next day the insulted consul made a complaint in the senate of this treatment but such was the consternation that no one having the courage to bring them out of forward or move a censure which had been often done under outrages of less importance he was so much dispirited until the expiration of his office he never stirred from home and did nothing but issue edicts to obstruct his colleague's proceedings From that time therefore Caesar had the sole management of public affairs in so much that some wags when they signed any instrument as witnesses did not add in the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus but of Julius and Caesar putting the same person down twice under his name and surname The following verses likewise were currently repeated on this occasion Known Bibolo Quidquam Nupur said Caesare factum est Nam Bibolo Fiori consule nil memini Nothing was done in Bibulus's year No, Caesar only then was consul here The land of Stellas consecrated by our ancestors to the gods with some other lands in Campania left subject to tribute for the support of the expenses of the government he divided but not by lot among upwards of twenty thousand freemen who had each of them three or more children He eased the publicans upon their petition of a third part of the sum which they had engaged to pay into the public treasury and openly admonished them not to bid so extravagantly upon the next occasion He made various profuse grants to meet the wishes of others no one opposing him or if any such attempt was made it was soon suppressed Marcus Cato who interrupted him in his proceedings he ordered to be dragged out of the Senate House by a lictor and carried to prison Lucius Lucullus likewise for opposing him with some warmth he so terrified with the apprehension of being criminated that to deprecate the consul's resentment he fell on his knees and upon Cicero's lamenting in some trial the miserable condition of the times he the very same day by nine o'clock transferred his enemy Publius Clodius from a patrician to a plebeian family a change which he had long solicited in vain at last effectually to intimidate all those of the opposite party he by great rewards prevailed upon Vecius to declare that he had been solicited by certain persons to assassinate Pompey and when he was brought before the rostra to name those who had been concerted between them after naming one or two to no purpose without great suspicion of subordination Caesar despairing of success in this rash stratagem is supposed to have taken off his informer by poison about the same time he married Calpurnia the daughter of Lucius Pizzo who was to succeed him in the consulship and gave his own daughter Julia to Cnius Pompey rejecting Sevilleus Cpio to whom she had been contracted and by whose means chiefly he had but a little before baffled Bibulus after this new alliance he began upon any debates in the senate to ask Pompey's opinion first whereas he used before to give that distinction to Marcus Crassus and it was the usual practice for the consul to observe throughout the year the method of consulting the senate which he had adopted on the calends the first of January being therefore now supported by the interest of his father-in-law and son-in-law of all the provinces he made choice of Gaul as most likely to furnish him with matter and occasion for triumphs at first indeed he received only Cisalpine Gaul with the addition of Illyricum by a decree proposed by Vatinius to the people but soon afterwards obtained from the senate Gallia Commeta also the senators being apprehensive that if they should refuse it him that province also would be granted him by the people elated now with his success he could not refrain from boasting a few days afterwards in a full senate house that he had in spite of his enemies and to their great mortification obtained all he desired and that for the future he would make them to their shame submissive to his pleasure one of the senators observing sarcastically that will not be very easy for the woman to do he jocously replied Semiramis formally reigned in Assyria and the Amazons possessed great part of Asia when the term of his consulship had expired upon a motion being made in the senate by Gaius Memius and Lucius Dumitius the praetors respecting the transactions of the year past he offered to refer himself to the house but they declining the business after three days spent in vain altercation he set out for his province immediately however his quister was charged with several misdemeanours for the purpose of implicating Caesar himself indeed an accusation was soon after preferred against him by Lucius Antistias Tribune of the people but by making an appeal to the Tribune's colleagues he succeeded in having the prosecution suspended during his absence in the service of the state to secure himself therefore for the time to come he was particularly careful to secure the goodwill of the magistrates at the annual elections assisting none of the candidates with his interest nor suffering any persons to be advanced to any office who would not positively undertake to defend him in his absence for which purpose he made no struple to require of some of them an oath and even a written obligation but when Lucius Dumitius became a candidate for the consulship and openly threatened that upon his being elected consul he would effect that which he could not accomplish when he was praetor and divest him of the command of the armies he sent for Crassus and Pompey to Lucca a city in his province and pressed them for the purpose of disappointing Dumitius to sue again for the consulship and to continue him in his command for five years longer with both which requisitions they complied presumptuous now from his success he added at his own private charge more legions to those which he had received from the republic among the former of which was one levied in Transalpine Gaul and called by a Gallic name a Lorda which he trained and armed in the Roman fashion and afterwards conferred on it the freedom of the city from this period he declined no occasion of war however unjust and dangerous attacking without any provocation as well the allies of Rome the barbarous nations which were its enemies in so much that the Senate passed a decree for sending commissioners to examine into the condition of Gaul and some members even proposed that he should be delivered up to the enemy but so great had been the success of his enterprises that he had the honor of obtaining more days of supplication and those more frequently than had ever before been decreed to any commander during nine years in which he held the government of the province his achievements were as follows he reduced all Gaul bounded by the Pyrenean forest the Alps, Mount Gibena and the two rivers the Rhine and the Rhone and being about 3,200 miles in compass into the form of a province accepting only the nations in alliance with the Republic and such as had merited his favor imposing upon this new acquisition an annual tribute of 40 millions of sister seas he was the first of the Romans who crossing the Rhine by a bridge attacked the Germanic tribes inhabiting the country beyond that river whom he defeated in several engagements he also invaded the Britons a people formally unknown and having vanquished them exacted from them contributions and hostages amidst such a series of successes he experienced thrice only in his signal disaster once in Britain when his fleet was nearly wrecked in a storm in Gaul at Jagovia where one of his legions was put to the rout and in the territory of the Germans his lieutenants, Titurius and Arunculius were cut off by an embuscade during this period he lost his mother whose death was followed by that of his daughter and not long afterwards of his granddaughter meanwhile the Republic being in consternation at the murder of Publius Clodius and the Senate passing a vote that only one consul namely Nius Pompeius should be chosen for the ensuing year he prevailed with the tribunes of the people who intended joining him in nomination with Pompey to propose to the people a bill enabling him though absent to become a candidate for his second consulship when the term of his command should be near expiring that he might not be obliged on that account to quit his province too soon and before the conclusion of the war having attained this object carrying his views still higher and animated with the hopes of success he omitted no opportunity of gaining universal favour by acts of liberality and kindness to individuals both in public and private with money raised from the spoils of the war he began to construct a new forum the ground plot of which cost him above a hundred millions of cisterces he promised the people a public entertainment of gladiators and a feast in memory of his daughter such as no one before him had ever given the more to raise their expectations on this occasion although he had agreed with vitals of all denominations for his feast he made yet father preparations in private houses he issued an order that the most celebrated gladiators if at any time during the combat they incurred the displeasure of the public should be immediately carried off by force and reserved for some future occasion young gladiators he trained up not in the school and by the masters of defence but in the houses of Roman knights and even senators skilled in the use of arms earnestly requesting them as appears from his letters to undertake the discipline of those novitiates and to give them the word during their exercises he doubled the pay of the legions in perpetuity allowing them likewise corn when it was in plenty without any restriction and sometimes distributing to every soldier in his army a slave and a portion of land to maintain his alliance and good understanding with Pompey he offered him in marriage his sister's granddaughter Octavia who had been married to Gaius Marcellus and requested for himself his daughter lately contracted to foster Silla every person about him and a great part likewise of the senate he secured by loans of money at low interest or none at all and to all others who came to wait upon him either by invitation or of their own accord he made liberal presence not neglecting even the freed men and slaves who were favourites with their masters and patrons he offered also singular and ready aid to all who were under prosecution or in debt and to prodigal youths excluding from his bounty those only who were so deeply plunged in guilt, poverty or luxury that it was impossible effectively to relieve them these he openly declared but derived no benefit from any other means than a civil war he endeavored with equal aciduity to engage in his interest princes and provinces in every part of the world presenting some with thousands of captives and sending to others the assistance of troops at whatever time and place they desired without any authority from either the senate or people of Rome he likewise embellished with magnificent public buildings the most powerful cities not only of Italy, Gaul and Spain but of Greece and Asia until all people being now astonished and speculating on the obvious tendency of these proceedings Claudius Marcellus the consul declaring first by proclamation that he intended to propose a measure of the utmost importance to the state made a motion in the senate that some person should be appointed to succeed Caesar in his province before the term of his command was expired because the war was being brought to a conclusion peace was restored and the victorious army ought to be disbanded he further moved that Caesar being absent his claims to be a candidate at the next election of consuls should not be admitted as Pompey himself had afterwards abrogated that privilege by a decree of the people the fact was that Pompey in his law relating to the choice of chief magistrates had forgot to accept Caesar in the article in which he declared all such as were not present incapable of being candidates for any office but soon afterwards when the law was inscribed on brass and deposited in the treasury he corrected his mistake Marcellus not content with depriving Caesar of his provinces and the privilege intended him by Pompey likewise moved to the senate that the freedom of the city should be taken from those colonists whom by the Virginia law he had settled at New Como because it had been conferred upon them with ambitious views and by a stretch of the laws roused by these proceedings and thinking as he was often heard to say that it would be a more difficult enterprise to reduce him now that he was the chief man in the state from the first rank of citizens to the second than from the second to the lowest of all Caesar made a vigorous opposition to the measure partly by means of the tribunes who interposed in his behalf and partly through Servius Sulpicious the other consul the following year likewise when Gaius Marcellus who succeeded his cousin Marcus in the consulship pursued the same course Caesar by means of an immense bribe engaged in his defence Emilius Paulus the other consul and Gaius Curio the most violent of the tribunes but finding the opposition obstinately bent against him and that the consul's elect were also of that party he wrote a letter to the senate requesting that they would not deprive him of the privilege kindly granted him by the people or else that the other generals should resign the command of their armies as well as himself fully persuaded as it is thought that he could more easily collect his veteran soldiers whenever he pleased than Pompey could his new raised troops at the same time he made his adversaries an offer to disband eight of his legions and give up Transalpine Gaul upon condition that he might retain two legions with the Cisalpine province or about one legion with Illyricum until he should be elected consul but as the senate declined to interpose in the business and his enemies declared that they would enter into no compromise where the safety of the republic was at stake he advanced into Hither Gaul and having gone the circuit for the administration of justice made a halt at Ravenna resolved to have recourse to arms if the senate should proceed to extremity against the tribunes of the people who had espoused his cause this was indeed his pretext for the civil war but it is supposed that there were other motives for his conduct Gnius Pompey used frequently to say that he sought to throw everything into confusion because he was unable with all his private wealth to complete the works he had begun and answer at his return the vast expectations which he had excited in the people others pretend that he was apprehensive of being called to account for what he had done in his first consulship contrary to the auspices, laws, and the protests of the tribunes Marcus Cato having sometimes declared and that too with an oath that he would prefer an impeachment against him as soon as he disbanded his army a report likewise prevailed that if he returned as a private person he would, like Milo, have to plead his cause before the judges surrounded by armed men this conjecture is rendered highly probable by a sinious polio who informs us that Caesar, upon viewing the vanquished and slaughtered enemy in the field of Farsalia expressed himself in these very words this was their intention I, Gaius Caesar, after all the great achievements I had performed must have been condemned had I not summoned the army to my aid some think that having contracted from long habit an extraordinary love of power and having weighed his own and his enemy's strength he embraced that occasion of usurping the supreme power which indeed he had coveted from the time of his youth this seems to have been the opinion entertained by Cicero who tells us in the third book of his offices that Caesar used to have frequently in his mouth two verses of Euripides which he thus translates Nam si violandum estius regnam di gratia violandum est alis rebus pietatem colas be just unless a kingdom attempts to break the laws for sovereign power alone can justify the cause when intelligence therefore was received that the interposition of the tribunes in his favour had been utterly rejected and that they themselves had fled from the city he immediately sent forward some cohorts but privately to prevent any suspicion of his design and to keep up appearances attended at a public spectacle examined the model of a fencing school which he proposed to build and as usual sat down to table with a numerous party of his friends but after sunset mules being put to his carriage from a neighbouring mill he set forward on his journey with all possible privacy and a small retinue the lights going out he lost his way and wandered about a long time until at length by the help of a guide whom he found towards daybreak he proceeded on foot through some narrow paths and again reached the road coming up with his troops on the banks of the Rubicon which was the boundary of his province he halted for a while and revolving in his mind the importance of the step he was on the point of taking he turned to those about him and said we may still retreat but if we pass this little bridge nothing is left for us but to fight it out in arms while he was thus hesitating the following incident occurred a person remarkable for his noble mean and graceful aspect appeared close at hand sitting and playing upon a pipe when not only the shepherds but a number of soldiers also flocked from their posts to listen to him and some trumpeters among them he snatched a trumpet from one of them ran to the river with it and sounding the advance with a piercing blast crossed to the other side upon this Caesar exclaimed let us go with the omens of the gods and the iniquity of our enemies call us the die is now cast accordingly having marched his army over the river he showed them the tribunes of the people who upon their being driven from the city had come to meet him and in the presence of that assembly called upon the troops to pledge him their fidelity with tears in his eyes and his garment rent from his bosom it has been supposed that upon this occasion he promised to every soldier a knight's estate but that opinion is founded on a mistake for when in his harangue to them he frequently held out a finger of his left hand and declared that to recompense those who should support him in the defence of his honour he would willingly part even with his ring the soldiers at a distance who could more easily see than hear him while he spoke formed their conception of what he said by the eye not by the ear and accordingly gave out that he had promised to each of them the privilege of wearing the gold ring and an estate of four hundred thousand cesterces End of Julius Caesar part two Recording by Graham Redman Julius Caesar part three 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 Graham Redman The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forrester Julius Caesar part three paragraphs thirty-four to fifty-five Of his subsequent proceedings I shall give a cursory detail in the order in which they occurred He took possession of Piscinum, Umbria, and Etruria and having obliged Lucius Demitius, who had been tumultuously nominated his successor and held Corsinium with a garrison to surrender and dismissed him He marched along the coast of the Upper Sea to Brundizium to which place the consuls and Pompey were fled with the intention of crossing the sea as soon as possible After vain attempts by all the obstacles he could oppose to prevent their leaving harbour He turned his steps towards Rome where he appealed to the Senate on the present state of public affairs and then set out for Spain in which province Pompey had a numerous army under the command of three left tenants Marcus Petrius, Lucius Ephrainius, and Marcus Varro declaring amongst his friends before he set forward that he was going against an army without a general and should return thence against a general without an army Though his progress was retarded both by the siege of Marseilles which shut her gates against him and a very great scarcity of corn, yet in a short time he bore down all before him Thence he returned to Rome and crossing the sea to Macedonia blocked up Pompey during almost four months within a line of ramparts of prodigious extent and at last defeated him in the battle of Farsalia Pursuing him in his flight to Alexandria where he was informed of his murder he presently found himself also engaged under all the disadvantages of time and place in a very dangerous war with King Ptolemy who he saw had treacherous designs upon his life It was winter and he within the walls of a well provided and subtle enemy was destitute of everything and wholly unprepared for such a conflict He succeeded however in his enterprise and put the kingdom of Egypt into the hands of Cleopatra and her younger brother Being afraid to make it a province lest under an aspiring prefect it might become the centre of revolt From Alexandria he went into Syria and thence to Pontus induced by intelligence which he had received respecting Farnesees This prince who was son of the great Mithridates had seized the opportunity which the distraction of the times offered for making war upon his neighbours and his insolence and fierceness had grown with his success Caesar however within five days after entering his country and four hours after coming in sight of him overthrew him in one decisive battle upon which he frequently remarked to those about him the good fortune of Pompey who had obtained his military reputation chiefly by victory over so feeble an enemy He afterwards defeated Scipio and Juba who were rallying the remains of the party in Africa and Pompey's sons in Spain During the whole course of the civil war he never once suffered any defeat except in the case of his lieutenants of whom Gaius Curio fell in Africa Gaius Antonius was made prisoner in Illyricum Publius Dolabella lost a fleet in the same Illyricum Ancnius Demitius Culvinus an army in Pontus In every encounter with the enemy where he himself commanded he came off with complete success Nor was the issue ever doubtful except on two occasions Once at Dereckium when being obliged to give ground and Pompey not pursuing his advantage he said that Pompey knew not how to conquer The other instance occurred in his last battle in Spain when despairing of the event he even had thoughts of killing himself For the victories obtained in the several wars he triumphed five different times After the defeat of Scipio four times in one month each triumph succeeding the former by an interval of a few days and once again after the conquest of Pompey's sons His first and most glorious triumph was for the victories he gained in Gaul the next for that of Alexandria the third for the reduction of Pontus the fourth for his African victory and the last for that in Spain and they all differed from each other in their varied pomp and pageantry On the day of the Gallic triumph as he was proceeding along the street called Velabrum after narrowly escaping a fall from his chariot by the breaking of the axel tree he ascended the capital by torchlight forty elephants carrying torches on his right and left amongst the pageantry of the Pontic triumph a tablet with this inscription was carried before him I came, I saw, I conquered not signifying as other motos on the like occasion what was done so much as the dispatch with which it was done to every foot soldier in his veteran legions besides the two thousand sistercies paid him in the beginning of the Civil War he gave twenty thousand more in the shape of prize money he likewise allotted them lands but not in contiguity that the former owners might not be entirely dispossessed to the people of Rome besides ten modii of corn and as many pounds of oil he gave three hundred sistercies a man which he had formally promised them and a hundred more to each for the delay in fulfilling his engagement he likewise remitted a year's rent due to the treasury for such houses in Rome as did not pay about two thousand sistercies a year and through the rest of Italy for all such as did not exceed in yearly rent five hundred sistercies to all this he added a public entertainment and a distribution of meat and after his Spanish victory two public dinners for considering the first he had given as to sparing and unsuited to his profuse liberality he five days afterwards added another which was most plentiful the spectacles he exhibited to the people were of various kinds namely a combat of gladiators and stage plays in the several wards of the city and in different languages likewise ascension games wrestlers and the representation of a sea fight in the conflict of gladiators presented in the forum furious leptinus a man of praetorian family entered the lists as a combatant as did also quintus calpinus formally a senator and a pleader of causes the pyrrhic dance was performed by some youths who were sons to persons of the first distinction in Asia and Bithynia in the plays decimus laborious who had been a Roman knight acted in his own piece and being presented on the spot with five hundred thousand sistercies and a gold ring he went from the stage through the orchestra and resumed his place in the seats allotted for the equestrian order in the ascension games the circus being enlarged at each end and a canal sunk around it several of the young nobility drove chariots drawn some by four and others by two horses and likewise rode races on single horses the Trojan game was acted by two distinct companies of boys one differing from the other in age and rank the hunting of wild beasts was presented for five days successively and on the last day a battle was fought by five hundred foot twenty elephants and thirty horse on each side to afford room for this engagement the golds were removed and in their space two camps were pitched directly opposite to each other wrestlers likewise performed for three days successively in the stadium provided for the purpose in the campers marshes a lake having been dug in the little codita ships of the Tyrion and Egyptian fleets containing two three and four banks of oars with a number of men on board afforded an animated representation of a sea fight to these various diversions there flocked such crowds of spectators from all parts that most of the strangers were obliged to lodge in tents erected in the streets or along the roads near the city several in the throng was squeezed to death amongst whom were two senators turning afterwards his attention to the regulation of the Commonwealth he corrected the calendar which had for some time become extremely confused through the unwarrantable liberty which the Pontives had taken in the article of intercalation to such a height had this abuse preceded that neither the festivals designed for the harvest fell in summer nor those for the vintage in autumn he accommodated the year to the course of the sun ordaining that in future it should consist of three hundred and sixty five days without any intercalary month and that every fourth year an intercalary day should be inserted that the year might thenceforth commence regularly with the calends or first of January he inserted two months between November and December so that the year in which this regulation was made consisted of fifteen months including the month of intercalation which according to the division of time then in use happened that year he filled up the vacancies in the Senate by advancing several plebeians to the rank of patricians and also increased the numbers of preters, ediles, queesters and inferior magistrates restoring at the same time such as had been degraded by the censors or convicted of bribery at elections the choice of magistrates he so divided with the people that accepting only the candidates for the consulship they nominated one half of them and he the other the method which he practiced in those cases was to recommend such persons as he had pitched upon by bills dispersed through the several tribes to this effect Caesar the dictator to such a tribe naming it I recommend to you naming likewise the persons that by the favor of your votes they may attain to the honors for which they sue he likewise admitted to offices the sons of those who had been prescribed the trial of causes he restricted to two orders of judges the equestrian and senatorial excluding the tribunes of the treasury who had before made a third class the revised census of the people he ordered to be taken neither in the usual manner or place but street by street by the principal inhabitants of the several quarters of the city and he reduced the number of those who received corn at the public cost from three hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty thousand to prevent any tumults on account of the census he ordered that the preter should every year fill up by lot the vacancies occasioned by death from those who were not enrolled for the receipt of corn eighty thousand citizens having been distributed into foreign colonies he enacted in order to stop the drain on the population that no free man of the city above twenty and under forty years of age who was not in the military service should absent himself from Italy for more than three years at a time that no senator's son should go abroad unless in the retinue of some high officer and as to those whose pursuit was tending flocks and herds that no less than a third of the number of their shepherds freeborn should be used he likewise made all those who practiced physics in Rome and all teachers of the liberal arts free of the city in order to fix them in it and induce others to settle there with respect to debts he disappointed the expectation which was generally entertained that they would be totally cancelled and ordered that the debtors should satisfy their creditors according to the valuation of their estates at the rate at which they were purchased before the commencement of the Civil War deducting from the debt what had been paid for interest either in money or by bonds by virtue of which provision about a fourth part of the debt was lost he dissolved all the guilds except such as were of ancient foundation crimes were punished with greater severity and the rich being more easily induced to commit them because they were only liable to banishment without the forfeiture of their property he stripped murderers as Cicero observes of their holy states and other offenders of one half he was extremely assiduous and strict in the administration of justice he expelled from the senate such members as were convicted of bribery and he dissolved the marriage of a man of Praetorian rank who had married a lady two days after her divorce from a former husband although there was no suspicion that they had been guilty of any illicit connection he imposed duties on the importation of foreign goods the use of litters for traveling, purple robes and jewels he permitted only to persons of a certain age and station and on particular days he enforced a rigid execution of the sumptuary laws placing officers about the markets to seize upon all meats exposed to sale contrary to the rules and bring them to him sometimes sending his lictors and soldiers to carry away such vitals as had escaped the notice of the officers even when they were upon the table his thoughts were now fully employed from day to day on a variety of great projects for the embellishment and improvement of the city as well as for guarding and extending the bounds of the empire in the first place he meditated the construction of a temple to Mars which should exceed in grandeur everything of that kind in the world for this purpose he intended to fill up the lake on which he had entertained the people with the spectacle of a sea fight he also projected a most spacious theatre adjacent to the Tarpian Mount and also proposed to reduce the civil law to a reasonable compass and out of that immense and undigested mass of statutes to extract the best and most necessary parts into a few books to make as large a collection as possible of works in the Greek and Latin languages for the public use the province of providing and putting them in proper order being assigned to Marcus Varro he intended likewise to drain the pomptown marshes to cut a channel for the discharge of the waters of the lake Fusinas to form a road from the upper sea through the ridge of the Apennine to the Tiber to make a cut through the Isthmus of Corinth to reduce the Dacians who had overrun Pontus and Thrace within their proper limits and then to make war upon the Parthians through the lesser Armenia but not to risk a general engagement with them until he had made some trial of their prowess in war but in the midst of all his undertakings and projects he was carried off by death before I speak of which it may not be improper to give an account of his person, dress and manners together with what relates to his pursuits both civil and military it is said that he was tall, of a fair complexion, round-limbed, rather full-faced with eyes black and piercing and that he enjoyed excellent health except towards the close of his life when he was subject to sudden fainting fits and disturbance in his sleep he was likewise twice seized with the falling sickness while engaged in active service he was so nice in the care of his person that he not only kept the hair of his head closely cut and had his face smoothly shaved but even caused the hair on other parts of the body to be plucked out by the roots a practice for which some persons rallied him his baldness gave him much uneasiness having often found himself upon that account exposed to the jibes of his enemies he therefore used to bring forward the hair from the crown of his head and of all the honors conferred upon him by the Senate and people there was none which he either accepted or used with greater pleasure than the right of wearing constantly a laurel crown it is said that he was particular in his dress for he used the latest clavus with fringes about the wrists and always had it girded about him but rather loosely this circumstance gave origin to the expression of Silla who often advised the nobles to beware of the ill-girt boy he first inhabited a small house in the Sabara but after his advancement to the pontificate he occupied a palace belonging to the state in the Vyasekara many writers say that he liked his residence to be elegant and his entertainments sumptuous and that he entirely took down a villa near the grove of Arisia which he had built from the foundation and finished at a vast expense because it did not exactly suit his taste although he had at that time but slender means and was in debt and that he carried about in his expeditions tessellated and marble slabs for the floor of his tent they likewise report that he invaded Britain in hopes of finding pearls the size of which he would compare together and ascertain the weight by poising them in his hand that he would purchase at any cost gems, carved works, statues and pictures executed by the eminent masters of antiquity and that he would give for young and handy slaves a price so extravagant that he forbade its being entered in the diary of his expenses we are also told that in the provinces he constantly maintained two tables one for the officers of the army and the gentry of the country and the other for Romans of the highest rank and provincials of the first distinction he was so very exact in the management of his domestic affairs both little and great that he once threw a baker into prison for serving him with a finer sort of bread than his guests and put to death a freedman who was a particular favourite for debauching the lady of a Roman knight although no complaint had been made to him of the affair the only stain upon his chastity was his having cohabited with Nicomedes and that indeed stuck to him all the days of his life and exposed him to much bitter railery I will not dwell upon those well-known verses of Calvas Licinius Fuatea Bithynia and her lord possessed her lord who sees her in his lust caressed I pass over the speeches of Dolabela and Curio the father in which the former calls him the queen's rival and the inner side of the royal couch and the latter the brothel of Nicomedes and the Bithynian stew I would likewise say nothing of the edicts of Bibulus in which he proclaimed his colleague under the name of the Queen of Bithynia adding that he had formally been in love with a king but now coveted a kingdom at which time as Marcus Brutus relates one Octavius, a man of a crazy brain and therefore the more free in his railery after he had in a crowded assembly saluted Pompey by the title of king addressed Caesar by that of queen Gaius Memius likewise upgraded him with serving the king at table among the rest of his catamites in the presence of a large company in which were some merchants from Rome the names of whom he mentions but Cicero was not content with writing in some of his letters that he was conducted by the royal attendants into the king's bedchamber lay upon a bed of gold with a covering of purple and that the youthful bloom of this scion of Venus had been tainted in Bithynia but upon Caesar's pleading the cause of Nicer the daughter of Nicomedes before the Senate and recounting the king's kindnesses to him replied, Pray tell us no more of that for it is well known what he gave you and you gave him to conclude his soldiers in the Gallic triumph amongst other verses such as they jocularly sung on those occasions following the general's chariot and recited these which since that time have become extremely common the galls to Caesar yield Caesar to Nicomedes lo Caesar triumphs for his glorious deed but Caesar's conqueror gains no victor's mead it is admitted by all that he was much addicted to women as well as very expensive in his intrigues with them and that he debauched many ladies of the highest quality among whom were posthumia the wife of Servius alpitius lolia the wife of allus gabinius totala the wife of Marcus Crassus and Musia the wife of Cnius Pompey for it is certain that the Curios both father and son and many others made it a reproach to Pompey that to gratify his ambition he married the daughter of a man upon whose account he had divorced his wife after having had three children by her and whom he used with a deep sigh to call Aegisthus but the mistress he most loved was Servilia the mother of Marcus Brutus for whom he purchased in his first consulship after the commencement of their intrigue a pearl which cost him six millions of cisterces and in the civil war besides other presents assigned to her for a trifling consideration some valuable farms when they were exposed to public auction many persons expressing their surprise at the lowness of the price Cicero wittily remarked to let you know the real value of the purchase between ourselves tertia was deducted for Servilia was supposed to have prostituted her daughter tertia to Caesar that he had intrigues likewise with married women and the provinces appears from this dystic which was as much repeated in the Gallic triumph as the former watch well your wives he sits we bring a blade a bald-pate master of the wenching trade thy gold was spent on many a Gallic whore exhausted now thou comes to borrow more in the number of his mistresses were also some queens such as you know he or more the wife of Bogudese to whom and her husband he made as naso reports many large presence but his greatest favorite was Cleopatra with whom he often reveled all night until the dawn of day and would have gone with her through Egypt in dalliance as far as Ethiopia in her luxurious yacht had not the army refused to follow him he afterwards invited her to Rome whence he sent her back loaded with honors and presents and gave her permission to call by his name a son who according to the testimony of some Greek historians resembled Caesar both in person and gate Mark Anthony declared in the Senate that Caesar had acknowledged the child as his own and that Gaius Matius, Gaius Opius and the rest of Caesar's friends knew it to be true on which occasion Opius, as if it had been an imputation which he was called upon to refute published a book to show that the child which Cleopatra fathered upon Caesar was not his Helvia Sinner, Tribune of the People admitted to several persons the fact that he had a bill ready drawn which Caesar had ordered him to get enacted in his absence allowing him with the hope of leaving Issue to take any wife he chose and as many of them as he pleased and to leave no room for doubt of his infamous character for unnatural euthaness and adultery Curio the father says in one of his speeches he was every woman's man and every man's woman it is acknowledged even by his enemies that in regard to wine he was obstemious a remark is ascribed to Marcus Cato that Caesar was the only sober man amongst all those who were engaged in the design to subvert the government in the matter of diet Caius Obvious informs us that he was so indifferent that when a person in whose house he was entertained had served him with stale instead of fresh oil and the rest of the company would not touch it he alone at very heartily of it that he might not seem to tax the master of the house with rusticity or want of attention but his abstinence did not extend to pecuniary advantages either in his military commands or civil offices for we have the testimony of some writers that he took money from the proconsul who was his predecessor in Spain and from the Roman allies in that quarter for the discharge of his debts and plundered at the point of the sword some towns of the Lucitanians notwithstanding they attempted no resistance and opened their gates to him upon his arrival before them in Gaul he rifled the chapels and temples of the gods which were filled with rich offerings and demolished cities oftener for the sake of their spoil than for any ill they had done by this means gold became so plentiful with him that he exchanged it through Italy and the provinces of the empire for three thousand cisterces the pound in his first consulship he purloined from the capital three thousand pounds weight of gold and substituted for it the same quantity of gilt brass he bartered likewise to foreign nations and princes for gold the titles of allies and kings and squeezed out of Ptolemy alone near six thousand talents in the name of himself and Pompey he afterwards supported the expense of the civil wars and of his triumphs and public spectacles by the most flagrant rapine and sacrilege in eloquence and war like achievements he equalled at least if he did not surpass the greatest of men after his prosecution of dollabella he was indisputably reckoned one of the most distinguished advocates Cicero in recounting to Brutus the famous orators declares that he does not see that Caesar was inferior to any one of them and says that he had an elegant splendid noble and magnificent vein of eloquence and in a letter to Cornelius Nepos he writes of him in the following terms what of all the orators who during the whole course of their lives have done nothing else which can you prefer to him which of them is more pointed or terse in his periods or employs more polished and elegant language in his youth he seems to have chosen Strabo Caesar for his model from whose oration in behalf of the Sardinians he has transcribed some passages literally into his divination in his delivery he is said to have had a shrill voice and his action was animated but not ungraceful he has left behind him some speeches among which are ranked a few that are not genuine such as that on behalf of Quintus Metellus these augustus supposes with reason to be rather the production of blundering shorthand writers who were not able to keep pace with him in the delivery than publications of his own for I find in some copies that the title is not for Metellus but what he wrote to Metellus whereas the speech is delivered in the name of Caesar vindicating Metellus and himself from the aspersions cast upon them by their common defamers the speech addressed to his soldiers in Spain augustus considers likewise as spurious we meet with two under this title one made as is pretended in the first battle and the other in the last at which time a senior's polio says he had not leisure to address the soldiers on account of the suddenness of the enemy's attack end of Julius Caesar part three recording by Graham Redman