 Tiberius, Part 1 of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Svetonius Tranquillus. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Svetonius Tranquillus, translated by Alexander Thompson and edited by T. Forester. Tiberius, Part 1. The Patrician family of the Cloudy, for there was a plebeian family of the same name, no way inferior to the other either in power or dignity, came originally from Ragili, a town of the Sabines. They removed sense to Rome soon after the building of the city with a great body of their dependents under Titus Tatitus, who reigned jointly with Romulus in the kingdom or perhaps what is related upon better authority under Atta Claudius, the head of the family, who was admitted by the senate into the patrician order six years after the expulsion of the tar queens. They likewise received from the state lands beyond the Anio for their followers and the burying place for themselves near the capital. After this period in process of time, the family had the honor of twenty-eight consulships, five dictatorships, seven censorships, seven triumphs and two ovations. Their descendants were distinguished by various praenomina and cognomina, but rejected by common consent the praenomen of Luzius, when, of the two races who bore it, one individual had been convicted of robbery and another of murder. Amongst other cognomina they assumed that of Nero, which in the Sabine language signifies strong and valiant. It appears from records that many of the Claudii have performed signal services to the state, as well as committed acts of delinquency. To mention the most remarkable only, Appius Caiacus desuaded the senate from agreeing to an alliance with Perus, as pre-duty is short to the Republic. Claudius' conducts first passed the straits of Sicily with the fleet, and drove the cartaginians out of the island. Claudius Nero cut off Hasdrubal with a vast army upon his arrival in Italy from Spain, before he could form a junction with his brother Hannibal. On the other hand, Claudius Appius Regilanus, one of the Decemvirs, made a violent attempt to have a free virgin, of whom he was enamored, a judged slave, which caused the people to secede a second time from the senate. Claudius Drusus erected a statue of himself wearing a crown at Appii forum, and endeavored, by means of his dependents, to make himself master of Italy. Claudius' culture, when, of the coast of Sicily, the bullets used for taking algory would not eat, in contempt of the omen threw them overboard, as if they should drink at least, if they would not eat, and then engaging the enemy was rooted. After his defeat, when he was ordered by the senate to name a dictator, making a sort of jest of the public disaster, he named Glicius his Apparitor. The women of this family likewise exhibited characters equally opposed to each other. For both the Claudius belonged to it, she, who, when the ship freighted with things sacred to the Idaian mother of the gods, stuck fast in the shell of the tiber, got it off by praying to the goddess with a loud voice, follow me, if I am chased. And she also, who, contrary to the usual practice in the case of women, was brought to trial by the people for treason, because, when her litter was stopped by a great crowd in the streets, she openly exclaimed, I wish my brother, Pulcher, was alive now, to lose another fleet that Rome might be less strong. Besides, it was well known that all the Claudii, except Publius Claudius, who, to affect the banishment of Cicero, procured himself to be adopted by a plebeian, and one younger than himself, were always of the patrician party, as well as great sticklers for the honor and power of that order, and so violent and obstinate in their opposition to the plebeians, that not one of them, even in the case of a trial for life by the people, would ever can descend to put on mourning, according to custom, or make any supplication to them for favor, and some of them in their contests have even proceeded to lay hands on the tribunes of the people. A vestal virgin likewise of the family, when her brother was resolved to have the honor of a triumph contrary to the will of the people, mounted the chariot with him, and attended him into the capital, that it might not be lawful for any of the tribunes to interfere and forbid it. From this family Tiberius Caesar is descended, indeed both by the father and mother side, by the former from Tiberius Nero, and by the latter from Apius Pulcher, who were both sons of Apius Caiacus. He likewise belonged to the family of the Levy, by the adoption of his mother's grandfather into it, which family, although plebeian, made a distinguished figure, having had the honor of eight consulships, two censorships, three triumphs, one dictatorship, and the office of master of the horse, and was famous for eminent men, particularly Salinator and the Drusci. Salinator, in his censorship, branded all the tribes for their inconstancy in having made him consul a second time, as well as censor, although they had condemned him to a heavy fine after his first consulship. Drusus procured for himself and his posterity a new surname, by killing in single combat Drusus, the enemy's chief. He is likewise said to have recovered, when proprietor in the province of Gaul, the gold which was formerly given to the Sinonis, at the siege of the capital, and had not, as is reported, been forced from them by Camelos. His great-great-grandson, who, for his extraordinary services against the Grachii, was styled the patron of the senate, left a son, who, while plotting in a sedition of the same description, was treacherously murdered by the opposite party. But the father of Tiberius Caesar, being coestered to Caius Caesar, and commander of his fleet in the War of Alexandria, contributed greatly to its success. He was therefore made one of the high priests in the room of Publius Scipio, and was sent to settle some colonies in Gaul, and amongst the rest, those of Narbonne and Arles. After the assassination of Caesar, however, when the rest of the senators, for fear of public disturbances, were for having the affair buried in oblivion, he proposed a resolution for rewarding those who had killed the tyrant, having filled the office of Pretor, and at the end of the year, a disturbance breaking out amongst the Triumviri. He kept the badges of his office beyond the legal time, and following Lucius Antonius the consul, brother of the Triumvir, to Perusia, while the rest submitted, yet he himself continued firm to the party, and escaped first to Plaineste and then to Naples, whence, having in vain invited the slaves to liberty, he fled over to Sicily. But resenting his not being immediately admitted into the presence of sex to Pompeii, and being also prohibited the use of the Fascus, he went over into Achaia to Mark Antony, with whom, upon a reconciliation soon after brought about amongst the several contending parties, he returned to Rome, and at the request of Augustus, gave up to him his wife Livia Drusilla, although she was then big with child, and had before borne him a son. He died not long after, leaving behind him two sons, Tiberius and Drusus Nero. Some have imagined that Tiberius was born at Fundi, but there is only this trifling foundation for the conjecture, that his mother's grandmother was of Fundi, and that the image of good fortune was, by a degree of the senate erected in a public place in that town. But according to the greatest number of writers, and those two of the best authority, he was born at Rome, in the Palatine quarter, upon the sixteenths of the calends of December, 16th November, when Marcus Aemilius Lepidus was second time consul, with Lucius Monatius Plancus, after the Battle of Philippi, for so it is registered in the calendar, and the public acts. According to some, however, he was born the preceding year, in the consulship of Hirtius and Pansa, and others say in the year following, during the consulship of Servilius Isauricus and Antony. His infancy and childhood were spent in the midst of danger and trouble, for he accompanied his parents everywhere in their flight, and twice at Naples, nearly betrayed them by his crying, when they were privately hastening to a ship, as the enemy rushed into the town. Once when he was snatched from his nurse's breast, and again from his mother's bosom, by some of the company who, on the sudden emergency, wished to relieve the woman of their burden, being carried through Sicily and Achaia, and entrusted for some time to the care of Lakadeo-monians, who were under the protection of the Claudian family, upon his departure thence, when travelling by night, he ran the hazard of his life, by a fire which, suddenly bursting out of a wood on all sides, surrounded the whole party so closely, that part of Livia's dress and hair was burned. The presents which were made him by Pompeia, sister to sex to Pompey, in Sicily, namely a talk with a clasp and Bola of gold, are still in existence, and shown at Bayae, to this day. After his return to the city, being adopted by Marcus Galeus, a senator, in his will, he took possession of the estate, but soon afterwards declined the use of his name, as Galeus had been of the party opposed to Augustus. When only nine years of age, he pronounced a funeral oration in praise of his father, upon the rostra, and afterwards, when he had nearly attained the age of manhood, he attended the chariot of Augustus, in his triumph for the victory at Actium, riding on the left-hand horse, whilst Marcellus, Octavius' son, rode that on the right. He likewise presided at the games celebrated on account of that victory, and in the Trojan games, intermixed with the Cacensim, he commanded a troop of the biggest boys. After assuming the manly habit, he spent his youth, and the rest of his life, until he succeeded to the government, in the following manner. He gave the people an entertainment of gladiators, in memory of his father, and another for his grandfather, Drusus, at different times and in different places. The first in the forum, the second in the amphitheater, some gladiators who had been honorably discharged, being induced to engage again by a reward of a hundred thousand sisteresses. He likewise exhibited public sports, at which he was not present himself. All these he performed with great magnificence, at the expense of his mother and father in law. He married Agrippina, the daughter of Marcus Agrippa, and granddaughter of Caicilius Atticus, a Roman knight, the same person to whom Cicero has addressed so many epistels. After having by her his son Drusus, he was obliged to part with her, though she retained his affection and was again pregnant, to make way for marrying Augustus' daughter Eulia. But this he did with extreme reluctance, for besides having the warmest attachment to Agrippina, he was disgusted with the conduct of Eulia, who had made indecent advances to him during the lifetime of her former husband, and that she was a woman of Lewis' character was a general opinion. At divorcing Agrippina he felt the deepest regret, and upon meeting her afterwards he looked after her with eyes so passionately expressive of affection, that care was taken, she should never again come in his sight. At first, however, he lived quietly and happily with Eulia, but the rupture soon ensued, which became so violent, that after the loss of their son, the pledge of their union, who was born at Aquileia and died in infancy, he never would sleep with her more. He lost his brother Drusus in Germany, and brought his body to Rome, selling all the way on food before it. When he first applied himself to civil affairs, he defended the several causes of King Archelaus, the Tralians, and the Tessalians, before Augustus, who set as judge at the trials. He addressed the senate on behalf of the Laudicians, the Tiatyrians, and Chians, who had suffered greatly by an earthquake, and implored relief from Rome. He prosecuted Farnius Caepio, who had been engaged in a conspiracy with Varro Murena against Augustus, and procured sentence of condemnation against him. Amidst all this he had besides to superintend two departments of the administration, that of supplying the city with corn, which was then very scarce, and that of clearing the houses of correction, throughout Italy, the masters of which had fallen under the odious suspicion of seizing and keeping confined, not only travelers, but those whom the fear of being obliged to serve in the army had driven to seek refuge in such places. He made his first campaign as a military tribune in the Contrabrian War. Afterwards he led an army into the east, where he restored the kingdom of Armenia to Tigranis, and seated on a tribunal, put a crown upon his head. He likewise recovered from the Partians the standards which they had taken from Crassus. He next governed, for nearly a year, the province of Galliocomata, which was then in great disorder, on account of the incursions of the barbarians, and the foils of the chiefs. He afterwards commanded in the several wars against the Raitians, Vindelikians, Pannonians, and Germans. In the Raitian and Vindelikian wars he subdued the nations in the Alps, and in the Pannonian wars the Bruci, and the Dalmatians. In the German war he transplanted into Gaul forty thousand of the enemy who had submitted and assigned them lands near the banks of the Rhine. For these actions he entered the city with an ovation, but riding in a chariot, and is said, by some, to have been the first that ever was honored with this distinction. He filled early the principal offices of state, and passed through the questorship, praetorship, and consulate, almost successively. After some interval he was chosen consul a second time, and held the Tribunitian authority during five years. Surrounded by all this prosperity, in the prime of life and in excellent health, he suddenly formed the resolution of withdrawing to a greater distance from Rome. It is uncertain whether this was the result of disgust for his wife, whom he neither durst accused nor divorced, and the connection with whom became every day more intolerable, or to prevent that indifference towards him, which his constant residence in the city might produce, or in the hope of supporting and improving by absence his authority in the state, if the public should have occasion for his service. Some are of opinion that as Augustus's sons were now grown up to years of maturity, he voluntarily relinquished the possession of he had long enjoyed of the second place in the government, as Agrippa had done before him, who, when M. Marcellus was advanced to public offices, retired to Mithilene, that he might not seem to stand in the way of his promotion, or in any respect lessen him by his presence. The same reason likewise Tiberius gave afterwards for his retirement, but this pretext at this time was, that he was satiated with honors and desires of being relieved from the fatigue of business, requesting therefore that he might have lived to withdraw, and neither the earnest entreaties of his mother nor the complaint of his father-in-law made even in the senate, that he was deserted by him, could prevail upon him to alter his resolution. Upon their persisting in the design of detaining him, he refused to take any sustenance for four days together. At last, having obtained permission, leaving his wife and son at home, he proceeded to Ostia, without exchanging a word with those who attended him, and having embraced with very few persons at parting. From Ostia, journeying along the coast of Campania, he halted a while on receiving intelligence of Augustus being taken ill, but this giving rise to a rumour that he stayed with a view to something extraordinary. He sailed with the wind almost full against him, and arrived at Rhodes, having been struck with the pleasantness and healthiness of the island, at the time of his landings therein, his return from Armenia. Here contending himself with a small house, and a villa not much larger, near the town, he led entirely a private life, taking his walks sometimes about the gymnasia, without any lictor or other attendant, and returning the civilities of the Greeks, was almost as much complacent as if he had been upon a level with them. One morning, in settling the course of his daily excursion, he happened to say that he should visit all the sick people in the town. This being not rightly understood by those about him, the sick were brought into a public portico and arranged in order, according to their several distempers. Being extremely embarrassed by this unexpected occurrence, he was for some time irresolute how he should act, but at last he determined to go round them all and make an apology for the mistake even to the meanest amongst them, and such as were entirely unknown to him. One instance only is mentioned in which he appeared to exercise his tribunation authority. Being a constant attendant upon the schools and lecture rooms of the professors of the liberal arts, an occasion of the quarrel amongst the wrangling sophists, in which he interposed to reconcile them, some person took the liberty to abuse him as an intruder and partial in the affair. Upon this, withdrawing privately home, he suddenly returned attended by his officers, and summoning his accuser before his tribunal by a public crier ordered him to be taken to prison. Afterwards he received tidings that his wife Yulia had been condemned for her lootiness and adultery, and that a bill of divorce had been sent to her in his name by the authority of Augustus. Though he secretly rejoiced at this intelligence, he sought it incumbent upon him, in point of decency, to interpose in her behalf by frequent letters to Augustus, and to allow her to retain the presence which he had made her, not withstanding the little regard she merited from him. When the period of his tribunation authority expired, declaring at last that he had no other object in his retirement than to avoid all suspicion of rivalship with Caius and Luzius, he petitioned that, since he was now secure in that respect, as they were come to the age of manhood, and would easily maintain themselves in possession of the second place in the state, he might be permitted to visit his friends, whom he was very desirous of seeing. But his request was denied, and he was advised to lay aside all concern for his friends, whom he had been so eager to greet. He therefore continued at Rhodes, much against his will, obtaining this difficulty through his mother, the title of Augustus Leutnant, to cover his disgrace. His thenceforth lived, however, not only as a private person, but as once suspected and under apprehension, retiring into the interior of the country, and avoiding the visits of those who sailed that way, which were very frequent, for no one passed to take command of an army, or the government of a province, without touching a Rhodes. But there were fresh reasons for increased anxiety. For crossing over to Samos, on a visit to his stepson, Caius, who had been appointed governor of the east, he found him prepossessed against him, by the insinuations of Marcus Lolius, his companion and director. He likewise fell under suspicion of sending by some centurions, who had been promoted by himself, upon their return to the camp after a furlough, mysterious messages to several persons there, intended, apparently, to temper with them for a revolt. The jealousy respecting his designs, being intimated to him by Augustus, he begged repeatedly that some person of any of the three orders might be placed as a spy upon him, in everything he either said or did. He laid aside likewise his usual exercises of riding and arms, and quitting the Roman habit, made use of the pallium and crepida. In this condition he continued almost two years, becoming daily an object of increasing contempt and odium, in so much that the people of Nismas pulled down all the images and statues of him in their town, and upon mention being made of him a table, one of the companies said to Caius, I will sail over to Rhodes immediately, if you desire me, and bring you the head of the exile. For that was the appellation now given him. Thus alarmed not only by apprehensions but real danger, he renewed his solicitations for leave to return, and seconded by the most urgent supplications of his mother, he at last obtained his request, to which an accident somewhat contributed. Augustus had resolved to determine nothing in the affair but with the consent of his eldest son. The latter was at the time out of humor with Marcus Lolius, and therefore easily disposed to be favorable to his father-in-law. Caius's acquessing, he was recalled, but upon condition that he should take no concern whatever in the administration of affairs. He returned to Rome after an absence of nearly eight years, with great and confident hopes of his future elevation, which he had entertained from his youth, in consequence of various prodigies and predictions. For Livia, when pregnant with him, being anxious to discover, by different modes of divination, whether her offspring would be a son, amongst others, took a neck from a hen that was sitting, and kept it warm with her own hands, and those of her maids, by turns, until a fine-cocked chicken with a large comb was hatched. Fribonius, the astrologer, predicted great things of him when he was a mere child. He will come in time, said the prophet, to be even a king, but without the usual badge of royal dignity. The rule of the Caesars being as yet unknown. When he was making his first expedition and leading his army through Macedonia into Syria, the altars which had been formerly consecrated by Philippi, by the victorious legions, blazed suddenly with spontaneous fires. Soon after, as he was marching to Illyricum, he stopped to consult the Oracle of Geryon, near Padua, and having drawn a lot by which he was desired to throw gold and tally into the fountain of Opanos. For an answer to his inquiries, he did so, and the highest numbers came up. And those very tally are still to be seen at the bottom of the fountain. A few days before his leaving goodness, an eagle, a bird never before seen in that island, perched on the top of his house. And the day before he received intelligence of the permission granted him to return, as he was changing his dress, his tunic appeared to be all on fire. He then likewise had a remarkable proof of the skill of Trasilus, the astrologer, whom, for his proficiency in philosophical researches, he had taken into his family. For upon sight of the ship which brought the intelligence, he said, Good news was coming where as everything going wrong before. And quite contrary to his predictions, Tiberius had intended that very moment, when they were walking together, to throw him into the sea as an imposter, and one to whom he had too hastily entrusted his secrets. End of Tiberius Part 1. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Svetonius Tranquillus, translated by Alexander Thomson, and edited by T. Forrester. Tiberius Part 2. Upon his return to Rome, having introduced his son Drusus into the forum, he immediately removed from Pompey's house in the Carinae to the gardens of Messianus on the Esquilin, and resigned himself entirely to his ease, performing only the common offices of civility in private life, without any preferment in the government. But Caeson Lucius, being both carried off in the space of three years, he was adopted by Augustus, along with their brother Agrippa, being obliged in the first place to adopt Germanicus, his brother's son. After his adoption, he never more acted as master of a family, nor exercised in the smallest degree the rights which he had lost by it. For he neither disposed of anything in the way of gift, nor man omitted a slave, nor so much as received any estate left him by will, nor any legacy, without reckoning it as a part of his peculiar or property held under his father. From that day forward, nothing was omitted that might contribute to the advancement of his guarantor, and much more. When upon Agrippa being discarded and banished, it was evident that the hope of succession rested upon him alone. The tribunational authority was again conferred upon him for five years, and the commission given him to settle the affairs of Germany. The ambassadors of the Parthians, after having had an audience of Augustus, were ordered to apply to him likewise in his province. But on receiving intelligence of an insurrection in Ilyricum, he went over to super-intensive management of that new war, which proved the most serious of all the foreign wars since the Carthaginian. This he conducted during three years with 15 legions and an equal number of auxiliary forces, under great difficulties, and an extreme scarcity of corn. And though he was several times recalled, he nevertheless persisted, fearing less than enemies so powerful and so near, but fall upon the army in their retreat. This resolution was attended with good success, for he at last reduced to complete subjection all Ilyricum, lying between Italy and the Kingdom of Noricum, Thrace, Macedonia, the River Danube, and the Adriatic Gulf. The glory he acquired by these successes received an increase from the conjecture in which they happened. For almost about that very time, Quintilius Varus was cut off with three legions in Germany, and it was generally believed that the victorious Germans would have joined the Pannonians, had not the war in Ilyricum been previously concluded. A triumph, therefore, besides many other great owners, has decreed him. Thum proposed that the surname of Pannonicus, others set of invincible, and others of opios, should be conferred on him. But Augustus interposed, engaging for him, that he would be satisfied with that, to which he would succeed at his death. He postponed his triumph, because the state was at that time under great affliction for the disaster of Varus and his army. Nevertheless, he entered the city in a triumphal robe, crowned with laurel, and mounting a tribunal in Decepta, sat with Augustus between the two consuls, whilst the Senate gave their attendance standing. Once, after he had saluted the people, he was attended by them in procession to the several temples. Next year he went again to Germany, where, finding that the defeat of Varus was occasioned by the rashness and negligence of the commander, he sought proper to be guided in everything by the advice of a council of war. Whereas at other times, he used to follow the dictates of his own judgment, and considered himself alone as sufficiently qualified for the direction of affairs. He likewise used more caution than usual. Having to pass the Rhine, he restricted the whole convoy with certain limits, and stationing himself on the bank of the river, would not suffer the wagons to cross the river, until he had searched them at the water side, to see that they carried nothing, but were thus allowed or necessary. Beyond the Rhine, such was his way of living, that he took his mails sitting on the bare ground, and often passed the night without a tent. And his regular orders for the day, as well as those upon sudden emergencies, he gave in writing, with this injunction, that in case of any doubt, as to the meaning of them, they should apply to him for satisfaction, even at any hour of the night. He maintained the strictest discipline amongst the troops, reviving many old customs, relative to punishing and degrading offenders, setting a mark of disgrace, even upon the commander of a legion, for sending a few soldiers, who was one of his freedmen, across the river for the purpose of hunting. Though it was his desire to leave as little as possible in the power of fortune or accident, yet he always engaged the enemy with more confidence when, in his night watches, the lamp failed and went out of itself, trusting, as he said, in an omen which had never failed him, and his ancestors in all their commands. But in the midst of victory, he was very near being assassinated by some Brugterian, who, mixing with those about him, and being discovered by his trepidation, was put to the torture and confessed to intended crime. After two years, he returned from Germany to the city and celebrated the triumph which he had deferred, attended by his loitenants, for whom he had procured the honor of triumphal ornaments. Before he turned to ascend the capital, he alighted from his chariot and kneeled before his father, who said by, to superintend the solemnity. But though the Panonian chief he sent to Ravenna loaded with rich presence, in gratitude, for his having suffered him and his army to retire from opposition, in which he had so enclosed them that they were entirely at his mercy. He afterwards gave the people a dinner at a thousand tables, beside thirty sisters to each man. He likewise dedicated the Temple of Concord and that of Castor and Pollux, which had been erected out of the spoils of the war in his own and his brother's name. Allah, having been not long after carried by the consuls for his being appointed a colleague, was Augustus in the administration of the provinces. And in taking the census, when that was finished he went into Illyricum. But being hastily recalled during his journey, he found Augustus alive indeed, but passed all hopes of recovery and was with him in private a whole day. I know it is generally believed that upon Tiberius quitting the room after their private conference, those who were invading overheard Augustus say, ah, unhappy Roman people, to be ground by the jaws of such a slow devourer. Nor am I ignorant of its being reported by some that Augustus so openly and undisguisedly condemned the sourness of his temper that sometimes upon his coming in, he would break off any juggler conversation in which he was engaged and that he was only prevailed upon by the importunity of his wife to adopt him or actuated by the ambitious view of recommending his own memory from a comparison with such a successor. Yet I must talk to this opinion that the prince, so extremely circumspect and prudent as he was, did nothing rashly, especially in an affair of so great importance, but that upon weighing the vices and virtues of Tiberius with each other, he judged the latter to preponder it. And this is the rather sense he saw publicly in an assembly of the people that he adopted him for the public good. Besides, in several of his letters, he extols him as a consummate general and the only security of the Roman people. Of such declarations, I subjoin the following instances. Farewell, my dear Tiberius, and may success attend you whilst you are worrying for me and the muses. Farewell, my most dear and as I hope to prosper the most gallant man and accomplished general. Again, the disposition of your summer quarters introduced my dear Tiberius, I do not think that amidst so many difficulties and with an army so little disposed for action, anyone could have behaved more prudently than you have done. All those likewise who were with you acknowledged that this verse is applicable to you. Un us homo nobis, bigelando, restituitrem. One man by vigilance restored the state. Whenever he says anything happens that requires more than ordinary consideration, or I am out of humor upon any occasion, I still, by Hercules, long for my dear Tiberius, and those lines of Homer frequently occur to my thoughts. Tutug hes pomennoio, kaye puros ait pomennoio, ampou nos desaimen, e pei perioide no eisai. Both from his prudence I could even aspire to dare with him the burning rage of fire. When I hear and read that you are much impaired by the continued fatigues you undergo, may the gods confound me if my hope frame does not tremble. So I beg you to spare yourself, lest, if we should hear of your being ill, the news prove fatal both to me and your mother, and the Roman people should be in peril for the safety of the empire. It matters nothing whether I be well or no, if you be not well. I pray heaven preserve you for us, and bless you with health both now and ever, if the gods have any regard for the Roman people. He did not make the death of Augustus public until he had taken off young Agrippa. He was slain by a tribune who commanded his guard upon reading a written order for that purpose. Respecting which order it was then adept whether Augustus left in his last moments to prevent any occasion of public disturbance after his decease, or Livia issued it in the name of Augustus, and whether it was the knowledge of the Barrios or not. When the tribune came to inform him that he had executed his command, he replied, I commanded you know such thing, and you must answer for it to the Senate, avoiding as it seems the audio was the act for that time. And their fear was soon buried in silence. Having summoned the Senate to meet by virtue of his tribunational authority, and begun a mournful speech, he drew a deep sigh as if unable to support himself under his affliction, and wishing that not his voice only, but his very breath of life might fail him, gave his speech to his son Drusus to read. Augustus will was then brought in, and read by a freedman, none of the witnesses to it being admitted, but such as were of the senatorian order, the rest honing their handwriting without doors. The will begins us. Since my ill fortune has deprived me of two my two sons, Caius and Lucius, let Tiberius Caesar be heir to two thirds of my estate. These words countenanced the suspicion of those who were of opinion that Tiberius was appointed successor, more out of necessity than choice, since Augustus could not refrain from professing his will in that manner. Though he made no scruple to assume and exercise immediately the imperial authority by giving orders that he should be attended by the guards who were the security and badge of the supreme power, yet he affected by a most impudent piece of acting to refuse it for a long time, one while sharply reprehending his friends who entreated him to accept it, as little knowing what a monster the government was, another while keeping in suspense the Senate when they implored him and threw themselves at his feet by ambiguous answers and the crafty kind of the simulation in so much that somewhere out of patience and one cried out during the confusion, either let him accept it or decline it at once, and the second told him to his face, others are slow to perform what they promise, but you are slow to promise what you actually perform. At last, as if forced to it and complaining of the miserable and burdensome service imposed upon him, he accepted the government, not however without giving hopes of his resigning at some time or other. The exact words he used were these, and as the time shall come when you may think it reasonable to give some rest to my old age. The cause of his long demure was fear of the dangers which threatened him on all hands, and so much that he said, I have got a bolt by the ears. For a slave of Agrippus, Clemens by name, had drawn together a considerable force to revenge his master's death. Lucius Gribonius Libo, a senator of the First Distinction, was secretly fermenting a rebellion, and the troops both in New Lyricum and Germany were mutinous. Both armies insisted upon high demands, particularly that their pay should be made equal to that of the Praetorian guards. The army in Germany absolutely refused to acknowledge a prince who was not their own choice and urged, with all possible importunity, Germanicus, who commanded them, to take the government on himself, though he obstinately refused it. It was the various apprehension from this quarter which made him request the Senate to assign him some part only in the administration, such as they should judge proper, since no man could be sufficient for the whole without one or more to assist him. He pretended likewise to be in a bad state of health, that Germanicus might the more patiently wait in hopes of speedily succeeding him, or at least of being admitted to be a colleague in the government. When the mutinous in the armies were suppressed, he got clements into his hands by strata gem, that he might not begin his reign by an act of severity. He did not call Libo to an account before the Senate until his second year. Being content in the meantime was taking proper precautions for his own security. For upon Libos attending a sacrifice amongst the high priests, instead of the usual knife, he ordered one of Led to be given him, and when he desired a private conference with him, he would not grant his request, but on condition that his son Drusus should be present. And as they walked together, he held him fast by the right hand under the pretense of leaning upon him until the conversation was over. When he was delivered from his apprehensions, his behavior at first was unassuming, and he did not carry himself much above the level of a private person, and that the many and great owners offered him, he accepted that few, and such as were very moderate. His birthday, which happened to fall at the time of the plebeian Cersensian games, he was difficulty suffered to be honored with the addition of only a single chariot drawn by two horses. He forbade temples, flaments, or priests to be appointed for him, as likewise the erection of any statues or refugees for him without his permission. And this he granted only on condition that they should not be placed among the images of the gods, but only amongst the ornaments of houses. He also interposed to prevent the Senate from swearing to maintain his acts, and the month of September from being called Tiberius, and October being named after Livia. The paranormal likewise of Emperor was the cognomen of father of his country and the civic crown in the vestibule of his house he would not accept. He never used the name of Augustus, although he inherited it in any of his letters, accepting those addressed to kings and princes. Nor had he more than three consortships, one for a few days, another through three months, and the third during his absence from the city until the Eads, 15th of May. He had such an aversion to flattery that he would never suffer any senator to approach his litter as he passed the streets in it, either to pay him a civility or upon business. And when a man of consular rank in begging his pardon for some offense he had given him, attempted to fall at his feet, he started from him in such haste that he stumbled and fell. If any compliment was paid to him either in conversation or said speech, he would not scramble to interrupt and reprimand the party and alter what he had said. Being once called lord by some person, he desired that he might no more be affronted in that manner. When another, too excited veneration, called his occupations sacred and the third had expressed himself thus, by your authority I have waited upon the senate, he obliged them to change their phrases, in one of them adopting persuasion instead of authority, and in the other laborious instead of sacred. He remained unmoved at all the aspersions, scandals, reports and lump wounds which were spread against him or his relations, declaring in a free state both the tongue and the mind ought to be free. Upon the senate desiring that some notice might be taken of those offenses and the person's charge with them, he replied, we have not so much time upon our hands that we ought to involve ourselves in more business. If you once make an opening for such proceedings, you will soon have nothing else to do. All private quarrels will be brought before you under that pretense. There is also on record another sentence used by him in the senate, which is far from assuming. If he speaks otherwise of me, I shall take care to behave in such a manner as to be able to give a good account both of my words and actions. And if he persists, I shall hate him in my turn. These things were so much more remarkable in him, because in the respect he paid to individuals or the whole body of the senate, he went beyond all bounds. Upon his differing with Quintus Hatterius in the senate house, pardon me, sir, he said, I beseech you, if I shall, as the senator, speak my mind very freely in opposition to you. Afterwards, addressing the senate in general, he said, conscript fathers, I have often said it both now and at other times, that a good and useful prince, whom you have invested so great an absolute power, ought to be a slave to the senate, to the whole body of the people, and often to individuals likewise. Nor am I sorry that I have said it. I have always found you good, kind and intelligent masters and still find you so. He likewise introduced a certain show of liberty by preserving to the senate and magistrates their former majesty and power. All affairs, whether of great or small importance, public or private, were laid before the senate, taxes and monopolies, the erecting or repairing edifices, levying and disbanding soldiers, the disposal of the legions and auxiliary forces in the provinces, the appointment of generals for the management of extraordinary wars, and the answers to letters from foreign princes were all submitted to the senate. He compelled the commander of a troop of horse, who was accused of robbery, attended with violence, to plead his cause before the senate. He never entered the senate house but unattended, and they once brought zither in a litter. Because he was indisposed, he dismissed his attendance at the door. When some degrees were made contrary to his opinion, he did not even make any complaint. And though he saw that no magistrates after their nomination should be allowed to absence themselves for the city, but reside in it constantly, to receive their honors in person, a prior to elect obtained liberty to depart under the honorary title of a legate at large. Again, when he proposed to the senate that the tribunes might have leave, granted them to divert some money, which had been left them by will for the purpose of building a new theater to that of making a road. He could not prevail to have the will of the testetor set aside. And when upon a division of the house, he went over to the minority, nobody followed him. All other things of a public nature likewise transacted by the magistrates and in the usual forms. The authority of the consuls remaining so great that some ambassadors from Africa applied to them and complained that they could not have their business dispatched by Caesar to whom they had been sent. And no wonder, since it was observed that he used to rise up as the consuls approached and give them the way. Here, reprimanded some persons of consular rank in command of armies for not writing to the senate on account of their proceedings and for consulting him about the distribution of military rewards as if they themselves had not a right to bestow them as they judged proper. He commanded a pretor, who on entering office revived an old custom of celebrating the memory of his ancestors in a speech to the people. He attended the corpses of some persons of distinction to the funeral pile. He displayed the same moderation with regard to persons and things of inferior consideration. The magistrates of Rodes, having dispatched to him a letter on public business, which was not subscribed, he sent for them and without giving them so much as one harsh word, desired them to subscribe it and so dismissed them. Diogenes, a grammarian who used to hold public disquisitions at Rodes every Sabbath day, once refused him admittance upon his coming to hear him out of course and sent him a message by a servant, postponing his admission until the next seventh day. Diogenes afterwards coming to Rode and waiting at his door to be allowed to pay his respects to him, he sent him word to come again at the end of seven years. To some governors who advised him to load the provinces with taxes, he answered, it is the part of a good shepherd to shear and not flay his sheep. He assumed the soaring day by slow degrees and exercised it for a long time with great variety of conduct, so generally with a due regard to the public good. At first he only interposed to prevent ill management. Accordingly, he rescinded some degrees of the Senate and when the magistrate set for the administration of justice, he frequently offered his service as assessor, as they're taking his place promiscuously among them or seating himself in a corner of the tribunal. If a rumor prevailed that any person under prosecution was likely to be acquitted by his interest, he would suddenly make his appearance and from the floor of the court or the predator's bench remind the judges of the laws and of their oaths and the nature of the charge brought before them. He likewise took upon himself the correction of public morals where they tended to decay either through neglect or evil custom. He reduced the expense of the place in public spectacles by diminishing the allowances to actors and curtailing the number of gladiators. He made grievous complaints to the Senate that the price of Corinthian vessels was become enormous and that three mullets had been sold for 30,000 sistercies, upon which he proposed that the new sumptuary law should be enacted, that the butchers and other dealers in violence should be subject to an assay fixed by the Senate yearly and the ideals commissioned to restrain eating houses and taverns so far as not even to permit the sale of any kind of pastry. And to encourage regality in the public by his own example, he would often, at his solemn feasts, have at his table victuals which had been served up the day before and were partly eaten, and half a bore affirming, it has all the same good bits that the whole had. He published an edict against the practice of peoples kissing each other when they met and would not allow New Year's gifts to be presented after the calends the 1st of January was passed. He had been in the habit of returning these offerings forefold and making them with his own hand, but being annoyed by the continual interruption to which he was exposed during the whole month by those who had not the opportunity of attending him on the festival, he returned none after that day. Married woman guilty of adultery, though not prosecuted publicly, he authorized the nearest relations to punish by agreement among themselves, according to ancient custom. He discharged a Roman knight from the obligation of an oath he had taken, never to turn away his wife, dilute him to divorce her upon her being caught in criminal intercourse with her son-in-law. Woman of ill fame divesting themselves on the rights and dignity of matrons had now begun a practice of professing themselves prostitutes to avoid the punishment of the laws and the most profligate young men of the senatorial and equestrian orders to secure themselves against the decree of the Senate, which prohibited their performing on the stage or in the amphitheater, voluntarily subjected themselves to an infamous sentence by which they were degraded. All those he banished, that none for the future might evade by such artifices the intention and efficiency of the law. He stripped the senator of the broad stripes and his robe upon information of his having removed to his gardens before the calends, the 1st of July, in order that he might afterwards hire a house cheaper in the city. He likewise dismissed another from the office of Cuesta for repudiating the day after he had been lucky in drawing his lot, a wife whom he had married only the day before. He suppressed all foreign religions and the Egyptian and Jewish rights, obliging those who practiced that kind of superstition to burn their vestments and all their sacred utensils. He distributed the Jewish youth under the pretense of military service among the provinces noted for an unhealthy climate and dismissed from the city all the rest of that nation as well as those who were proselytes to that religion and their pain of slavery for life unless they complied. He also expelled the astrologers but upon their suing for pardon and promising to renounce their profession, he revoked his decree. End of Tiberius, Part 2. Tiberius, Part 3 of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Vetonius Tranquillus. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Vetonius Tranquillus, translated by Alexander Thomson and edited by T. Forester. Tiberius, Part 3. But above all things, he was careful to keep the public peace against robbers, burglars and those who were disaffected to the government. He therefore increased the number of military stations throughout Italy and formed a camp at Rome for the Praetorian cohorts, which till then had been quartered in the city. He suppressed with great severity all too much of the people on their first breaking out and took every precaution to prevent them. Some persons having been killed in a quarrel which happened in the theater, he banished the leaders of the parties and the players about whom the disturbance had arisen, nor could all the entreaties of the people afterwards prevail upon him to recall them. The people of Palentia, having refused to permit the removal of the corpse of a centurion of the first rank from the forum until they had extorted from his heirs a sum of money for a public exhibition of gladiators. He detached a cohort from the city and another from the kingdom of Cotius, who, concealing the cause of their march, entered the town by different gates. With their arms suddenly displayed and trumpet sounding. And having seized the greatest part of the people and the magistrates, they were imprisoned for life. He abolished everywhere the privileges of all places of refuge. To the centions having committed an outrage upon some Romans, he deprived them of the liberty they had obtained for their good services in the Mithridatic war. Disturbances from foreign enemies, he quelled by his loitnance without ever going against them in person, nor would he even employ his loitnance, but with much reluctance, and when it was absolutely necessary. Princes who were ill-affected towards him, he kept in subjection, more by menaces and remonstrances than by force of arms. Some whom he didn't use to come to him by fair words and promises, he never would permit to return home. As Marabodos, the German, Traskipolis, the Thracian, and Archelaus the Cappadocian, whose kingdom he even reduced into the form of a province. He never set foot outside the gates of Rome for two years together, from the time he assumed the supreme power, and after that period, went no farther from the city than to some of the neighboring towns, his farthest excursion being to Antioch, and that but very seldom and for a few days, though he often gave out that he would visit the provinces and armies and made preparations for it almost every year, but taking up carriages and ordering provisions for his retinue in the municipia and of colonies. At last he suffered woes to be put up for his good journey and safe return, and so much that he was called, geosciously, by the name of Calipides, who is famous in a Greek proverb for being in a great hurry to go forward, but without ever advancing a qubit. But after the loss of his two sons, of whom Germanicus died in Syria and Jerusalem at Rome, he withdrew into Campania, at which time opinion and conversation were almost general, that he never would return and would die soon. And both nearly turned out to be true, for indeed he never more came back to Rome, and a few days after leaving it, when he was at the villa of his called the cave, near Terasina, during supper a great many huge stones fell from above, which killed several of the guests in attendance, but he almost hopelessly escaped. After he had gone round Campania and dedicated the capital of Capuia and a temple to Augustus at Nola, which he made the pretext of his journey, he retired to Capri, being greatly delighted with the island, because it was accessible only by a narrow beach, being on all sides surrounded with rugged cliffs, of a stupendous height and by a deep sea. But immediately the people of Rome being extremely clamorous for his return, on account of a disaster at Fidenae, where upwards of 20,000 persons had been killed by the fall of the amphitheater, during a public spectacle of gladiators. He crossed over against the continent and gave all people free access to him, so much more because at his departure from the city, he had caused it to be proclaimed that no one should address him, and he had declined admitting any persons to his presence on the journey. Returning to the island, he so far abandoned all care of the government, that he never filled up the curiae of the knights, never changed any military tribunes or prefects or governors of provinces, and kept Spain and Syria for several years without any consular loitenance. He likewise suffered Armenia to be seized by the portions, Moesia by the nations and Sermatians, on goal to be ravaged by the Germans, to the great disgrace and no less danger of the empire. But having now the advantage of privacy and being removed from the observation of the people of Rome, he abandoned himself to all the vicious propensities which he had long but imperfectly concealed, and of which I shall here give a particular account from the beginning. While a young soldier in the camp, he was so remarkable for his excessive inclination that, for Tiberius, they called him Biberius, for Claudius, Claudius, and for Nero, Mero. And after he succeeded to the empire and was invested with the office of reforming the morality of the people, he spent a whole night and two days together in feasting and drinking with Pomponius Lacus and Lucius Piso, to one of whom he immediately gave the province of Syria and to the other the prefecture of the city. Declaring them, in his letter's patent, to be very pleasant companions and friends fit for all occasions. He made an appointment to sub with Cestius Gallus, a lewd and prodigal old fellow who had been disgraced by Augustus and reprimanded by himself but a few days before in the Senate House, upon condition that he should not recede in the least from his usual method of entertainment and that they should be attended at table by naked girls. He preferred a very obscure candidate for the questorship before the most noble competitors, only for taking off in pledging him a table and an umphor of wine at a draught. He presented a cellius Sabinus with 200,000 Cestertes for writing a dialogue in the way of dispute betwixt the truffle and the figbacker, the officer and the trash. He likewise instituted a new office to administer to his voluptuousness to which he appointed Titus Caesonius Priscus a Roman knight. In his retreat at Capri, he also contrived an apartment containing couches and adapted to the secret practice of abominable lewdness where he entertained companies of girls and catamids and assembled from all quarters inventors of unnatural copulations whom he called Spintriae who defiled one another in his presence to inflame by the exhibition the language appetite. He had several chambers set round with pictures and statues in the most lascivious attitudes and furnished with the books of Elephantis that none might want a pattern for the execution of any lewd project that was prescribed him. He likewise contrived recesses in woods and groves for the gratification of lust where young persons of both sexes prostituted themselves in caves and hollow rocks in the disguise of little pants and nymphs so that he was publicly and commonly called by an abuse of the name of the island Caprinaeus. But he was still more infamous if possible for an abomination not fit to be mentioned or heard much less credited. When a picture painted by Parhasus in which the artist had represented Atalanta in the act of submitting to Meliagra's lust in a most unnatural way was bequeased to him with this prowiso that if the subject was offensive to him he might receive in lieu of it a million of cestresses. He not only chose the picture but hung it up in his bed chamber. It's also reported that during a sacrifice he was so captivated with the form of a youth who held the censor that before the religious rites were well over he took him aside and abused him as also a brother of his who had been playing the flute and soon afterwards broke the legs of both of them for abrading one another with their shame. How much he was guilty of a most foul intercourse with women even of the first quality appeared very plainly by the death of one Malonia who, being brought to his bed but resolutely refusing to comply with his lust he gave her up to the common informers. Even when she was upon her trial he frequently called out to her and asked her do you repent? Until she acquitting the court went home and stabbed herself openly abrading the vile old leecher for his gross obscenity. Hence there was an allusion to him in a farce which was acted at the next public sports and was received with great applause and became a common topic of ridicule the dulled goat. He was so niggardly and covetous that he never allowed to his attendants and his travels and expeditions any salary but their diet only. Once indeed he treated them liberally at the instigation of his stepfather when dividing them into three classes according to their rank he gave the first six the second four and the third two hundred thousand sisterces which last class he called not friends but Greeks. During the whole time of his government he never erected any noble edifice for the only things he did undertake namely building the temple of Augustus and restoring Pompey's theater he left at last after many years and finished nor did he ever entertain the people with public spectacles and he was seldom present at those which were given by others lest anything of that kind should be requested of him especially after he was obliged to give freedom to the comedian actors. Having relieved the poverty of a few senators to avoid further demands he declared that he should for the future assist none but those who gave the senate full satisfaction as to the cause of their necessity. Upon this most of the needy senators from modesty and shame declined troubling him amongst these was Hortulus grandson to the celebrated orator Quintus Hortensius who marrying by the persuasion of Augustus had brought up four children upon a very small estate. He displayed only two instances of public munificence one was an offer to lend gratis for three years a hundred millions of sisterces to those who wanted to borrow and the other when some large houses being burned down upon Mount Kailus he indemnified the owners. To the former of these he was compelled by the clamors of the people in a great scarcity of money when he had ratified a decree of the senate obliging all money lenders to advance two thirds of their capital on land and the debtors to pay off at once the same proportion of their debts and it was found insufficient to remedy the grievance. The other he did to alleviate in some degrees the pressure of the times. But his benefaction to the sufferers by fire he estimated at so high a rate that he ordered the Caelian hill to be called in future the Augustan. To the soldiery after doubling the legacy left them by Augustus he never gave anything except a thousand dinari a man to the Praktorian guards for not joining the party of Sianus and some presents to the legions in Syria because they alone had not paid reverence to the effigies of Sianus among their standards. He seldom gave discharges to the veteran soldiers calculating on their deaths from advanced age and on what would be said by thus getting rid of them in the way of rewards or pensions nor did he ever relieve the provinces by any act of generosity excepting Asia where some cities had been destroyed by an earthquake. In the course of a very short time he turned his mind to sheer robbery. It's certain that Cneus Lentulus, the ogre a man of vast estate was so terrified and worried by his threats and importunities that he was obliged to make him his heir and that Lepida, a lady of a very noble family was condemned by him in order to gratify Quirinos a man of consular rank extremely rich and childless who had divorced her twenty years before and now charged her with an old design to poison him. Several persons likewise of the first distinction in Gaul, Spain, Syria and Greece had their estates confiscated upon such despicably trifling and shameless pretenses that against some of them no other charge was preferred than that they held large sums of ready money as part of their property. All the immunities, the riots of mining and of levying tolls were taken from several cities and private persons and oneness, king of the Parsians who had been driven out of his dominions by his own subjects and fled to Antioch with a vast treasure climbing the protection of the Roman people, his allies was treacherously robbed of all his money and afterwards murdered. He first manifested hatred towards his own relations in the case with his brother Drusos betraying him by the production of a letter to himself in which Drusos proposed that Augustus be forced to restore the public liberty. In course of time he showed the same disposition with regard to the rest of his family. So far was he from performing any office of kindness or humanity to his wife when she was banished and by her father's order confined to one town that he forbade her to stir out of the house or converse with any man. He even wronged her of the dowry given her by her father and of her yearly allowance by a quibble of law because Augustus had made no provision for them on her behalf in his will. Being harassed by his mother, Livia, who claimed an equal share in the government with him, he frequently avoided seeing her and all long and private conferences with her lest it should be thought that he was governed by her consuls, which notwithstanding he sometimes thought and was in the habit of adopting. He was much offended at the Senate when they had proposed to add to his other titles that of the son of Livia as well as Augustus. He therefore would not suffer her to be called the mother of her country, nor to receive any extraordinary public distinction. Nay, he frequently admonished her not to meddle with weighty affairs and such as did not suit her sex. Especially when he found her present at the fire which broke out near the temple of Vesta and encouraging the people and soldiers to use their utmost exertions as she had been used to do in the time of her husband. He afterwards proceeded to an open rapture with her and, as is said upon this occasion, she having frequently urged him to place among the judges a person who had been made free of the city he refused her request unless she would allow it to be inscribed in the role that the appointment had been extorted from him by his mother. Enraged at this, Livia brought forth from her chapel some letters from Augustus to her complaining of the soreness and insolence of Tiberius' temper and these she read. So much was he offended at these letters having been kept so long and now produced with so much bitterness against him that some considered this incident as one of the causes of his going into seclusion if not the principal reason for his so doing. In the whole year she lived during his retirement he saw her but once and that for a few hours only. When she fell sick shortly afterwards he was quite unconcerned about visiting her in her illness and when she died after promising to attend her funeral he deferred his coming for several days so that the corpse was in a state of decay and put refaction before the intermittent and he then forbade divine honours being paid to her pretending that he acted according to her own directions. He likewise annulled her will and in a short time ruined all her friends and acquaintances not even sparing those to whom on her deathbed she had recommended the care of her funeral but come damning one of them a man of equestrian rank to the treadmill. He entertained no paternal affection either for his own son Drusus or his adopted son Germanicus. Offended at the vices of the former co-was of a loose disposition and led a distilled life he was not much affected at his death but almost immediately after the funeral resumed his attention to business and prevented the courts from being longer closed. The ambassadors from the people of Ilium coming rather late to offer their condolences he said to them by way of banter as if the afer had already faded from his memory and I hardly condol with you on the loss of your renowned country man Hector. He so much affected to depreciate Germanicus that he spoke of his achievements as utterly insignificant and railed at his most glorious victories as ruinous to the state complaining of him also to the senate for going to Alexandria without his knowledge upon occasion for great and sudden famine at Rome. It was believed that he took care to have him dispatched by Cneius Pisa, his lieutenant in Syria. This person was afterwards tried for the murder and would as was supposed have produced his orders had they not been contained in a private and confidential dispatch. The following words therefore were posted up in many places and frequently shouted in the night give us back our Germanicus. This suspicion was afterwards confirmed by the barbarous treatment of his wife and children. His daughter-in-law Agrippina after the death of her husband complaining upon some occasion with more than ordinary freedom he took her with a hand and addressed her in a Greek verse to this effect. My dear child, do you think yourself injured because you are not empress? Nor did he ever wish safe to speak to her again. Upon her refusing once at supper to taste some fruit which he presented to her he declined inviting her to his table pretending that she in effect charged him with the design to poison her. Whereas the whole was a contravence of his own. He was to offer the fruit and she to be privately cautioned against eating what would infallibly cause her death. At last having her accused of intending to flee for refuge to the statue of Augustus or to the army he banished her to the island of Pandataria. Upon her reviling him for it he caused a centurion to beat out one of her eyes and when she resolved to starve herself to death he ordered her mouths to be forced to open and meat to be crammed down her throat. But she persisting in her resolution and dying soon afterwards he persecuted her memory with the basest aspersions and persuaded the senate to put her birthday amongst a number of unlucky days in the calendar. He likewise took credit for not having caused her to be strangled and her body cast upon the communion steps and suffered a decree of the senate to pass thanking him for his clemency and an offering of gold to be made to Jupiter Capitolines on the occasion. He had by Germanicus three grandsons Nero, Drusus and Caius and by his son Drusus I named Tiberius. Of these after the loss of his sons he commanded Nero and Drusus the two eldest sons of Germanicus to the senate and that their being solemnly introduced into the forum distributed money amongst the people. But when he found that on entering upon the new year they were included in the public woes for his own welfare he told the senate that such owners ought not to be conferred but upon those who had been proved and were of more advanced years. By thus betraying his private feelings towards them he exposed them to all sorts of accusations and after practicing many artifices to provoke them to rail at and abuse him that he might be furnished with a pretense to destroy them he charged them with it in a letter to the senate at the same time accusing them in the bitterest terms of the most scandalous vices. Upon their being declared enemies by the senate he starved them to death Nero in the island of Ponza and Drusus in the vaults of the palladium. It is thought by some that Nero was driven to a voluntary death by the executioners showing him some halters and hooks as if he had been sent to him by order of the senate. Drusus it is said was so rapid with hunger that he attempted to eat the chaff with which his mattress was stuffed. The relics of those were so scattered that it was with difficulty they were collected. Besides his old friends and intimate acquaintance he required the assistance of 20 of the most eminent persons in the city as consulers in the administration of public affairs. Out of all this number scarcely two or three escaped the fury of his savage disposition. All the rest he destroyed upon one pretense or another and among them Aelius Sianus whose fall was attended with the ruin of many others. He had advanced this minister to the highest pitch of grandeur not so much for any real regard for him as that by his base and sinister contravences he might ruin the children of Germanicus and thereby secure the succession to his own grandson by Drusus. He treated with no greater leniency the Greeks in his family even those with whom he was most pleased. Having asked one Zeno upon his using some far-fetched phrases what Uncoe's dialect is that he replied the Doric. For this answer he banished him to Sinara suspecting that he counted him with his former residence at Rhodes where the Doric dialect is spoken. It being his custom to start questions at supper arising out of what he had been reading in the day and finding that Seleucus the Grammarian used to inquire of his attendance what authors he was then studying and so came prepared for his inquiries. He first turned him out of his family and then drove him to the extremity of laying violent hands upon himself. His cruel and silent temper appeared when he was still a boy which Theodorus of Gadara, his master in rhetoric, first discovered and expressed by a very opposite smile calling him sometimes when he cheered him mud mixed with blood. But his disposition showed itself still more clearly on his attaining the imperial power and even in the beginning of his administration when he was endeavouring to gain the popular favour by affecting moderation. Upon a funeral passing by a vag called out to the dead man tell Augustus that the legacies he bequeathed to the people are not yet paid. The man being brought before him he ordered that he should receive what was due to him and then be led to execution so that he might deliver the message to his father himself. Not long afterwards when one Pompey, a Roman knight, persisted in his opposition to something he proposed in the senate, he threatened to put him in prison and taught him, of a Pompey I shall make a Pompeian of you by a bitter kind of pun playing upon the man's name and the ill fortune of his party. End of Diberius, part three. Diberius, part four, of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Svetonius Tranquillus. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Svetonius Tranquillus, translated by Alexander Thomson and edited by T. Forrester. Diberius, part four. About the same time when the predator consulted him, whether it was his pleasure, that the tribunals should take cognizance of accusations of treason, he replied, the laws ought to be put in execution. And he did put them in execution most severely. Some person had taken off the head of Augustus from one of his statues and replaced it by another. The matter was brought before the senate and because the case was not clear, the witnesses were put to the torture. The party accused being found guilty and condemned. This kind of proceeding was carried so far that it became capital for a man to beat his slave or change his clothes near the statue of Augustus, to carry his head stumped upon the coin or cut in the stone of a ring into a necessary house or the stews or to reflect upon anything that had been either said or done by him. In fine, a person was condemned to death for suffering some honors to be decreed to him in the colony where he lived, upon the same day on which they had formerly been decreed to Augustus. He was besides guilty of many barbarous actions under the pretense of strictness and reformation of manners, but more to gratify his own savage disposition. Some verses were published which displayed the present calamities with rain and anticipated the future. Asper and imities breviter vis omnia deacam. Desperiam si temater amare potest. Non es equus quare, non sunt dibimilia centum. Omnia si quares et rodus exilium est. Aurea mutas de saturnis aecula siisar. In calumne inamte ferrea semper erunt. Fa stidit vinum, quie jam sedit istekru orem. Tam bibit hunk ae vida, quam bibit antem erum. At spica felicem si bii, non tibii romule sulam, et marium si vis at spica sedre ducum. Nek non Antoni quillia bella momentis. Nek semel infectas at spica cae de manus, et diic romapherit, regnabit san quine multo, adregnum quisquis venib at exilio. Abdret rech, to fierce to fel to move, to least kind yearnings of a mother's love. No nights of art ae having no estate, long suffered so in rodus an exil fate. No more is a happy golden age we see, the irons come, unsure to last we see. Instead of wine he thirst for before. He wallows now in floods of human gore. Reflect ye romans on the dreadful times, made such by Marius and by Sulla's crimes. Reflect how Antoni's ambitious rage, twice scared with horror a distracted age. And say alas, Rome's blood in streams so flow, when banished miscreants rule this world below. At first he would have it understood that these satirical verses were drawn forth by the resentment of those who were impatient under the discipline of reformation, rather than that they spoke their real sentiments. And he would frequently say, let them hate me so long as they do, but a promo conduct. At length, however, his behavior showed that he was sensible, they were too well founded. A few days after his arrival at Capri, a fisherman coming up to him unexpectedly when he was desirous of privacy and presenting him with large mullet, he ordered the man's face to be scrapped with the fish, being terrified at the thought of his having been able to creep upon him from the back of the island over such rugged and steep rocks. The man, while undergoing the punishment, expressing his joy, said he had not likewise offered him a large crab, which he had also taken. He ordered his face to be further lacquerated with its claws. He put to death one of the Praetorian guards for having stolen a peacock out of his orchard. In one of his journeys, his litter being obstructed by some bushes, he ordered the officer whose duty it was to ride on and examine the road, a centurion of the first cohorts, to be laid on his face upon the ground and scorched almost to death. Soon afterwards, he abandoned himself to every species of cruelty, never wanting occasions of one kind or another to serve as a pretext. He first fell upon the friends and acquaintances of his mother, then those of his grandsons and his daughter-in-law, and lastly those of Sianos, after whose death he became cruel in an extreme. From this it appeared that he had not been so much instigated by Sianos, as supplied with occasions of gratifying his savage temper when he wanted them. Though in a short memoir, which he composed of his own life, he had the effrontery to write, I have punished Sianos because I found him bent upon the destruction of the children of my son Germanicus. One of these he put to death when he began to suspect Sianos and another after he was taken off. It would be tedious to relate all the numerous instances of his cruelty. Suffice it to give a few examples in their different kinds. Not a day passed without the punishment of some person or other, not accepting holidays, or those appropriated to the worship of the gods. Some were tried even on New Year's Day. Of many who were condemned, their wives and children shared the same fate. And for those who were sentenced to death, their relations were forbid to put on mourning. Considerable rewards were voted for the prosecutors and sometimes for the witnesses also. The information of any person without exception was taken and all offenses were capital, even speaking a few words, though without any ill intention. A poet was charged with abusing Agamemnon and the historian for calling Brutus and Cassius the last of the Romans. The two authors were immediately called to account and their writings suppressed, though they had been well-received some years before and read in the hearing of Augustus. Some who were thrown into prison were not only denied the solace of study, but debarred from all company and conversation. Many persons, when someone to travel, stubbed themselves at home to avoid the distress and ignominy of a public condemnation, which they were certain would ensue. Others took poison in the Senate House. The bones were bound up and all who had not expired were carried half dead and panting for life to prison. Those who were put to death were thrown down the Guimonian stairs and then dragged into the Tiber. In one day, 20 were treated in this manner and amongst them women and boys. Because according to an ancient custom, it was not lawful to strangle virgins, the young girls were first deflowered by the executioner and afterwards strangled. Those who were desirous to die were forced to live, for he saw death so slight a punishment that upon hearing that Carnulius, one of the accused, who was under persecution had killed himself, he exclaimed, Carnulius has escaped me. In calling over his prisoners, when one of them requested the favor of a speedy death, he replied, you are not yet restored to favor. A man of consular rank writes in his annals that at that table, where he himself was present with a large company, he was suddenly asked aloud by a dwarf who stood by amongst the buffins. Why Pachonius, who was under prosecution for treason, lived so long? Tiberius immediately reprimanded him for his pertinence, but wrote to the senate a few days after, to proceed without delay to the punishment of Pachonius. Exasperated by information, he received respecting the death of his son, Drusus. He carried his cruelty still far through. He imagined that he had died of a disease occasioned by his intemperance, but finding that he had been poisoned by the contravence of his wife, Livilla, and Seianus, he spared no one from torture and death. He was so entirely occupied with the examination of this affair for whole days together, that upon being informed that the person in whose house he had lodged at Rhodes, and whom he had by a friendly letter invited to Rome, was arrived, he ordered him immediately to be put to the torture as a party concerned in the empire. Upon finding his mistake, he commanded him to be put to death, that he might not publish the injury done him. The place of execution is still shown at Capri, where he ordered those who were condemned to die after long and exquisite tortures to be thrown before his eyes from a precipice into the sea. There a party of soldiers belonging to the fleet waited for them, and broke their bones with poles and oars, lest they should have any life left in them. Among various kinds of torture invented by him, one was to induce people to drink a large quantity of wine, and then to tie up their members with harp strings, thus tormenting them at once by the tightness of the ligature and the stoppage of their urine. Had not death prevented him, and Thrasilus, designedly, as some say, prevailed with him to defer some of his cruelties in hopes of longer life. It's believed that he would have destroyed many more, and not have spared even the rest of his grandchildren, for he was jealous of Caius and hated Tiberius as having been conceived in adultery. This conjecture is indeed highly probable, for he used often to say, Happy Priam, who survived all his children. Amidst these enormities, in how much fear and apprehension, as well as odium and detestation he lived, is evident from many indications. He forbade the soothsayers to be consulted in private and without some witnesses being present. He attempted to surprise the oracles in the neighborhood of the city, but being terrified by the divine authority of the Prianists in Lodz, he abandoned the design. For those who were sealed up in a box and carried to home, yet they were not to be found in it until it was returned to the temple. More than one person of consular rank appointed governors of provinces, he never ventured to dismiss to their respective destinations, but kept them until several years after, when he nominated their successors, while they still remained present with him. In the meantime they bore the title of their office and he frequently gave them orders, which they took care to have executed by their deputies and assistants. He never removed his daughter-in-law or grandsons after their condemnation to any place, but in fetters and in a covered litter with a guard to hinder all who met them on the road and travelers from stopping to gaze at them. After Sayanus had plotted against him, though he saw that this birthday was solemnly kept by the public and divine owners paid to golden images of him in every quarter, yet it was this difficulty at last and more by artifice than his imperial power that he accomplished his death. In the first place to remove him from about his person under the pretext of doing him honor, he made him his colleague in his fifth consulship, which, although then absent from the city, he took upon him for that purpose, long after his proceeding consulship. Then having flattered him with the hope of an alliance by marriage with one of his own kindred and the prospect of the tribunational authority, he suddenly, while Sayanus little expected it, charged him with treason in an abject and pitiful address to the senate in which, among other things, he begged them to send one of the consuls to conduct himself a poor solitary old man with a guard of soldiers into their presence. Still distrustful, however, and apprehensive of an insurrection, he ordered his grandson Drusus, whom he'd still kept in confinement at Rome to be set at liberty, and if occasion required to head the troops. He had likewise ships in readiness to transport him to any of the legions to which he might consider it expedient to make his escape. Meanwhile he was upon the watch from the summit of the lofty cliff for the signals which he had ordered to be made, if anything occurred, lest the messenger should be tardy. Even when he had quite followed the conspiracy of Sayanus, he was still haunted as much as ever with fears and apprehensions, in so much that he never once steered out of the villa Jovis for nine months after. To the extreme anxiety of mind, which he now experienced, he had the mortification to find, supper-added, the most poignant reproaches from all quarters. Those who were condemned to die, heaped upon him the most opprobrious language in his presence, or by hand-wheels scattered in the senator's seats in the theater. These produced different effects. Sometimes he wished out of shame to have all smothered and concealed. At other times he would disregard what was said and publish it himself. To this accumulation of scandal and open sarcasm, there is to be so joined a letter from Artabanus, king of the Parsons, in which he abrades him with his parisidies, murders, cowardice, and lewdness, and advises him to satisfy the furious rage of his own people, which he had so justly excited by putting an end to his life without delay. At last, being quite wary of himself, he acknowledged his extreme misery in a letter to the Senate, which began thus. What to write to you, conscript fathers, or how to write? Or what not to write at this time? May all the gods and goddesses pour upon my head a more terrible vengeance than that under which I feel myself daily thinking if I can tell. Some are of opinion that he had a foreign knowledge of those things, from his skill in the science of divination, and perceived long before what misery and infamy would at last come upon him. And that for this reason, at the beginning of his reign, he had absolutely refused the title of the father of his country, and the proposal of the Senate to swear to his acts, lest he should afterwards, to his greater shame, be found unequal to such extraordinary owners. This indeed may be justly inferred from the speeches, which he made upon both those occasions, as when he says, I shall ever be the same, and shall never change my conduct, so long as I retain my senses. But to avoid giving a bad precedent to posterity, the Senate ought to beware of binding themselves to the acts of any person whatever, who might, by some accident or other, be induced to utter them. And again, if you should at any time entertain a jealousy of my conduct, and my entire affection for you, which heaven prevent by putting a period to my days, rather than I should live to see such an alteration in your opinion of me, the title of father will add no honor to me, but be a reproach to you, for your rashness in conferring it upon me, or in constancy in altering your opinion of me. In person he was large and robust, of a stature somewhat above the common size, broad in the shoulders and chest, unproportionable in the rest of his frame. He used his left hand more readily and with more force than his right, and his joints were so strong that he could bore a fresh sound apple through with his finger, and wound the head of a boy, or even a young man with a fillet. He was of a fair complexion and wore his hair so long behind that it covered his neck, which was observed to be a mark of distinction, affected by the family. He had a handsome face, but it was often full of pimples. His eyes, which were large, had a wonderful faculty of seeing in the night time and in the dark, for a short time only, and immediately after waking from sleep, but they soon grew dim again. He walked with his neck stiff and upright, generally with a frowning countenance, being for the most part silent. When he spoke to those about him, it was very slowly, and usually accompanied with a slight gesticulation of his fingers, all which, being repulsive habits and signs of arrogance, were remarked by Augustus, who often endeavored to excuse them to the Senate and people, declaring that they were natural defects which proceeded from no viciousness of mind. He enjoyed a good state of health without interruption, almost during the whole period of his rule, though from the thirtieth year of his age, he treated it himself according to his own discretion without any medical assistance. In regards to the gods and matters of religion, he discovered much indifference, being greatly addicted to astrology and fully persuaded that all things were governed by fate. Yet he was extremely afraid of lightning, and when the sky was in a disturbed state, always wore a laurel crown on his head because it is supposed that the leaf of that tree is never touched by the lightning. He applied himself with great diligence to the liberal arts, both Greek and Latin. In his Latin style, he affected to imitate messa la Corvinus, a venerable man, to whom he had paid much respect in his own early years. But he rendered his style obscure by excessive affectation and obstruciness, so that he was thought to speak better extempore than in a premeditated discourse. He composed likewise a lyric oid under the title of Alamentation upon the death of Lucius Cether and also some Greek poems in imitation of Euphorion, Rianus and Pasthenius. These poets he greatly admired and placed their works and statues in the public libraries amongst the eminent authors of antiquity. On this account, most of the learned men of the time veered with each other in publishing observations upon them, which they addressed to him. His principal study, however, was the history of the fabulous ages, inquiring even into its traveling details in a ridiculous manner. For he used to try the grammarians, a class of men which, as they have already observed, he much affected with such questions as these. Who was Hecuba's mother? What name did Achilles assume among the virgins? What was it that the sirens used to sing? On the first day that he entered the Senate House after the death of Augustus, as if he intended to pay respect at once to his father's memory and to the gods, he made an offering of frankincense and wine but without any music in imitation of Minos upon the death of his son. Though he was ready and conversant with the Greek tongue, yet he did not use it everywhere, but chiefly he avoided it in the Senate House in so much that having occasion to employ the word Monopoly, he first begged pardon for being obliged to adopt a foreign word. And when in the decree of the Senate, the word emblema was read, he proposed to have it changed and that the Latin word should be substituted in its room, or if no proper one could be found to express the thing best circumlocution. A soldier who was examined as a witness upon a trial in Greek, he would not allow to reply except in Latin. During the whole time of his seclusion at Capri, twice only he made an effort to visit Rome. Once he came in a galley as far as the gardens near the Namahia but placed guards along the banks of the Tiber to keep off all who should offer to come to meet him. The second time he traveled on the Appian way as far as the seventh milestone from the city, but he immediately returned without entering it, having only taken a view of the walls at a distance. For what reason he did not disembark in his first excursion is uncertain, but in the last he was deterred from entering the city by a prodigy. He was in the habit of diverting himself with a snake and upon going to feed it with his own hand, according to custom, he found it devoured by ants, from which he was advised to beware of the fury of the mob. On this account, returning in all haste to Campania, he fell ill at Astura, but recovering a little went on to Sirsei and to obviate any suspicion of his being in a bad state of health. He was not only present at the sports in the camp, but encountered with Javelins a wild boar which was let loose in the arena. Being immediately seized with a pain in the side and catching cold upon his overheating himself in the exercise, he relapsed into a worse condition that he was before. He held out however for some time and sailing as far as Mycenum omitted nothing in his usual mode of life, not even in his entertainments and other gratifications, partly from an ungovernable appetite and partly to conceal his condition. For Hariculs, a physician, having obtained leave of absence on his rising-from-table, took his hand to kiss it, upon which Tiberius, supposing he did it to feel his pulse, desired him to stay and resume his place, and continued the entertainment longer than usual. Nor did he omit his usual custom of taking his station in the centre of the apartment, a lecture standing by him, while he took leave of each of the party by name. Meanwhile, finding, upon looking over the acts of the senate, that some person under prosecution had been discharged without being brought to a hearing, for he had only written cursory that they had been denounced by an informer. He complained in a great rage that he was treated with contempt and resolved at all hazards to return to Capri, not daring to attempt anything until he found himself in a place of security. But being detained by storms and the increasing violence of his disorder, he died shortly afterwards, at Avilla, formerly belonging to Luculus, in the 78th year of his age, and the 23rd of his reign. Upon the 17th of the calendar of April, 16th March, in the consulship of Cneius Acheronius Proculus and Caius Pontius Ninger, some think that the slow-consuming poison was given him by Caius, others say that during the interval of the intermittent fever, with which he happened to be seized, upon asking for food, it was denied him. Others report that he was stifled by a pillow thrown upon him, when, on his recovering from a swoon, he called for his ring, which had been taken from him in the fit. Seneca writes that finding himself dying, he took his signet ring off his finger and held it awhile as if he would deliver it to somebody, but put it again upon his finger and lay for some time, with his left hand clenched and without steering, when suddenly someone in his attendance and no one answering the call he rose, but his strength failing him, he fell down at a short distance from his bed. Upon his last birthday, he had brought a full-sized statue of the Timanian Apollo from Syracuse, a work of exquisite art, intending to place it in the library of the new temple. But he dreamed that the god appeared to him in the night and assured him that his statue could not be erected by him. A few days before he died, the pharaohs at Capri was thrown down by an earthquake and that misanum, some embers and live calls which were brought in to warm his apartment went out and after being quite cold, burst out into flame again towards evening and continued burning very brightly for several hours. The people were so much elated at his death that when they first heard the news, they ran up and down the city, some crying out, away with tiberius to the tiber, others exclaiming, May the earth, the common mother of mankind and the infernal gods, allow him no abode in death, but amongst the vict. Others threatened his body with the hook and the Gimonian stairs, their indignation at his former cruelty being increased by recent atrocity. It had been provided by an act of the senate that the execution of condemned criminals should always be deferred until the 10th day after the sentence. Now this fell on the very day when the news of Tiberius' death arrived and in consequence of which the unhappy men implored a reprieve for mercy's sake. But the skyos had not yet arrived and there was no one else to whom application could be made on their behalf. Their guards, apprehensive of violating the law, strangled them and threw them down the Gimonian stairs. They threw out the people to a still greater abhorrence of the tyrant's memory since his cruelty continued in use even after he was dead. As soon as his corpse was begun to be moved from Mycenum, many cried out for its being carried to Attela and being half-burned there in the amphitheater. It was however brought to Rome and burned with the usual ceremony. He had made about two years before duplicates of his will, one written by his own hand and the other by that of one of his freedmen and both were witnessed by some persons of very mean rank. He appointed his two grandsons, Kyos by Germanicus and Tiberius by Drusus, joined heirs to his estate and upon the death of one of them, the other was to inherit the whole. He gave likewise many legacies amongst which were bequests to the Vestal virgins, to all the soldiers and each one of the people of Rome and to the magistrates of the several quarters of the city. End of Tiberius.