Suetonius — The Twelve Caesars

I. Julius Caesar, the Divine [3], lost his father [4] when he was in the

sixteenth year of his age [5]; and the year following, being nominated to

the office of high-priest of Jupiter [6], he repudiated Cossutia, who was

very wealthy, although her family belonged only to the equestrian order,

and to whom he had been contracted when he was a mere boy. He then

married (2) Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, who was four times consul;

and had by her, shortly afterwards, a daughter named Julia. Resisting

all the efforts of the dictator Sylla to induce him to divorce Cornelia,

he suffered the penalty of being stripped of his sacerdotal office, his

wife’s dowry, and his own patrimonial estates; and, being identified with

the adverse faction [7], was compelled to withdraw from Rome. After

changing his place of concealment nearly every night [8], although he was

suffering from a quartan ague, and having effected his release by bribing

the officers who had tracked his footsteps, he at length obtained a

pardon through the intercession of the vestal virgins, and of Mamercus

Aemilius and Aurelius Cotta, his near relatives. We are assured that

when Sylla, having withstood for a while the entreaties of his own best

friends, persons of distinguished rank, at last yielded to their

importunity, he exclaimed--either by a divine impulse, or from a shrewd

conjecture: “Your suit is granted, and you may take him among you; but

know,” he added, “that this man, for whose safety you are so extremely

anxious, will, some day or other, be the ruin of the party of the nobles,

in defence of which you are leagued with me; for in this one Caesar, you

will find many a Marius.”

II. His first campaign was served in Asia, on the staff of the praetor,

M. Thermus; and being dispatched into Bithynia [9], to bring thence a

fleet, he loitered so long at the court of Nicomedes, as to give occasion

to reports of a criminal intercourse between him and that prince; which

received additional credit from his hasty return to Bithynia, under the

pretext of recovering a debt due to a freed-man, his client. The rest of

his service was more favourable to his reputation; and (3) when Mitylene

crown. [11]

III. He served also in Cilicia [12], under Servilius Isauricus, but only

for a short time; as upon receiving intelligence of Sylla’s death, he

returned with all speed to Rome, in expectation of what might follow from

a fresh agitation set on foot by Marcus Lepidus. Distrusting, however,

the abilities of this leader, and finding the times less favourable for

the execution of this project than he had at first imagined, he abandoned

all thoughts of joining Lepidus, although he received the most tempting

offers.

IV. Soon after this civil discord was composed, he preferred a charge of

extortion against Cornelius Dolabella, a man of consular dignity, who had

obtained the honour of a triumph. On the acquittal of the accused, he

resolved to retire to Rhodes [13], with the view not only of avoiding the

public odium (4) which he had incurred, but of prosecuting his studies

with leisure and tranquillity, under Apollonius, the son of Molon, at

that time the most celebrated master of rhetoric. While on his voyage

thither, in the winter season, he was taken by pirates near the island of

Pharmacusa [14], and detained by them, burning with indignation, for

nearly forty days; his only attendants being a physician and two

chamberlains. For he had instantly dispatched his other servants and the

friends who accompanied him, to raise money for his ransom [15]. Fifty

talents having been paid down, he was landed on the coast, when, having

collected some ships [16], he lost no time in putting to sea in pursuit

of the pirates, and having captured them, inflicted upon them the

punishment with which he had often threatened them in jest. At that time

Mithridates was ravaging the neighbouring districts, and on Caesar’s

arrival at Rhodes, that he might not appear to lie idle while danger

threatened the allies of Rome, he passed over into Asia, and having

collected some auxiliary forces, and driven the king’s governor out of

the province, retained in their allegiance the cities which were

wavering, and ready to revolt.

V. Having been elected military tribune, the first honour he received

from the suffrages of the people after his return to Rome, he zealously

assisted those who took measures for restoring the tribunitian authority,

which had been greatly diminished during the usurpation of Sylla. He

likewise, by an act, which Plotius at his suggestion propounded to the

people, obtained the recall of Lucius Cinna, his wife’s brother, and

others with him, who having been the adherents of Lepidus in the civil

disturbances, had after that consul’s death fled to Sertorius [17]; which

law he supported by a speech.

VI. During his quaestorship he pronounced funeral orations from the

rostra, according to custom, in praise of his aunt (5) Julia, and his

wife Cornelia. In the panegyric on his aunt, he gives the following

account of her own and his father’s genealogy, on both sides: “My aunt

Julia derived her descent, by the mother, from a race of kings, and by

her father, from the Immortal Gods. For the Marcii Reges [18], her

mother’s family, deduce their pedigree from Ancus Marcius, and the Julii,

her father’s, from Venus; of which stock we are a branch. We therefore

unite in our descent the sacred majesty of kings, the chiefest among men,

and the divine majesty of Gods, to whom kings themselves are subject.”

To supply the place of Cornelia, he married Pompeia, the daughter of

Quintus Pompeius, and grand-daughter of Lucius Sylla; but he afterwards

divorced her, upon suspicion of her having been debauched by Publius

Clodius. For so current was the report, that Clodius had found access to

her disguised as a woman, during the celebration of a religious solemnity

the sacred rites.

VII. Farther-Spain [20] fell to his lot as quaestor; when there, as he

was going the circuit of the province, by commission from the praetor,

for the administration of justice, and had reached Gades, seeing a statue

of Alexander the Great in the temple of Hercules, he sighed deeply, as if

weary of his sluggish life, for having performed no memorable actions at

an age [21] at which Alexander had already conquered the world. He,

therefore, immediately sued for his discharge, with the view of embracing

the first opportunity, which might present itself in The City, of

entering upon a more exalted career. In the stillness of the night

following, he dreamt that he lay with his own mother; but his confusion

was relieved, and his hopes were raised to the highest pitch, by the

interpreters of his dream, who expounded it as an omen that he should

possess universal empire; for (6) that the mother who in his sleep he had

found submissive to his embraces, was no other than the earth, the common

parent of all mankind.

VIII. Quitting therefore the province before the expiration of the usual

term, he betook himself to the Latin colonies, which were then eagerly

agitating the design of obtaining the freedom of Rome; and he would have

stirred them up to some bold attempt, had not the consuls, to prevent any

commotion, detained for some time the legions which had been raised for

service in Cilicia. But this did not deter him from making, soon

afterwards, a still greater effort within the precincts of the city

itself.

IX. For, only a few days before he entered upon the aedileship, he

incurred a suspicion of having engaged in a conspiracy with Marcus

Crassus, a man of consular rank; to whom were joined Publius Sylla and

Lucius Autronius, who, after they had been chosen consuls, were convicted

of bribery. The plan of the conspirators was to fall upon the senate at

the opening of the new year, and murder as many of them as should be

thought necessary; upon which, Crassus was to assume the office of

dictator, and appoint Caesar his master of the horse [22]. When the

commonwealth had been thus ordered according to their pleasure, the

consulship was to have been restored to Sylla and Autronius. Mention is

made of this plot by Tanusius Geminus [23] in his history, by Marcus

Bibulus in his edicts [24], and by Curio, the father, in his orations

he says, that Caesar (7) had in his consulship secured to himself that

arbitrary power [26] to which he had aspired when he was edile. Tanusius

adds, that Crassus, from remorse or fear, did not appear upon the day

appointed for the massacre of the senate; for which reason Caesar omitted

to give the signal, which, according to the plan concerted between them,

he was to have made. The agreement, Curio says, was that he should shake

off the toga from his shoulder. We have the authority of the same Curio,

and of M. Actorius Naso, for his having been likewise concerned in

another conspiracy with young Cneius Piso; to whom, upon a suspicion of

some mischief being meditated in the city, the province of Spain was

decreed out of the regular course [27]. It is said to have been agreed

between them, that Piso should head a revolt in the provinces, whilst the

other should attempt to stir up an insurrection at Rome, using as their

instruments the Lambrani, and the tribes beyond the Po. But the

execution of this design was frustrated in both quarters by the death of

Piso.

X. In his aedileship, he not only embellished the Comitium, and the rest

of the Forum [28], with the adjoining halls [29], but adorned the Capitol

also, with temporary piazzas, constructed for the purpose of displaying

some part of the superabundant collections (8) he had made for the

amusement of the people [30]. He entertained them with the hunting of

wild beasts, and with games, both alone and in conjunction with his

colleague. On this account, he obtained the whole credit of the expense

to which they had jointly contributed; insomuch that his colleague,

Marcus Bibulus, could not forbear remarking, that he was served in the

manner of Pollux. For as the temple [31] erected in the Forum to the two

brothers, went by the name of Castor alone, so his and Caesar’s joint

munificence was imputed to the latter only. To the other public

spectacles exhibited to the people, Caesar added a fight of gladiators,

but with fewer pairs of combatants than he had intended. For he had

collected from all parts so great a company of them, that his enemies

became alarmed; and a decree was made, restricting the number of

gladiators which any one was allowed to retain at Rome.

XI. Having thus conciliated popular favour, he endeavoured, through his

interest with some of the tribunes, to get Egypt assigned to him as a

province, by an act of the people. The pretext alleged for the creation

of this extraordinary government, was, that the Alexandrians had

violently expelled their king [32], whom the senate had complimented with

the title of an ally and friend of the Roman people. This was generally

resented; but, notwithstanding, there was so much opposition from the

faction of the nobles, that he could not carry his point. In order,

therefore, to diminish their influence by every means in his power, he

restored the trophies erected in honour of Caius Marius, on account of

his victories over Jugurtha, the Cimbri, and the Teutoni, which had been

demolished by Sylla; and when sitting in judgment upon murderers, he

treated those as assassins, who, in the late proscription, had received

money from the treasury, for bringing in the heads of Roman citizens,

although they were expressly excepted in the Cornelian laws.

XII. He likewise suborned some one to prefer an impeachment (9) for

treason against Caius Rabirius, by whose especial assistance the senate

had, a few years before, put down Lucius Saturninus, the seditious

tribune; and being drawn by lot a judge on the trial, he condemned him

with so much animosity, that upon his appealing to the people, no

circumstance availed him so much as the extraordinary bitterness of his

judge.

XIII. Having renounced all hope of obtaining Egypt for his province, he

stood candidate for the office of chief pontiff, to secure which, he had

recourse to the most profuse bribery. Calculating, on this occasion, the

enormous amount of the debts he had contracted, he is reported to have

said to his mother, when she kissed him at his going out in the morning

to the assembly of the people, “I will never return home unless I am

elected pontiff.” In effect, he left so far behind him two most powerful

competitors, who were much his superiors both in age and rank, that he

had more votes in their own tribes, than they both had in all the tribes

together.

XIV. After he was chosen praetor, the conspiracy of Catiline was

discovered; and while every other member of the senate voted for

inflicting capital punishment on the accomplices in that crime [33], he

alone proposed that the delinquents should be distributed for safe

custody among the towns of Italy, their property being confiscated. He

even struck such terror into those who were advocates for greater

severity, by representing to them what universal odium would be attached

to their memories by the Roman people, that Decius Silanus, consul elect,

did not hesitate to qualify his proposal, it not being very honourable to

change it, by a lenient interpretation; as if it had been understood in a

harsher sense than he intended, and Caesar would certainly have carried

his point, having brought over to his side a great number of the

senators, among whom was Cicero, the consul’s brother, had not a speech

by Marcus Cato infused new vigour into the resolutions of the senate. He

persisted, however, in obstructing the measure, until a body of the Roman

knights, who stood under arms as a guard, threatened him with instant

death, if he continued his determined opposition. They even thrust at

him with their drawn swords, so that those who sat next him moved away;

(10) and a few friends, with no small difficulty, protected him, by

throwing their arms round him, and covering him with their togas. At

last, deterred by this violence, he not only gave way, but absented

himself from the senate-house during the remainder of that year.

XV. Upon the first day of his praetorship, he summoned Quintus Catulus

to render an account to the people respecting the repairs of the Capitol

another person [35]. But being unable to withstand the strong opposition

made by the aristocratical party, whom he perceived quitting, in great

numbers, their attendance upon the new consuls [36], and fully resolved

to resist his proposal, he dropped the design.

XVI. He afterwards approved himself a most resolute supporter of

Caecilius Metullus, tribune of the people, who, in spite of all

opposition from his colleagues, had proposed some laws of a violent

tendency [37], until they were both dismissed from office by a vote of

the senate. He ventured, notwithstanding, to retain his post and

continue in the administration of justice; but finding that preparations

were made to obstruct him by force of arms, he dismissed the lictors,

threw off his gown, and betook himself privately to his own house, with

the resolution of being quiet, in a time so unfavourable to his

interests. He likewise pacified the mob, which two days afterwards

flocked about him, and in a riotous manner made a voluntary tender of

their assistance in the vindication of his (11) honour. This happening

contrary to expectation, the senate, who met in haste, on account of the

tumult, gave him their thanks by some of the leading members of the

house, and sending for him, after high commendation of his conduct,

cancelled their former vote, and restored him to his office.

XVII. But he soon got into fresh trouble, being named amongst the

accomplices of Catiline, both before Novius Niger the quaestor, by Lucius

Vettius the informer, and in the senate by Quintus Curius; to whom a

reward had been voted, for having first discovered the designs of the

conspirators. Curius affirmed that he had received his information from

Catiline. Vettius even engaged to produce in evidence against him his

own hand-writing, given to Catiline. Caesar, feeling that this treatment

was not to be borne, appealed to Cicero himself, whether he had not

voluntarily made a discovery to him of some particulars of the

conspiracy; and so baulked Curius of his expected reward. He, therefore,

obliged Vettius to give pledges for his behaviour, seized his goods, and

after heavily fining him, and seeing him almost torn in pieces before the

rostra, threw him into prison; to which he likewise sent Novius the

quaestor, for having presumed to take an information against a magistrate

of superior authority.

XVIII. At the expiration of his praetorship he obtained by lot the

Farther-Spain [38], and pacified his creditors, who were for detaining

him, by finding sureties for his debts [39]. Contrary, however, to both

law and custom, he took his departure before the usual equipage and

outfit were prepared. It is uncertain whether this precipitancy arose

from the apprehension of an impeachment, with which he was threatened on

the expiration of his former office, or from his anxiety to lose no time

in relieving the allies, who implored him to come to their aid. He had

no (12) sooner established tranquillity in the province, than, without

waiting for the arrival of his successor, he returned to Rome, with equal

haste, to sue for a triumph [40], and the consulship. The day of

election, however, being already fixed by proclamation, he could not

legally be admitted a candidate, unless he entered the city as a private

person [41]. On this emergency he solicited a suspension of the laws in

his favour; but such an indulgence being strongly opposed, he found

himself under the necessity of abandoning all thoughts of a triumph, lest

he should be disappointed of the consulship.

XIX. Of the two other competitors for the consulship, Lucius Luceius and

Marcus Bibulus, he joined with the former, upon condition that Luceius,

being a man of less interest but greater affluence, should promise money

to the electors, in their joint names. Upon which the party of the

nobles, dreading how far he might carry matters in that high office, with

a colleague disposed to concur in and second his measures, advised

Bibulus to promise the voters as much as the other; and most of them

contributed towards the expense, Cato himself admitting that bribery;

under such circumstances, was for the public good [42]. He was

accordingly elected consul jointly with Bibulus. Actuated still by the

same motives, the prevailing party took care to assign provinces of small

importance to the new consuls, such as the care of the woods and roads.

Caesar, incensed at this indignity, endeavoured by the most assiduous and

flattering attentions to gain to his side Cneius Pompey, at that time

dissatisfied with the senate for the backwardness they shewed to confirm

his acts, after his victories over Mithridates. He likewise brought

about a reconciliation between Pompey and Marcus Crassus, who had been at

variance from (13) the time of their joint consulship, in which office

they were continually clashing; and he entered into an agreement with

both, that nothing should be transacted in the government, which was

displeasing to any of the three.

XX. Having entered upon his office [43], he introduced a new regulation,

that the daily acts both of the senate and people should be committed to

writing, and published [44]. He also revived an old custom, that an

officer [45] should precede him, and his lictors follow him, on the

alternate months when the fasces were not carried before him. Upon

preferring a bill to the people for the division of some public lands, he

was opposed by his colleague, whom he violently drove out of the forum.

Next day the insulted consul made a complaint in the senate of this

treatment; but such was the consternation, that no one having the courage

to bring the matter forward or move a censure, which had been often done

under outrages of less importance, he was so much dispirited, that until

the expiration of his office he never stirred from home, and did nothing

but issue edicts to obstruct his colleague’s proceedings. From that

time, therefore, Caesar had the sole management of public affairs;

insomuch that some wags, when they signed any instrument as witnesses,

did not add “in the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus,” but, “of Julius

and Caesar;” putting the same person down twice, under his name and

surname. The following verses likewise were currently repeated on this

occasion:

Non Bibulo quidquam nuper, sed Caesare factum est;

Nam Bibulo fieri consule nil memini.

Nothing was done in Bibulus’s year:

No; Caesar only then was consul here.

(14) The land of Stellas, consecrated by our ancestors to the gods, with

some other lands in Campania left subject to tribute, for the support of

the expenses of the government, he divided, but not by lot, among upwards

of twenty thousand freemen, who had each of them three or more children.

He eased the publicans, upon their petition, of a third part of the sum

which they had engaged to pay into the public treasury; and openly

admonished them not to bid so extravagantly upon the next occasion. He

made various profuse grants to meet the wishes of others, no one opposing

him; or if any such attempt was made, it was soon suppressed. Marcus

Cato, who interrupted him in his proceedings, he ordered to be dragged

out of the senate-house by a lictor, and carried to prison. Lucius

Lucullus, likewise, for opposing him with some warmth, he so terrified

with the apprehension of being criminated, that, to deprecate the

consul’s resentment, he fell on his knees. And upon Cicero’s lamenting

in some trial the miserable condition of the times, he the very same day,

by nine o’clock, transferred his enemy, Publius Clodius, from a patrician

to a plebeian family; a change which he had long solicited in vain [46].

At last, effectually to intimidate all those of the opposite party, he by

great rewards prevailed upon Vettius to declare, that he had been

solicited by certain persons to assassinate Pompey; and when he was

brought before the rostra to name those who had been concerted between

them, after naming one or two to no purpose, not without great suspicion

of subornation, Caesar, despairing of success in this rash stratagem, is

supposed to have taken off his informer by poison.

XXI. About the same time he married Calpurnia, the daughter of Lucius

Piso, who was to succeed him in the consulship, and gave his own daughter

Julia to Cneius Pompey; rejecting Servilius Caepio, to whom she had been

contracted, and by whose means chiefly he had but a little before baffled

Bibulus. After this new alliance, he began, upon any debates in the

senate, to ask Pompey’s opinion first, whereas he used before to give

that distinction to Marcus Crassus; and it was (15) the usual practice

for the consul to observe throughout the year the method of consulting

the senate which he had adopted on the calends (the first) of January.

XXII. Being, therefore, now supported by the interest of his

father-in-law and son-in-law, of all the provinces he made choice of Gaul,

as most likely to furnish him with matter and occasion for triumphs. At

first indeed he received only Cisalpine-Gaul, with the addition of

Illyricum, by a decree proposed by Vatinius to the people; but soon

afterwards obtained from the senate Gallia-Comata [47] also, the senators

being apprehensive, that if they should refuse it him, that province,

also, would be granted him by the people. Elated now with his success, he

could not refrain from boasting, a few days afterwards, in a full

senate-house, that he had, in spite of his enemies, and to their great

mortification, obtained all he desired, and that for the future he would

make them, to their shame, submissive to his pleasure. One of the

senators observing, sarcastically: “That will not be very easy for a woman

and the Amazons possessed great part of Asia.”

XXIII. When the term of his consulship had expired, upon a motion being

made in the senate by Caius Memmius and Lucius Domitius, the praetors,

respecting the transactions of the year past, he offered to refer himself

to the house; but (16) they declining the business, after three days

spent in vain altercation, he set out for his province. Immediately,

however, his quaestor was charged with several misdemeanors, for the

purpose of implicating Caesar himself. Indeed, an accusation was soon

after preferred against him by Lucius Antistius, tribune of the people;

but by making an appeal to the tribune’s colleagues, he succeeded in

having the prosecution suspended during his absence in the service of the

state. To secure himself, therefore, for the time to come, he was

particularly careful to secure the good-will of the magistrates at the

annual elections, assisting none of the candidates with his interest, nor

suffering any persons to be advanced to any office, who would not

positively undertake to defend him in his absence for which purpose he

made no scruple to require of some of them an oath, and even a written

obligation.

XXIV. But when Lucius Domitius became a candidate for the consulship,

and openly threatened that, upon his being elected consul, he would

effect that which he could not accomplish when he was praetor, and divest

him of the command of the armies, he sent for Crassus and Pompey to

Lucca, a city in his province, and pressed them, for the purpose of

disappointing Domitius, to sue again for the consulship, and to continue

him in his command for five years longer; with both which requisitions

they complied. Presumptuous now from his success, he added, at his own

private charge, more legions to those which he had received from the

republic; among the former of which was one levied in Transalpine Gaul,

and called by a Gallic name, Alauda [49], which he trained and armed in

the Roman fashion, and afterwards conferred on it the freedom of the

city. From this period he declined no occasion of war, however unjust

and dangerous; attacking, without any provocation, as well the allies of

Rome as the barbarous nations which were its enemies: insomuch, that the

senate passed a decree for sending commissioners to examine into the

condition of Gaul; and some members even proposed that he should be

delivered up to the enemy. But so great had been the success of his

enterprises, that he had the honour of obtaining more days [50] (17) of

supplication, and those more frequently, than had ever before been

decreed to any commander.

XXV. During nine years in which he held the government of the province,

his achievements were as follows: he reduced all Gaul, bounded by the

Pyrenean forest, the Alps, mount Gebenna, and the two rivers, the Rhine

and the Rhone, and being about three thousand two hundred miles in

compass, into the form of a province, excepting only the nations in

alliance with the republic, and such as had merited his favour; imposing

upon this new acquisition an annual tribute of forty millions of

sesterces. He was the first of the Romans who, crossing the Rhine by a

bridge, attacked the Germanic tribes inhabiting the country beyond that

river, whom he defeated in several engagements. He also invaded the

Britons, a people formerly unknown, and having vanquished them, exacted

from them contributions and hostages. Amidst such a series of successes,

he experienced thrice only any signal disaster; once in Britain, when his

fleet was nearly wrecked in a storm; in Gaul, at Gergovia, where one of

his legions was put to the rout; and in the territory of the Germans, his

lieutenants Titurius and Aurunculeius were cut off by an ambuscade.

XXVI. During this period [51] he lost his mother [52], whose death was

followed by that of his daughter [53], and, not long afterwards, of his

granddaughter. Meanwhile, the republic being in consternation at the

murder of Publius Clodius, and the senate passing a vote that only one

consul, namely, Cneius Pompeius, should be chosen for the ensuing year,

he prevailed with the tribunes of the people, who intended joining him in

nomination with Pompey, to propose to the people a bill, enabling him,

though absent, to become a candidate for his second consulship, when the

term of his command should be near expiring, that he might not be obliged

on that account to quit his province too soon, and before the conclusion

of the war. Having attained this object, carrying his views still

higher, and animated with the hopes of success, he omitted no (18)

opportunity of gaining universal favour, by acts of liberality and

kindness to individuals, both in public and private. With money raised

from the spoils of the war, he began to construct a new forum, the

ground-plot of which cost him above a hundred millions of sesterces [54].

He promised the people a public entertainment of gladiators, and a feast

in memory of his daughter, such as no one before him had ever given. The

more to raise their expectations on this occasion, although he had agreed

with victuallers of all denominations for his feast, he made yet farther

preparations in private houses. He issued an order, that the most

celebrated gladiators, if at any time during the combat they incurred the

displeasure of the public, should be immediately carried off by force,

and reserved for some future occasion. Young gladiators he trained up,

not in the school, and by the masters, of defence, but in the houses of

Roman knights, and even senators, skilled in the use of arms, earnestly

requesting them, as appears from his letters, to undertake the discipline

of those novitiates, and to give them the word during their exercises.

He doubled the pay of the legions in perpetuity; allowing them likewise

corn, when it was in plenty, without any restriction; and sometimes

distributing to every soldier in his army a slave, and a portion of land.

XXVII. To maintain his alliance and good understanding with Pompey, he

offered him in marriage his sister’s grand-daughter Octavia, who had been

married to Caius Marcellus; and requested for himself his daughter,

lately contracted to Faustus Sylla. Every person about him, and a great

part likewise of the senate, he secured by loans of money at low

interest, or none at all; and to all others who came to wait upon him,

either by invitation or of their own accord, he made liberal presents;

not neglecting even the freed-men and slaves, who were favourites with

their masters and patrons. He offered also singular and ready aid to all

who were under prosecution, or in debt, and to prodigal youths; excluding

from (19) his bounty those only who were so deeply plunged in guilt,

poverty, or luxury, that it was impossible effectually to relieve them.

These, he openly declared, could derive no benefit from any other means

than a civil war.

XXVIII. He endeavoured with equal assiduity to engage in his interest

princes and provinces in every part of the world; presenting some with

thousands of captives, and sending to others the assistance of troops, at

whatever time and place they desired, without any authority from either

the senate or people of Rome. He likewise embellished with magnificent

public buildings the most powerful cities not only of Italy, Gaul, and

Spain, but of Greece and Asia; until all people being now astonished, and

speculating on the obvious tendency of these proceedings, Claudius

Marcellus, the consul, declaring first by proclamation, that he intended

to propose a measure of the utmost importance to the state, made a motion

in the senate that some person should be appointed to succeed Caesar in

his province, before the term of his command was expired; because the war

being brought to a conclusion, peace was restored, and the victorious

army ought to be disbanded. He further moved, that Caesar being absent,

his claims to be a candidate at the next election of consuls should not

be admitted, as Pompey himself had afterwards abrogated that privilege by

a decree of the people. The fact was, that Pompey, in his law relating

to the choice of chief magistrates, had forgot to except Caesar, in the

article in which he declared all such as were not present incapable of

being candidates for any office; but soon afterwards, when the law was

inscribed on brass, and deposited in the treasury, he corrected his

mistake. Marcellus, not content with depriving Caesar of his provinces,

and the privilege intended him by Pompey, likewise moved the senate, that

the freedom of the city should be taken from those colonists whom, by the

Vatinian law, he had settled at New Como [55]; because it had been

conferred upon them with ambitious views, and by a stretch of the laws.

(20) XXIX. Roused by these proceedings, and thinking, as he was often

heard to say, that it would be a more difficult enterprise to reduce him,

now that he was the chief man in the state, from the first rank of

citizens to the second, than from the second to the lowest of all, Caesar

made a vigorous opposition to the measure, partly by means of the

tribunes, who interposed in his behalf, and partly through Servius

Sulpicius, the other consul. The following year likewise, when Caius

Marcellus, who succeeded his cousin Marcus in the consulship, pursued the

same course, Caesar, by means of an immense bribe, engaged in his defence

Aemilius Paulus, the other consul, and Caius Curio, the most violent of

the tribunes. But finding the opposition obstinately bent against him,

and that the consuls-elect were also of that party, he wrote a letter to

the senate, requesting that they would not deprive him of the privilege

kindly granted him by the people; or else that the other generals should

resign the command of their armies as well as himself; fully persuaded,

as it is thought, that he could more easily collect his veteran soldiers,

whenever he pleased, than Pompey could his new-raised troops. At the

same time, he made his adversaries an offer to disband eight of his

legions and give up Transalpine-Gaul, upon condition that he might retain

two legions, with the Cisalpine province, or but one legion with

Illyricum, until he should be elected consul.

XXX. But as the senate declined to interpose in the business, and his

enemies declared that they would enter into no compromise where the

safety of the republic was at stake, he advanced into Hither-Gaul [56],

and, having gone the circuit for the administration of justice, made a

halt at Ravenna, resolved to have recourse to arms if the senate should

proceed to extremity against the tribunes of the people who had espoused

his cause. This was indeed his pretext for the civil war; but it is

supposed that there were other motives for his conduct. Cneius Pompey

used frequently to say, that he sought to throw every thing into

confusion, because he was unable, with all his private wealth, to

complete the works he had begun, and answer, at his return, the vast

expectations which he had excited in the people. Others pretend that he

was apprehensive of being (21) called to account for what he had done in

his first consulship, contrary to the auspices, laws, and the protests of

the tribunes; Marcus Cato having sometimes declared, and that, too, with

an oath, that he would prefer an impeachment against him, as soon as he

disbanded his army. A report likewise prevailed, that if he returned as

a private person, he would, like Milo, have to plead his cause before the

judges, surrounded by armed men. This conjecture is rendered highly

probable by Asinius Pollio, who informs us that Caesar, upon viewing the

vanquished and slaughtered enemy in the field of Pharsalia, expressed

himself in these very words: “This was their intention: I, Caius Caesar,

after all the great achievements I had performed, must have been

condemned, had I not summoned the army to my aid!” Some think, that

having contracted from long habit an extraordinary love of power, and

having weighed his own and his enemies’ strength, he embraced that

occasion of usurping the supreme power; which indeed he had coveted from

the time of his youth. This seems to have been the opinion entertained

by Cicero, who tells us, in the third book of his Offices, that Caesar

used to have frequently in his mouth two verses of Euripides, which he

thus translates:

Nam si violandum est jus, regnandi gratia

Violandum est: aliis rebus pietatem colas.

Be just, unless a kingdom tempts to break the laws,

For sovereign power alone can justify the cause. [57]

XXXI. When intelligence, therefore, was received, that the interposition

of the tribunes in his favour had been utterly rejected, and that they

themselves had fled from the city, he immediately sent forward some

cohorts, but privately, to prevent any suspicion of his design; and, to

keep up appearances, attended at a public spectacle, examined the model

of a fencing-school which he proposed to build, and, as usual, sat down

to table with a numerous party of his friends. But after sun-set, mules

being put to his carriage from a neighbouring mill, he set forward on his

journey with all possible privacy, and a small retinue. The lights going

out, he lost his way, and (22) wandered about a long time, until at

length, by the help of a guide, whom he found towards day-break, he

proceeded on foot through some narrow paths, and again reached the road.

Coming up with his troops on the banks of the Rubicon, which was the

boundary of his province [58], he halted for a while, and, revolving in

his mind the importance of the step he was on the point of taking, he

turned to those about him, and said: “We may still retreat; but if we

pass this little bridge, nothing is left for us but to fight it out in

arms.”

XXXII. While he was thus hesitating, the following incident occurred. A

person remarkable for his noble mien and graceful aspect, appeared close

at hand, sitting and playing upon a pipe. When, not only the shepherds,

but a number of soldiers also flocked from their posts to listen to him,

and some trumpeters among them, he snatched a trumpet from one of them,

ran to the river with it, and sounding the advance with a piercing blast,

crossed to the other side. Upon this, Caesar exclaimed, “Let us go

whither the omens of the Gods and the iniquity of our enemies call us.

The die is now cast.”

XXXIII. Accordingly, having marched his army over the river, he shewed

them the tribunes of the people, who, upon their being driven from the

city, had come to meet him; and, in the presence of that assembly, called

upon the troops to pledge him their fidelity, with tears in his eyes, and

his garment rent from his bosom. It has been supposed, that upon this

occasion he promised to every soldier a knight’s estate; but that opinion

is founded on a mistake. For when, in his harangue to them, he

frequently held out a finger of his left hand, and declared, that to

recompense those who should support him in the defence of his honour, he

would willingly part even with his ring; the soldiers at a distance, who

could more easily see than hear him while he spoke, formed their

conception of what he said, by the eye, not by the ear; and accordingly

gave out, that he had promised to each of them the privilege (23) of

wearing the gold ring, and an estate of four hundred thousand sesterces.

XXXIV. Of his subsequent proceedings I shall give a cursory detail, in

the order in which they occurred [61]. He took possession of Picenum,

Umbria, and Etruria; and having obliged Lucius Domitius, who had been

tumultuously nominated his successor, and held Corsinium with a garrison,

to surrender, and dismissed him, he marched along the coast of the Upper

Sea, to Brundusium, to which place the consuls and Pompey were fled with

the intention of crossing the sea as soon as possible. After vain

attempts, by all the obstacles he could oppose, to prevent their leaving

the harbour, he turned his steps towards Rome, where he appealed to the

senate on the present state of public affairs; and then set out for

Spain, in which province Pompey had a numerous army, under the command of

three lieutenants, Marcus Petreius, Lucius Afranius, and Marcus Varro;

declaring amongst his friends, before he set forward, “That he was going

against an army without a general, and should return thence against a

general without an army.” Though his progress was retarded both by the

siege of Marseilles, which shut her gates against him, and a very great

scarcity of corn, yet in a short time he bore down all before him.

XXXV. Thence he returned to Rome, and crossing the sea to Macedonia,

blocked up Pompey during almost four months, within a line of ramparts of

prodigious extent; and at last defeated him in the battle of Pharsalia.

Pursuing him in his flight to Alexandria, where he was informed of his

murder, he presently found himself also engaged, under all the

disadvantages of time and place, in a very dangerous war, with king

Ptolemy, who, he saw, had treacherous designs upon his life. It was

winter, and he, within the walls of a well-provided and subtle enemy, was

destitute of every thing, and wholly unprepared (24) for such a conflict.

He succeeded, however, in his enterprise, and put the kingdom of Egypt

into the hands of Cleopatra and her younger brother; being afraid to make

it a province, lest, under an aspiring prefect, it might become the

centre of revolt. From Alexandria he went into Syria, and thence to

Pontus, induced by intelligence which he had received respecting

Pharnaces. This prince, who was son of the great Mithridates, had seized

the opportunity which the distraction of the times offered for making war

upon his neighbours, and his insolence and fierceness had grown with his

success. Caesar, however, within five days after entering his country,

and four hours after coming in sight of him, overthrew him in one

decisive battle. Upon which, he frequently remarked to those about him

the good fortune of Pompey, who had obtained his military reputation,

chiefly, by victory over so feeble an enemy. He afterwards defeated

Scipio and Juba, who were rallying the remains of the party in Africa,

and Pompey’s sons in Spain.

XXXVI. During the whole course of the civil war, he never once suffered

any defeat, except in the case of his lieutenants; of whom Caius Curio

fell in Africa, Caius Antonius was made prisoner in Illyricum, Publius

Dolabella lost a fleet in the same Illyricum, and Cneius Domitius

Culvinus, an army in Pontus. In every encounter with the enemy where he

himself commanded, he came off with complete success; nor was the issue

ever doubtful, except on two occasions: once at Dyrrachium, when, being

obliged to give ground, and Pompey not pursuing his advantage, he said

that “Pompey knew not how to conquer;” the other instance occurred in his

last battle in Spain, when, despairing of the event, he even had thoughts

of killing himself.

XXXVII. For the victories obtained in the several wars, he triumphed

five different times; after the defeat of Scipio: four times in one

month, each triumph succeeding the former by an interval of a few days;

and once again after the conquest of Pompey’s sons. His first and most

glorious triumph was for the victories he gained in Gaul; the next for

that of Alexandria, the third for the reduction of Pontus, the fourth for

his African victory, and the last for that in Spain; and (25) they all

differed from each other in their varied pomp and pageantry. On the day

of the Gallic triumph, as he was proceeding along the street called

Velabrum, after narrowly escaping a fall from his chariot by the breaking

of the axle-tree, he ascended the Capitol by torch-light, forty elephants

the Pontic triumph, a tablet with this inscription was carried before

him: I CAME, I SAW, I CONQUERED [63]; not signifying, as other mottos on

the like occasion, what was done, so much as the dispatch with which it

was done.

XXXVIII. To every foot-soldier in his veteran legions, besides the two

thousand sesterces paid him in the beginning of the civil war, he gave

twenty thousand more, in the shape of prize-money. He likewise allotted

them lands, but not in contiguity, that the former owners might not be

entirely dispossessed. To the people of Rome, besides ten modii of corn,

and as many pounds of oil, he gave three hundred sesterces a man, which

he had formerly promised them, and a hundred more to each for the delay

in fulfilling his engagement. He likewise remitted a year’s rent due to

the treasury, for such houses in Rome as did not pay above two thousand

sesterces a year; and through the rest of Italy, for all such as did not

exceed in yearly rent five hundred sesterces. To all this he added a

public entertainment, and a distribution of meat, and, after his Spanish

victory [64], two public dinners. For, considering the first he had

given as too sparing, and unsuited to his profuse liberality, he, five

days afterwards, added another, which was most plentiful.

XXXIX. The spectacles he exhibited to the people were of various kinds;

namely, a combat of gladiators [65], and stage-plays in the several wards

of the city, and in different languages; likewise Circensian games [66],

wrestlers, and the representation of a sea-fight. In the conflict of

gladiators presented in the Forum, Furius Leptinus, a man of praetorian

family, entered the lists as a combatant, as did also Quintus Calpenus,

formerly a senator, and a pleader of causes. The Pyrrhic dance was

performed by some youths, who were sons to persons of the first

distinction in Asia and Bithynia. In the plays, Decimus Laberius, who

had been a Roman knight, acted in his own piece; and being presented on

the spot with five hundred thousand sesterces, and a gold ring, he went

from the stage, through the orchestra, and resumed his place in the seats

(27) allotted for the equestrian order. In the Circensisn games; the

circus being enlarged at each end, and a canal sunk round it, several of

the young nobility drove chariots, drawn, some by four, and others by two

horses, and likewise rode races on single horses. The Trojan game was

acted by two distinct companies of boys, one differing from the other in

age and rank. The hunting of wild beasts was presented for five days

successively; and on the last day a battle was fought by five hundred

foot, twenty elephants, and thirty horse on each side. To afford room

for this engagement, the goals were removed, and in their space two camps

were pitched, directly opposite to each other. Wrestlers likewise

performed for three days successively, in a stadium provided for the

purpose in the Campus Martius. A lake having been dug in the little

Codeta [67], ships of the Tyrian and Egyptian fleets, containing two,

three, and four banks of oars, with a number of men on board, afforded an

animated representation of a sea-fight. To these various diversions

there flocked such crowds of spectators from all parts, that most of the

strangers were obliged to lodge in tents erected in the streets, or along

the roads near the city. Several in the throng were squeezed to death,

amongst whom were two senators.

XL. Turning afterwards his attention to the regulation of the

commonwealth, he corrected the calendar [68], which had for (28) some

time become extremely confused, through the unwarrantable liberty which

the pontiffs had taken in the article of intercalation. To such a height

had this abuse proceeded, that neither the festivals designed for the

harvest fell in summer, nor those for the vintage in autumn. He

accommodated the year to the course of the sun, ordaining that in future

it should consist of three hundred and sixty-five days without any

intercalary month; and that every fourth year an intercalary day should

be inserted. That the year might thenceforth commence regularly with the

calends, or first of January, he inserted two months between November and

December; so that the year in which this regulation was made consisted of

fifteen months, including the month of intercalation, which, according to

the division of time then in use, happened that year.

XLI. He filled up the vacancies in the senate, by advancing several

plebeians to the rank of patricians, and also increased the number of

praetors, aediles, quaestors, and inferior magistrates; restoring, at the

same time, such as had been degraded by the censors, or convicted of

bribery at elections. The choice of magistrates he so divided with the

people, that, excepting only the candidates for the consulship, they

nominated one half of them, and he the other. The method which he

practised in those cases was, to recommend such persons as he had pitched

upon, by bills dispersed through the several tribes to this effect:

“Caesar the dictator to such a tribe (naming it). I recommend to you

(naming likewise the persons), that by the favour of your votes they may

attain to the honours for which they sue.” He likewise admitted to

offices the sons of those who had been proscribed. The trial of causes

he restricted to two orders of judges, the equestrian and senatorial;

excluding the tribunes of the treasury who had before made a third class.

The revised census of the people he ordered to be taken neither in the

usual manner or place, but street by street, by the principal inhabitants

of the several quarters of the city; and he reduced the number of those

who received corn at the public cost, from three hundred and twenty, to a

hundred and fifty, thousand. To prevent any tumults on account of the

census, he ordered that the praetor should every year fill up by lot the

vacancies occasioned by death, from those who were not enrolled for the

receipt of corn.

(29) XLII. Eighty thousand citizens having been distributed into foreign

colonies [69], he enacted, in order to stop the drain on the population,

that no freeman of the city above twenty, and under forty, years of age,

who was not in the military service, should absent himself from Italy for

more than three years at a time; that no senator’s son should go abroad,

unless in the retinue of some high officer; and as to those whose pursuit

was tending flocks and herds, that no less than a third of the number of

their shepherds free-born should be youths. He likewise made all those

who practised physic in Rome, and all teachers of the liberal arts, free

of the city, in order to fix them in it, and induce others to settle

there. With respect to debts, he disappointed the expectation which was

generally entertained, that they would be totally cancelled; and ordered

that the debtors should satisfy their creditors, according to the

valuation of their estates, at the rate at which they were purchased

before the commencement of the civil war; deducting from the debt what

had been paid for interest either in money or by bonds; by virtue of

which provision about a fourth part of the debt was lost. He dissolved

all the guilds, except such as were of ancient foundation. Crimes were

punished with greater severity; and the rich being more easily induced to

commit them because they were only liable to banishment, without the

forfeiture of their property, he stripped murderers, as Cicero observes,

of their whole estates, and other offenders of one half.

XLIII. He was extremely assiduous and strict in the administration of

justice. He expelled from the senate such members as were convicted of

bribery; and he dissolved the marriage of a man of pretorian rank, who

had married a lady two days after her divorce from a former husband,

although there was no suspicion that they had been guilty of any illicit

connection. He imposed duties on the importation of foreign goods. The

use of litters for travelling, purple robes, and jewels, he permitted

only to persons of a certain age and station, and on particular days. He

enforced a rigid execution of the sumptuary laws; placing officers about

the markets, to seize upon all meats exposed to sale contrary to the

rules, and bring them to him; sometimes sending his lictors and soldiers

to (30) carry away such victuals as had escaped the notice of the

officers, even when they were upon the table.

XLIV. His thoughts were now fully employed from day to day on a variety

of great projects for the embellishment and improvement of the city, as

well as for guarding and extending the bounds of the empire. In the

first place, he meditated the construction of a temple to Mars, which

should exceed in grandeur every thing of that kind in the world. For

this purpose, he intended to fill up the lake on which he had entertained

the people with the spectacle of a sea-fight. He also projected a most

spacious theatre adjacent to the Tarpeian mount; and also proposed to

reduce the civil law to a reasonable compass, and out of that immense and

undigested mass of statutes to extract the best and most necessary parts

into a few books; to make as large a collection as possible of works in

the Greek and Latin languages, for the public use; the province of

providing and putting them in proper order being assigned to Marcus

Varro. He intended likewise to drain the Pomptine marshes, to cut a

channel for the discharge of the waters of the lake Fucinus, to form a

road from the Upper Sea through the ridge of the Appenine to the Tiber;

to make a cut through the isthmus of Corinth, to reduce the Dacians, who

had over-run Pontus and Thrace, within their proper limits, and then to

make war upon the Parthians, through the Lesser Armenia, but not to risk

a general engagement with them, until he had made some trial of their

prowess in war. But in the midst of all his undertakings and projects,

he was carried off by death; before I speak of which, it may not be

improper to give an account of his person, dress, and manners; together

with what relates to his pursuits, both civil and military.

XLV. It is said that he was tall, of a fair complexion, round limbed,

rather full faced, with eyes black and piercing; and that he enjoyed

excellent health, except towards the close of his life, when he was

subject to sudden fainting-fits, and disturbance in his sleep. He was

likewise twice seized with the falling sickness while engaged in active

service. He was so nice in the care of his person, that he not only kept

the hair of his head closely cut and had his face smoothly shaved, but

(31) even caused the hair on other parts of the body to be plucked out by

the roots, a practice for which some persons rallied him. His baldness

gave him much uneasiness, having often found himself upon that account

exposed to the jibes of his enemies. He therefore used to bring forward

the hair from the crown of his head; and of all the honours conferred

upon him by the senate and people, there was none which he either

accepted or used with greater pleasure, than the right of wearing

constantly a laurel crown. It is said that he was particular in his

dress. For he used the Latus Clavus [70] with fringes about the wrists,

and always had it girded about him, but rather loosely. This

circumstance gave origin to the expression of Sylla, who often advised

the nobles to beware of “the ill-girt boy.”

XLVI. He first inhabited a small house in the Suburra [71], but after

his advancement to the pontificate, he occupied a palace belonging to the

state in the Via Sacra. Many writers say that he liked his residence to

be elegant, and his entertainments sumptuous; and that he entirely took

down a villa near the grove of Aricia, which he had built from the

foundation and finished at a vast expense, because it did not exactly

suit his taste, although he had at that time but slender means, and was

in debt; and that he carried about in his expeditions tesselated and

marble slabs for the floor of his tent.

XLVII. They likewise report that he invaded Britain in hopes of finding

pearls [72], the size of which he would compare together, and ascertain

the weight by poising them in his hand; that he would purchase, at any

cost, gems, carved works, statues, and pictures, executed by the eminent

masters of antiquity; and that he would give for young and handy slaves a

price so extravagant, that he forbad its being entered in the diary of

his expenses.

XLVIII. We are also told, that in the provinces he constantly maintained

two tables, one for the officers of the army, and the gentry of the

country, and the other for Romans of the highest rank, and provincials of

the first distinction. He was so very exact in the management of his

domestic affairs, both little and great, that he once threw a baker into

prison, for serving him with a finer sort of bread than his guests; and

put to death a freed-man, who was a particular favourite, for debauching

the lady of a Roman knight, although no complaint had been made to him of

the affair.

XLIX. The only stain upon his chastity was his having cohabited with

Nicomedes; and that indeed stuck to him all the days of his life, and

exposed him to much bitter raillery. I will not dwell upon those

well-known verses of Calvus Licinius:

Whate’er Bithynia and her lord possess’d,

Her lord who Caesar in his lust caress’d. [73]

I pass over the speeches of Dolabella, and Curio, the father, in which

the former calls him “the queen’s rival, and the inner-side of the royal

couch,” and the latter, “the brothel of Nicomedes, and the Bithynian

stew.” I would likewise say nothing of the edicts of Bibulus, in which

he proclaimed his colleague under the name of “the queen of Bithynia;”

adding, that “he had formerly been in love with a king, but now coveted a

kingdom.” At which time, as Marcus Brutus relates, one Octavius, a man

of a crazy brain, and therefore the more free in his raillery, after he

had in a crowded assembly saluted Pompey by the title of king, addressed

Caesar by that of queen. Caius Memmius likewise upbraided him with

serving the king at table, among the rest of his catamites, in the

presence of a large company, in which were some merchants from Rome, the

names of whom he mentions. But Cicero was not content with writing in

some of his letters, that he was conducted by the royal attendants into

the king’s bed-chamber, lay upon a bed of gold with a covering of purple,

and that the youthful bloom of this scion of Venus had been tainted in

Bithynia--but upon Caesar’s pleading the cause of Nysa, the daughter of

(32) Nicomedes before the senate, and recounting the king’s kindnesses to

him, replied, “Pray tell us no more of that; for it is well known what he

gave you, and you gave him.” To conclude, his soldiers in the Gallic

triumph, amongst other verses, such as they jocularly sung on those

occasions, following the general’s chariot, recited these, which since

that time have become extremely common:

The Gauls to Caesar yield, Caesar to Nicomede,

Lo! Caesar triumphs for his glorious deed,

But Caesar’s conqueror gains no victor’s meed. [74]

L. It is admitted by all that he was much addicted to women, as well as

very expensive in his intrigues with them, and that he debauched many

ladies of the highest quality; among whom were Posthumia, the wife of

Servius Sulpicius; Lollia, the wife of Aulus Gabinius; Tertulla, the wife

of Marcus Crassus; and Mucia, the wife of Cneius Pompey. For it is

certain that the Curios, both father and son, and many others, made it a

reproach to Pompey, “That to gratify his ambition, he married the

daughter of a man, upon whose account he had divorced his wife, after

having had three children by her; and whom he used, with a deep sigh, to

call Aegisthus.” [75] But the mistress he most loved, was Servilia, the

mother of Marcus Brutus, for whom he purchased, in his first consulship

after the commencement of their intrigue, a pearl which cost him six

millions of sesterces; and in the civil war, besides other presents,

assigned to her, for a trifling consideration, some valuable farms when

they were exposed to public auction. Many persons expressing their

surprise at the lowness of the price, Cicero wittily remarked, “To let

you know the real value of the purchase, between ourselves, Tertia was

deducted:” for Servilia was supposed to have prostituted her daughter

Tertia to Caesar. [76]

(34) LI. That he had intrigues likewise with married women in the

provinces, appears from this distich, which was as much repeated in the

Gallic Triumph as the former:--

Watch well your wives, ye cits, we bring a blade,

A bald-pate master of the wenching trade.

Thy gold was spent on many a Gallic w---e;

Exhausted now, thou com’st to borrow more. [77]

LII. In the number of his mistresses were also some queens; such as

Eunoe, a Moor, the wife of Bogudes, to whom and her husband he made, as

Naso reports, many large presents. But his greatest favourite was

Cleopatra, with whom he often revelled all night until the dawn of day,

and would have gone with her through Egypt in dalliance, as far as

Aethiopia, in her luxurious yacht, had not the army refused to follow

him. He afterwards invited her to Rome, whence he sent her back loaded

with honours and presents, and gave her permission to call by his name a

son, who, according to the testimony of some Greek historians, resembled

Caesar both in person and gait. Mark Antony declared in the senate, that

Caesar had acknowledged the child as his own; and that Caius Matias,

Caius Oppius, and the rest of Caesar’s friends knew it to be true. On

which occasion, Oppius, as if it had been an imputation which he was

called upon to refute, published a book to shew, “that the child which

Cleopatra fathered upon Caesar, was not his.” Helvius Cinna, tribune of

the people, admitted to several persons the fact, that he had a bill

ready drawn, which Caesar had ordered him to get enacted in his absence,

allowing him, with the hope of leaving issue, to take any wife he chose,

and as many of them as he pleased; and to leave no room for doubt of his

infamous character for unnatural lewdness and adultery, Curio, the

father, says, in one of his speeches, “He was every woman’s man, and

every man’s woman.”

LIII. It is acknowledged even by his enemies, that in regard to wine, he

was abstemious. A remark is ascribed to Marcus Cato, “that Caesar was

the only sober man amongst all those who were engaged in the design to

subvert (35) the government.” In the matter of diet, Caius Oppius

informs us, “that he was so indifferent, that when a person in whose

house he was entertained, had served him with stale, instead of fresh,

oil [78], and the rest of the company would not touch it, he alone ate

very heartily of it, that he might not seem to tax the master of the

house with rusticity or want of attention.”

LIV. But his abstinence did not extend to pecuniary advantages, either

in his military commands, or civil offices; for we have the testimony of

some writers, that he took money from the proconsul, who was his

predecessor in Spain, and from the Roman allies in that quarter, for the

discharge of his debts; and plundered at the point of the sword some

towns of the Lusitanians, notwithstanding they attempted no resistance,

and opened their gates to him upon his arrival before them. In Gaul, he

rifled the chapels and temples of the gods, which were filled with rich

offerings, and demolished cities oftener for the sake of their spoil,

than for any ill they had done. By this means gold became so plentiful

with him, that he exchanged it through Italy and the provinces of the

empire for three thousand sesterces the pound. In his first consulship

he purloined from the Capitol three thousand pounds’ weight of gold, and

substituted for it the same quantity of gilt brass. He bartered likewise

to foreign nations and princes, for gold, the titles of allies and kings;

and squeezed out of Ptolemy alone near six thousand talents, in the name

of himself and Pompey. He afterwards supported the expense of the civil

wars, and of his triumphs and public spectacles, by the most flagrant

rapine and sacrilege.

LV. In eloquence and warlike achievements, he equalled at least, if he

did not surpass, the greatest of men. After his prosecution of

Dolabella, he was indisputably reckoned one of the most distinguished

advocates. Cicero, in recounting to Brutus the famous orators, declares,

“that he does not see that Caesar was inferior to any one of them;” and

says, “that he (36) had an elegant, splendid, noble, and magnificent vein

of eloquence.” And in a letter to Cornelius Nepos, he writes of him in

the following terms: “What! Of all the orators, who, during the whole

course of their lives, have done nothing else, which can you prefer to

him? Which of them is more pointed or terse in his periods, or employs

more polished and elegant language?” In his youth, he seems to have

chosen Strabo Caesar for his model; from whose oration in behalf of the

Sardinians he has transcribed some passages literally into his

Divination. In his delivery he is said to have had a shrill voice, and

his action was animated, but not ungraceful. He has left behind him some

speeches, among which are ranked a few that are not genuine, such as that

on behalf of Quintus Metellus. These Augustus supposes, with reason, to

be rather the production of blundering short-hand writers, who were not

able to keep pace with him in the delivery, than publications of his own.

For I find in some copies that the title is not “For Metellus,” but “What

he wrote to Metellus;” whereas the speech is delivered in the name of

Caesar, vindicating Metellus and himself from the aspersions cast upon

them by their common defamers. The speech addressed “To his soldiers in

Spain,” Augustus considers likewise as spurious. We meet with two under

this title; one made, as is pretended, in the first battle, and the other

in the last; at which time, Asinius Pollio says, he had not leisure to

address the soldiers, on account of the suddenness of the enemy’s attack.

LVI. He has likewise left Commentaries of his own actions both in the

war in Gaul, and in the civil war with Pompey; for the author of the

Alexandrian, African, and Spanish wars is not known with any certainty.

Some think they are the production of Oppius, and some of Hirtius; the

latter of whom composed the last book, which is imperfect, of the Gallic

war. Of Caesar’s Commentaries, Cicero, in his Brutus, speaks thus: “He

wrote his Commentaries in a manner deserving of great approbation: they

are plain, precise, and elegant, without any affectation of rhetorical

ornament. In having thus prepared materials for others who might be

inclined to write his history, he may perhaps have encouraged some silly

creatures to enter upon such a work, who will needs be dressing up his

actions in all the extravagance a (37) bombast; but he has discouraged

wise men from ever attempting the subject.” Hirtius delivers his opinion

of these Commentaries in the following terms: “So great is the

approbation with which they are universally perused, that, instead of

rousing, he seems to have precluded, the efforts of any future historian.

Yet, with respect to this work, we have more reason to admire him than

others; for they only know how well and correctly he has written, but we

know, likewise, how easily and quickly he did it.” Pollio Asinius thinks

that they were not drawn up with much care, or with a due regard to

truth; for he insinuates that Caesar was too hasty of belief in regard to

what was performed by others under his orders; and that, he has not given

a very faithful account of his own acts, either by design, or through

defect of memory; expressing at the same time an opinion that Caesar

intended a new and more correct edition. He has left behind him likewise

two books on Analogy, with the same number under the title of Anti-Cato,

and a poem entitled The Itinerary. Of these books, he composed the first

two in his passage over the Alps, as he was returning to the army after

making his circuit in Hither-Gaul; the second work about the time of the

battle of Munda; and the last during the four-and-twenty days he employed

in his journey from Rome to Farther-Spain. There are extant some letters

of his to the senate, written in a manner never practised by any before

him; for they are distinguished into pages in the form of a memorandum

book whereas the consuls and commanders till then, used constantly in

their letters to continue the line quite across the sheet, without any

folding or distinction of pages. There are extant likewise some letters

from him to Cicero, and others to his friends, concerning his domestic

affairs; in which, if there was occasion for secrecy, he wrote in

cyphers; that is, he used the alphabet in such a manner, that not a

single word could be made out. The way to decipher those epistles was to

substitute the fourth for the first letter, as d for a, and so for the

other letters respectively. Some things likewise pass under his name,

said to have been written by him when a boy, or a very young man; as the

Encomium of Hercules, a tragedy entitled Oedipus, and a collection of

Apophthegms; all which Augustus forbad to be published, in a short and

plain letter to Pompeius Macer, who was employed by him in the

arrangement of his libraries.

(38) LVII. He was perfect in the use of arms, an accomplished rider, and

able to endure fatigue beyond all belief. On a march, he used to go at

the head of his troops, sometimes on horseback, but oftener on foot, with

his head bare in all kinds of weather. He would travel post in a light

carriage [79] without baggage, at the rate of a hundred miles a day; and

if he was stopped by floods in the rivers, he swam across, or floated on

skins inflated with wind, so that he often anticipated intelligence of

his movements. [80]

LVIII. In his expeditions, it is difficult to say whether his caution or

his daring was most conspicuous. He never marched his army by roads

which were exposed to ambuscades, without having previously examined the

nature of the ground by his scouts. Nor did he cross over to Britain,

before he had carefully examined, in person [81], the navigation, the

harbours, and the most convenient point of landing in the island. When

intelligence was brought to him of the siege of his camp in Germany, he

made his way to his troops, through the enemy’s stations, in a Gaulish

dress. He crossed the sea from Brundisium and Dyrrachium, in the winter,

through the midst of the enemy’s fleets; and the troops, under orders to

join him, being slow in their movements, notwithstanding repeated

messages to hurry them, but to no purpose, he at last went privately, and

alone, aboard a small vessel in the night time, with his head muffled up;

nor did he make himself known, or suffer the master to put about,

although the wind blew strong against them, until they were ready to

sink.

LIX. He was never deterred from any enterprise, nor retarded in the

prosecution of it, by superstition [82]. When a victim, which he was

about to offer in sacrifice, made its (39) escape, he did not therefore

defer his expedition against Scipio and Juba. And happening to fall,

upon stepping out of the ship, he gave a lucky turn to the omen, by

exclaiming, “I hold thee fast, Africa.” To chide the prophecies which

were spread abroad, that the name of the Scipios was, by the decrees of

fate, fortunate and invincible in that province, he retained in the camp

a profligate wretch, of the family of the Cornelii, who, on account of

his scandalous life, was surnamed Salutio.

LX. He not only fought pitched battles, but made sudden attacks when an

opportunity offered; often at the end of a march, and sometimes during

the most violent storms, when nobody could imagine he would stir. Nor

was he ever backward in fighting, until towards the end of his life. He

then was of opinion, that the oftener he had been crowned with success,

the less he ought to expose himself to new hazards; and that nothing he

could gain by a victory would compensate for what he might lose by a

miscarriage. He never defeated the enemy without driving them from their

camp; and giving them no time to rally their forces. When the issue of a

battle was doubtful, he sent away all the horses, and his own first, that

having no means of flight, they might be under the greater necessity of

standing their ground.

LXI. He rode a very remarkable horse, with feet almost like those of a

man, the hoofs being divided in such a manner as to have some resemblance

to toes. This horse he had bred himself, and the soothsayers having

interpreted these circumstances into an omen that its owner would be

master of the world, he brought him up with particular care, and broke

him in himself, as the horse would suffer no one else to mount him. A

statue of this horse was afterwards erected by Caesar’s order before the

temple of Venus Genitrix.

LXII. He often rallied his troops, when they were giving way, by his

personal efforts; stopping those who fled, keeping others in their ranks,

and seizing them by their throat turned them towards the enemy; although

numbers were so terrified, that an eagle-bearer [83], thus stopped, made

a thrust at him with (40) the spear-head; and another, upon a similar

occasion, left the standard in his hand.

LXIII. The following instances of his resolution are equally, and even

more remarkable. After the battle of Pharsalia, having sent his troops

before him into Asia, as he was passing the straits of the Hellespont in

a ferry-boat, he met with Lucius Cassius, one of the opposite party, with

ten ships of war; and so far from endeavouring to escape, he went

alongside his ship, and calling upon him to surrender, Cassius humbly

gave him his submission.

LXIV. At Alexandria, in the attack of a bridge, being forced by a sudden

sally of the enemy into a boat, and several others hurrying in with him,

he leaped into the sea, and saved himself by swimming to the next ship,

which lay at the distance of two hundred paces; holding up his left hand

out of the water, for fear of wetting some papers which he held in it;

and pulling his general’s cloak after him with his teeth, lest it should

fall into the hands of the enemy.

LXV. He never valued a soldier for his moral conduct or his means, but

for his courage only; and treated his troops with a mixture of severity

and indulgence; for he did not always keep a strict hand over them, but

only when the enemy was near. Then indeed he was so strict a

disciplinarian, that he would give no notice of a march or a battle until

the moment of action, in order that the troops might hold themselves in

readiness for any sudden movement; and he would frequently draw them out

of the camp without any necessity for it, especially in rainy weather,

and upon holy-days. Sometimes, giving them orders not to lose sight of

him, he would suddenly depart by day or by night, and lengthen the

marches in order to tire them out, as they followed him at a distance.

LXVI. When at any time his troops were dispirited by reports of the

great force of the enemy, he rallied their courage; not by denying the

truth of what was said, or by diminishing the facts, but, on the

contrary, by exaggerating every particular. (41) Accordingly, when his

troops were in great alarm at the expected arrival of king Juba, he

called them together, and said, “I have to inform you that in a very few

days the king will be here, with ten legions, thirty thousand horse, a

hundred thousand light-armed foot, and three hundred elephants. Let none

of you, therefore, presume to make further enquiry, or indulge in

conjectures, but take my word for what I tell you, which I have from

undoubted intelligence; otherwise I shall put them aboard an old crazy

vessel, and leave them exposed to the mercy of the winds, to be

transported to some other country.”

LXVII. He neither noticed all their transgressions, nor punished them

according to strict rule. But for deserters and mutineers he made the

most diligent enquiry, and their punishment was most severe: other

delinquencies he would connive at. Sometimes, after a great battle

ending in victory, he would grant them a relaxation from all kinds of

duty, and leave them to revel at pleasure; being used to boast, “that his

soldiers fought nothing the worse for being well oiled.” In his

speeches, he never addressed them by the title of “Soldiers,” but by the

kinder phrase of “Fellow-soldiers;” and kept them in such splendid order,

that their arms were ornamented with silver and gold, not merely for

parade, but to render the soldiers more resolute to save them in battle,

and fearful of losing them. He loved his troops to such a degree, that

when he heard of the defeat of those under Titurius, he neither cut his

hair nor shaved his beard, until he had revenged it upon the enemy; by

which means he engaged their devoted affection, and raised their valour

to the highest pitch.

LXVIII. Upon his entering on the civil war, the centurions of every

legion offered, each of them, to maintain a horseman at his own expense,

and the whole army agreed to serve gratis, without either corn or pay;

those amongst them who were rich, charging themselves with the

maintenance of the poor. No one of them, during the whole course of the

war, deserted to the enemy; and many of those who were made prisoners,

though they were offered their lives, upon condition of bearing arms

against him, refused to accept the terms. They endured want, and other

hardships, not only (42) when they were besieged themselves, but when

they besieged others, to such a degree, that Pompey, when blocked up in

the neighbourhood of Dyrrachium, upon seeing a sort of bread made of an

herb, which they lived upon, said, “I have to do with wild beasts,” and

ordered it immediately to be taken away; because, if his troops should

see it, their spirit might be broken by perceiving the endurance and

determined resolution of the enemy. With what bravery they fought, one

instance affords sufficient proof; which is, that after an unsuccessful

engagement at Dyrrachium, they called for punishment; insomuch that their

general found it more necessary to comfort than to punish them. In other

battles, in different quarters, they defeated with ease immense armies of

the enemy, although they were much inferior to them in number. In short,

one cohort of the sixth legion held out a fort against four legions

belonging to Pompey, during several hours; being almost every one of them

wounded by the vast number of arrows discharged against them, and of

which there were found within the ramparts a hundred and thirty thousand.

This is no way surprising, when we consider the conduct of some

individuals amongst them; such as that of Cassius Scaeva, a centurion, or

Caius Acilius, a common soldier, not to speak of others. Scaeva, after

having an eye struck out, being run through the thigh and the shoulder,

and having his shield pierced in an hundred and twenty places, maintained

obstinately the guard of the gate of a fort, with the command of which he

was intrusted. Acilius, in the sea-fight at Marseilles, having seized a

ship of the enemy’s with his right hand, and that being cut off, in

imitation of that memorable instance of resolution in Cynaegirus amongst

the Greeks, boarded the enemy’s ship, bearing down all before him with

the boss of his shield.

LXIX. They never once mutinied during all the ten years of the Gallic

war, but were sometimes refractory in the course of the civil war.

However, they always returned quickly to their duty, and that not through

the indulgence, but in submission to the authority, of their general; for

he never yielded to them when they were insubordinate, but constantly

resisted their demands. He disbanded the whole ninth legion with

ignominy at Placentia, although Pompey was still in arms, and would (43)

not receive them again into his service, until they had not only made

repeated and humble entreaties, but until the ringleaders in the mutiny

were punished.

LXX. When the soldiers of the tenth legion at Rome demanded their

discharge and rewards for their service, with violent threats and no

small danger to the city, although the war was then raging in Africa, he

did not hesitate, contrary to the advice of his friends, to meet the

legion, and disband it. But addressing them by the title of “Quirites,”

instead of “Soldiers,” he by this single word so thoroughly brought them

round and changed their determination, that they immediately cried out,

they were his “soldiers,” and followed him to Africa, although he had

refused their service. He nevertheless punished the most mutinous among

them, with the loss of a third of their share in the plunder, and the

land destined for them.

LXXI. In the service of his clients, while yet a young man, he evinced

great zeal and fidelity. He defended the cause of a noble youth,

Masintha, against king Hiempsal, so strenuously, that in a scuffle which

took place upon the occasion, he seized by the beard the son of king

Juba; and upon Masintha’s being declared tributary to Hiempsal, while the

friends of the adverse party were violently carrying him off, he

immediately rescued him by force, kept him concealed in his house a long

time, and when, at the expiration of his praetorship, he went to Spain,

he took him away in his litter, in the midst of his lictors bearing the

fasces, and others who had come to attend and take leave of him.

LXXII. He always treated his friends with such kindness and good-nature,

that when Caius Oppius, in travelling with him through a forest, was

suddenly taken ill, he resigned to him the only place there was to

shelter them at night, and lay upon the ground in the open air. When he

had placed himself at the head of affairs, he advanced some of his

faithful adherents, though of mean extraction, to the highest offices;

and when he was censured for this partiality, he openly said, “Had I been

assisted by robbers and cut-throats in the defence of my honour, I should

have made them the same recompense.”

(44) LXXIII. The resentment he entertained against any one was never so

implacable that he did not very willingly renounce it when opportunity

offered. Although Caius Memmius had published some extremely virulent

speeches against him, and he had answered him with equal acrimony, yet he

afterwards assisted him with his vote and interest, when he stood

candidate for the consulship. When C. Calvus, after publishing some

scandalous epigrams upon him, endeavoured to effect a reconciliation by

the intercession of friends, he wrote to him, of his own accord, the

first letter. And when Valerius Catullus, who had, as he himself

observed, fixed such a stain upon his character in his verses upon

Mamurra as never could be obliterated, he begged his pardon, invited him

to supper the same day; and continued to take up his lodging with his

father occasionally, as he had been accustomed to do.

LXXIV. His temper was also naturally averse to severity in retaliation.

After he had captured the pirates, by whom he had been taken, having

sworn that he would crucify them, he did so indeed; but he first ordered

their throats to be cut [84]. He could never bear the thought of doing

any harm to Cornelius Phagitas, who had dogged him in the night when he

was sick and a fugitive, with the design of carrying him to Sylla, and

from whose hands he had escaped with some difficulty by giving him a

bribe. Philemon, his amanuensis, who had promised his enemies to poison

him, he put to death without torture. When he was summoned as a witness

against Publicus Clodius, his wife Pompeia’s gallant, who was prosecuted

for the profanation of religious ceremonies, he declared he knew nothing

of the affair, although his mother Aurelia, and his sister Julia, gave

the court an exact and full account of the circumstances. And being

asked why then he had divorced his wife? “Because,” he said, “my family

should not only be free from guilt, but even from the suspicion of it.”

LXXV. Both in his administration and his conduct towards the vanquished

party in the civil war, he showed a wonderful moderation and clemency.

For while Pompey declared that he would consider those as enemies who did

not take arms in defence of the republic, he desired it to be understood,

that he (45) should regard those who remained neuter as his friends.

With regard to all those to whom he had, on Pompey’s recommendation,

given any command in the army, he left them at perfect liberty to go over

to him, if they pleased. When some proposals were made at Ileria [85]

for a surrender, which gave rise to a free communication between the two

camps, and Afranius and Petreius, upon a sudden change of resolution, had

put to the sword all Caesar’s men who were found in the camp, he scorned

to imitate the base treachery which they had practised against himself.

On the field of Pharsalia, he called out to the soldiers “to spare their

fellow-citizens,” and afterwards gave permission to every man in his army

to save an enemy. None of them, so far as appears, lost their lives but

in battle, excepting only Afranius, Faustus, and young Lucius Caesar; and

it is thought that even they were put to death without his consent.

Afranius and Faustus had borne arms against him, after obtaining their

pardon; and Lucius Caesar had not only in the most cruel manner destroyed

with fire and sword his freed-men and slaves, but cut to pieces the wild

beasts which he had prepared for the entertainment of the people. And

finally, a little before his death, he permitted all whom he had not

before pardoned, to return into Italy, and to bear offices both civil and

military. He even replaced the statues of Sylla and Pompey, which had

been thrown down by the populace. And after this, whatever was devised

or uttered, he chose rather to check than to punish it. Accordingly,

having detected certain conspiracies and nocturnal assemblies, he went no

farther than to intimate by a proclamation that he knew of them; and as

to those who indulged themselves in the liberty of reflecting severely

upon him, he only warned them in a public speech not to persist in their

offence. He bore with great moderation a virulent libel written against

him by Aulus Caecinna, and the abusive lampoons of Pitholaus, most highly

reflecting on his reputation.

LXXVI. His other words and actions, however, so far outweigh all his

good qualities, that it is thought he abused his power, and was justly

cut off. For he not only obtained excessive honours, such as the

consulship every year, the dictatorship for life, and the censorship, but

also the title of emperor [86], (46) and the surname of FATHER OF HIS

COUNTRY [87], besides having his statue amongst the kings [88], and a

lofty couch in the theatre. He even suffered some honours to be decreed

to him, which were unbefitting the most exalted of mankind; such as a

gilded chair of state in the senate-house and on his tribunal, a

consecrated chariot, and banners in the Circensian procession, temples,

altars, statues among the gods, a bed of state in the temples, a priest,

and a college of priests dedicated to himself, like those of Pan; and

that one of the months should be called by his name. There were, indeed,

no honours which he did not either assume himself, or grant to others, at

his will and pleasure. In his third and fourth consulship, he used only

the title of the office, being content with the power of dictator, which

was conferred upon him with the consulship; and in both years he

substituted other consuls in his room, during the three last months; so

that in the intervals he held no assemblies of the people, for the

election of magistrates, excepting only tribunes and ediles of the

people; and appointed officers, under the name of praefects, instead of

the praetors, to administer the affairs of the city during his absence.

The office of consul having become vacant, by the sudden death of one of

the consuls the day before the calends of January [the 1st Jan.], he

conferred it on a person who requested it of him, for a few hours.

Assuming the same licence, and regardless of the customs of his country,

he appointed magistrates to hold their offices for terms of years. He

granted the insignia of the consular dignity to ten persons of pretorian

rank. He admitted into the senate some men who had been made free of the

city, and even natives of Gaul, who were semi-barbarians. (47) He

likewise appointed to the management of the mint, and the public revenue

of the state, some servants of his own household; and entrusted the

command of three legions, which he left at Alexandria, to an old catamite

of his, the son of his freed-man Rufinus.

LXXVII. He was guilty of the same extravagance in the language he

publicly used, as Titus Ampius informs us; according to whom he said,

“The republic is nothing but a name, without substance or reality. Sylla

was an ignorant fellow to abdicate the dictatorship. Men ought to

consider what is becoming when they talk with me, and look upon what I

say as a law.” To such a pitch of arrogance did he proceed, that when a

soothsayer announced to him the unfavourable omen, that the entrails of a

victim offered for sacrifice were without a heart, he said, “The entrails

will be more favourable when I please; and it ought not to be regarded as

a prodigy that a beast should be found wanting a heart.”

LXXVIII. But what brought upon him the greatest odium, and was thought

an unpardonable insult, was his receiving the whole body of the conscript

fathers sitting, before the temple of Venus Genitrix, when they waited

upon him with a number of decrees, conferring on him the highest

dignities. Some say that, on his attempting to rise, he was held down by

Cornelius Balbus; others, that he did not attempt to rise at all, but

frowned on Caius Trebatius, who suggested to him that he should stand up

to receive the senate. This behaviour appeared the more intolerable in

him, because, when one of the tribunes of the people, Pontius Aquila,

would not rise up to him, as he passed by the tribunes’ seat during his

triumph, he was so much offended, that he cried out, “Well then, you

tribune, Aquila, oust me from the government.” And for some days

afterwards, he never promised a favour to any person, without this

proviso, “if Pontus Aquila will give me leave.”

LXXIX. To this extraordinary mark of contempt for the senate, he added

another affront still more outrageous. For when, after the sacred rites

of the Latin festival, he was returning home, amidst the immoderate and

unusual acclamations (48) of the people, a man in the crowd put a laurel

crown, encircled with a white fillet [89], on one of his statues; upon

which, the tribunes of the people, Epidius Marullus, and Caesetius

Flavus, ordered the fillet to be removed from the crown, and the man to

be taken to prison. Caesar, being much concerned either that the idea of

royalty had been suggested to so little purpose, or, as was said, that he

was thus deprived of the merit of refusing it, reprimanded the tribunes

very severely, and dismissed them from their office. From that day

forward, he was never able to wipe off the scandal of affecting the name

of king, although he replied to the populace, when they saluted him by

that title, “I am Caesar, and no king.” And at the feast of the

Lupercalia [90], when the consul Antony placed a crown upon his head in

the rostra several times, he as often put it away, and sent it to the

Capitol for Jupiter, the Best and the Greatest. A report was very

current, that he had a design of withdrawing to Alexandria or Ilium,

whither he proposed to transfer the imperial power, to drain Italy by new

levies, and to leave the government of the city to be administered by his

friends. To this report it was added, that in the next meeting of the

senate, Lucius Cotta, one of the fifteen [91], would make a motion, that

as there was in the Sibylline books a prophecy, that the Parthians would

never be subdued but by a king, Caesar should have that title conferred

upon him.

LXXX. For this reason the conspirators precipitated the execution of

their design [92], that they might not be obliged to give their assent to

the proposal. Instead, therefore, of caballing any longer separately, in

small parties, they now united their counsels; the people themselves

being dissatisfied with the present state of affairs, both privately and

publicly (49) condemning the tyranny under which they lived, and calling

on patriots to assert their cause against the usurper. Upon the

admission of foreigners into the senate, a hand-bill was posted up in

these words: “A good deed! let no one shew a new senator the way to the

house.” These verses were likewise currently repeated:

The Gauls he dragged in triumph through the town,

Caesar has brought into the senate-house,

And changed their plaids [93] for the patrician gown.

Gallos Caesar in triumphum ducit: iidem in curiam

Galli braccas deposuerunt, latum clavum sumpserunt.

When Quintus Maximus, who had been his deputy in the consulship for the

last three months, entered the theatre, and the lictor, according to

custom, bid the people take notice who was coming, they all cried out,

“He is no consul.” After the removal of Caesetius and Marullus from

their office, they were found to have a great many votes at the next

election of consuls. Some one wrote under the statue of Lucius Brutus,

“Would you were now alive!” and under the statue of Caesar himself these

lines:

Because he drove from Rome the royal race,

Brutus was first made consul in their place.

This man, because he put the consuls down,

Has been rewarded with a royal crown.

Brutus, quia reges ejecit, consul primus factus est:

Hic, quia consules ejecit, rex postremo factus est.

About sixty persons were engaged in the conspiracy against him, of whom

Caius Cassius, and Marcus and Decimus Brutus were the chief. It was at

first debated amongst them, whether they should attack him in the Campus

Martius when he was taking the votes of the tribes, and some of them

should throw him off the bridge, whilst others should be ready to stab

him upon his fall; or else in the Via Sacra, or at the entrance of the

theatre. But after public notice had been given by proclamation for the

senate to assemble upon the ides of March [15th March], in the

senate-house built by Pompey, they approved both of the time and place,

as most fitting for their purpose.

LXXXI. Caesar had warning given him of his fate by indubitable (50)

omens. A few months before, when the colonists settled at Capua, by

virtue of the Julian law, were demolishing some old sepulchres, in

building country-houses, and were the more eager at the work, because

they discovered certain vessels of antique workmanship, a tablet of brass

was found in a tomb, in which Capys, the founder of Capua, was said to

have been buried, with an inscription in the Greek language to this

effect “Whenever the bones of Capys come to be discovered, a descendant

of Iulus will be slain by the hands of his kinsmen, and his death

revenged by fearful disasters throughout Italy.” Lest any person should

regard this anecdote as a fabulous or silly invention, it was circulated

upon the authority of Caius Balbus, an intimate friend of Caesar’s. A

few days likewise before his death, he was informed that the horses,

which, upon his crossing the Rubicon, he had consecrated, and turned

loose to graze without a keeper, abstained entirely from eating, and shed

floods of tears. The soothsayer Spurinna, observing certain ominous

appearances in a sacrifice which he was offering, advised him to beware

of some danger, which threatened to befall him before the ides of March

were past. The day before the ides, birds of various kinds from a

neighbouring grove, pursuing a wren which flew into Pompey’s senate-house

the night on which the day of his murder dawned, he dreamt at one time

that he was soaring above the clouds, and, at another, that he had joined

hands with Jupiter. His wife Calpurnia fancied in her sleep that the

pediment of the house was falling down, and her husband stabbed on her

bosom; immediately upon which the chamber doors flew open. On account of

these omens, as well as his infirm health, he was in some doubt whether

he should not remain at home, and defer to some other opportunity the

business which he intended to propose to the senate; but Decimus Brutus

advising him not to disappoint the senators, who were numerously

assembled, and waited his coming, he was prevailed upon to go, and

accordingly (51) set forward about the fifth hour. In his way, some

person having thrust into his hand a paper, warning him against the plot,

he mixed it with some other documents which he held in his left hand,

intending to read it at leisure. Victim after victim was slain, without

any favourable appearances in the entrails; but still, disregarding all

omens, he entered the senate-house, laughing at Spurinna as a false

prophet, because the ides of March were come, without any mischief having

befallen him. To which the soothsayer replied, “They are come, indeed,

but not past.”

LXXXII. When he had taken his seat, the conspirators stood round him,

under colour of paying their compliments; and immediately Tullius Cimber,

who had engaged to commence the assault, advancing nearer than the rest,

as if he had some favour to request, Caesar made signs that he should

defer his petition to some other time. Tullius immediately seized him by

the toga, on both shoulders; at which Caesar crying out, “Violence is

meant!” one of the Cassii wounded him a little below the throat. Caesar

seized him by the arm, and ran it through with his style [95]; and

endeavouring to rush forward was stopped by another wound. Finding

himself now attacked on all hands with naked poniards, he wrapped the

toga [96] about his head, and at the same moment drew the skirt round his

legs with his left hand, that he might fall more decently with the lower

part of his body covered. He was stabbed with three and twenty wounds,

uttering a groan only, but no cry, at the first wound; although some

authors relate, that when Marcus Brutus fell upon him, he exclaimed,

“What! art thou, too, one of them? Thou, my son!” [97] The whole

assembly instantly (52) dispersing, he lay for some time after he

expired, until three of his slaves laid the body on a litter, and carried

it home, with one arm hanging down over the side. Among so many wounds,

there was none that was mortal, in the opinion of the surgeon Antistius,

except the second, which he received in the breast. The conspirators

meant to drag his body into the Tiber as soon as they had killed him; to

confiscate his estate, and rescind all his enactments; but they were

deterred by fear of Mark Antony, and Lepidus, Caesar’s master of the

horse, and abandoned their intentions.

LXXXIII. At the instance of Lucius Piso, his father-in-law, his will was

opened and read in Mark Antony’s house. He had made it on the ides

[13th] of the preceding September, at his Lavican villa, and committed it

to the custody of the chief of the Vestal Virgins. Quintus Tubero

informs us, that in all the wills he had signed, from the time of his

first consulship to the breaking out of the civil war, Cneius Pompey was

appointed his heir, and that this had been publicly notified to the army.

But in his last will, he named three heirs, the grandsons of his sisters;

namely, Caius Octavius for three fourths of his estate, and Lucius

Pinarius and Quintus Pedius for the remaining fourth. Other heirs [in

remainder] were named at the close of the will, in which he also adopted

Caius Octavius, who was to assume his name, into his family; and

nominated most of those who were concerned in his death among the

guardians of his son, if he should have any; as well as Decimus Brutus

amongst his heirs of the second order. Be bequeathed to the Roman people

his gardens near the Tiber, and three hundred sesterces each man.

LXXXIV. Notice of his funeral having been solemnly proclaimed, a pile

was erected in the Campus Martius, near the tomb of his daughter Julia;

and before the Rostra was placed a gilded tabernacle, on the model of the

temple of Venus Genitrix; within which was an ivory bed, covered with

purple and cloth of gold. At the head was a trophy, with the

[bloodstained] robe in which he was slain. It being considered that the

whole day would not suffice for carrying the funeral oblations in solemn

procession before the corpse, directions were given for every one,

without regard to order, to carry them from the city into the Campus

Martius, by what way they pleased. To raise pity and indignation for his

murder, in the plays acted at the funeral, a passage was sung from

Pacuvius’s tragedy, entitled, “The Trial for Arms:”

That ever I, unhappy man, should save

Wretches, who thus have brought me to the grave! [98]

And some lines also from Attilius’s tragedy of “Electra,” to the same

effect. Instead of a funeral panegyric, the consul Antony ordered a

herald to proclaim to the people the decree of the senate, in which they

had bestowed upon him all honours, divine and human; with the oath by

which they had engaged themselves for the defence of his person; and to

these he added only a few words of his own. The magistrates and others

who had formerly filled the highest offices, carried the bier from the

Rostra into the Forum. While some proposed that the body should be burnt

in the sanctuary of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and others in

Pompey’s senate-house; on a sudden, two men, with swords by their sides,

and spears in their hands, set fire to the bier with lighted torches.

The throng around immediately heaped upon it dry faggots, the tribunals

and benches of the adjoining courts, and whatever else came to hand.

Then the musicians and players stripped off the dresses they wore on the

present occasion, taken from the wardrobe of his triumph at spectacles,

rent them, and threw them into the flames. The legionaries, also, of his

(54) veteran bands, cast in their armour, which they had put on in honour

of his funeral. Most of the ladies did the same by their ornaments, with

the bullae [99], and mantles of their children. In this public mourning

there joined a multitude of foreigners, expressing their sorrow according

to the fashion of their respective countries; but especially the Jews

was burnt.

LXXXV. The populace ran from the funeral, with torches in their hands,

to the houses of Brutus and Cassius, and were repelled with difficulty.

Going in quest of Cornelius Cinna, who had in a speech, the day before,

reflected severely upon Caesar, and mistaking for him Helvius Cinna, who

happened to fall into their hands, they murdered the latter, and carried

his head about the city on the point of a spear. They afterwards erected

in the Forum a column of Numidian marble, formed of one stone nearly

twenty feet high, and inscribed upon it these words, TO THE FATHER OF HIS

COUNTRY. At this column they continued for a long time to offer

sacrifices, make vows, and decide controversies, in which they swore by

Caesar.

LXXXVI. Some of Caesar’s friends entertained a suspicion, that he

neither desired nor cared to live any longer, on account of his declining

health; and for that reason slighted all the omens of religion, and the

warnings of his friends. Others are of opinion, that thinking himself

secure in the late decree of the senate, and their oaths, he dismissed

his Spanish guards who attended him with drawn swords. Others again

suppose, that he chose rather to face at once the dangers which

threatened him on all sides, than to be for ever on the watch against

them. Some tell us that he used to say, the commonwealth was more

interested in the safety of his person than himself: for that he had for

some time been satiated with power and glory; but that the commonwealth,

if any thing should befall him, would have no rest, and, involved in

another civil war, would be in a worse state than before.

(55) LXXXVII. This, however, was generally admitted, that his death was

in many respects such as he would have chosen. For, upon reading the

account delivered by Xenophon, how Cyrus in his last illness gave

instructions respecting his funeral, Caesar deprecated a lingering death,

and wished that his own might be sudden and speedy. And the day before

he died, the conversation at supper, in the house of Marcus Lepidus,

turning upon what was the most eligible way of dying, he gave his opinion

in favour of a death that is sudden and unexpected.

LXXXVIII. He died in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was ranked

amongst the Gods, not only by a formal decree, but in the belief of the

vulgar. For during the first games which Augustus, his heir, consecrated

to his memory, a comet blazed for seven days together, rising always

about eleven o’clock; and it was supposed to be the soul of Caesar, now

received into heaven: for which reason, likewise, he is represented on

his statue with a star on his brow. The senate-house in which he was

slain, was ordered to be shut up [101], and a decree made that the ides

of March should be called parricidal, and the senate should never more

assemble on that day.

LXXXIX. Scarcely any of those who were accessary to his murder, survived

him more than three years, or died a natural death [102]. They were all

condemned by the senate: some were taken off by one accident, some by

another. Part of them perished at sea, others fell in battle; and some

slew themselves with the same poniard with which they had stabbed Caesar

(56) [104] The termination of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey

forms a new epoch in the Roman History, at which a Republic, which had

subsisted with unrivalled glory during a period of about four hundred and

sixty years, relapsed into a state of despotism, whence it never more

could emerge. So sudden a transition from prosperity to the ruin of

public freedom, without the intervention of any foreign enemy, excites a

reasonable conjecture, that the constitution in which it could take

place, however vigorous in appearance, must have lost that soundness of

political health which had enabled it to endure through so many ages. A

short view of its preceding state, and of that in which it was at the

time of the revolution now mentioned, will best ascertain the foundation

of such a conjecture.

Though the Romans, upon the expulsion of Tarquin, made an essential

change in the political form of the state, they did not carry their

detestation of regal authority so far as to abolish the religious

institutions of Numa Pompilius, the second of their kings, according to

which, the priesthood, with all the influence annexed to that order, was

placed in the hands of the aristocracy. By this wise policy a restraint

was put upon the fickleness and violence of the people in matters of

government, and a decided superiority given to the Senate both in the

deliberative and executive parts of administration. This advantage was

afterwards indeed diminished by the creation of Tribunes of the people; a

set of men whose ambition often embroiled the Republic in civil

dissensions, and who at last abused their authority to such a degree,

that they became instruments of aggrandizement to any leading men in the

state who could purchase their friendship. In general, however, the

majority of the Tribunes being actuated by views which comprehended the

interests of the multitude, rather than those of individuals, they did

not so much endanger the liberty, as they interrupted the tranquillity,

of the public; and when the occasional commotions subsided, there

remained no permanent ground for the establishment of personal

usurpation.

In every government, an object of the last importance to the peace and

welfare of society is the morals of the people; and in proportion as a

community is enlarged by propagation, or the accession of a multitude of

new members, a more strict attention is requisite to guard against that

dissolution of manners to which a crowded and extensive capital has a

natural tendency. Of this (57) the Romans became sensible in the growing

state of the Republic. In the year of the City 312, two magistrates were

first created for taking an account of the number of the people, and the

value of their estates; and soon after, they were invested with the

authority not only of inspecting the morals of individuals, but of

inflicting public censure for any licentiousness of conduct, or violation

of decency. Thus both the civil and religious institutions concurred to

restrain the people within the bounds of good order and obedience to the

laws; at the same time that the frugal life of the ancient Romans proved

a strong security against those vices which operate most effectually

towards sapping the foundations of a state.

But in the time of Julius Caesar the barriers of public liberty were

become too weak to restrain the audacious efforts of ambitious and

desperate men. The veneration for the constitution, usually a powerful

check to treasonable designs, had been lately violated by the usurpations

of Marius and Sylla. The salutary terrors of religion no longer

predominated over the consciences of men. The shame of public censure

was extinguished in general depravity. An eminent historian, who lived

at that time, informs us, that venality universally prevailed amongst the

Romans; and a writer who flourished soon after, observes, that luxury and

dissipation had encumbered almost all so much with debt, that they beheld

with a degree of complacency the prospect of civil war and confusion.

The extreme degree of profligacy at which the Romans were now arrived is

in nothing more evident, than that this age gave birth to the most

horrible conspiracy which occurs in the annals of humankind, viz. that of

Catiline. This was not the project of a few desperate and abandoned

individuals, but of a number of men of the most illustrious rank in the

state; and it appears beyond doubt, that Julius Caesar was accessary to

the design, which was no less than to extirpate the Senate, divide

amongst themselves both the public and private treasures, and set Rome on

fire. The causes which prompted to this tremendous project, it is

generally admitted, were luxury, prodigality, irreligion, a total

corruption of manners, and above all, as the immediate cause, the

pressing necessity in which the conspirators were involved by their

extreme dissipation.

The enormous debt in which Caesar himself was early involved,

countenances an opinion that his anxiety to procure the province of Gaul

proceeded chiefly from this cause. But during nine years in which he

held that province, he acquired such riches as must have rendered him,

without competition, the most opulent person in the state. If nothing

more, therefore, than a (58) splendid establishment had been the object

of his pursuit, he had attained to the summit of his wishes. But when we

find him persevering in a plan of aggrandizement beyond this period of

his fortunes, we can ascribe his conduct to no other motive than that of

outrageous ambition. He projected the building of a new Forum at Rome,

for the ground only of which he was to pay 800,000 pounds; he raised

legions in Gaul at his own charges: he promised such entertainments to

the people as had never been known at Rome from the foundation of the

city. All these circumstances evince some latent design of procuring

such a popularity as might give him an uncontrolled influence in the

management of public affairs. Pompey, we are told, was wont to say, that

Caesar not being able, with all his riches, to fulfil the promises which

he had made, wished to throw everything into confusion. There may have

been some foundation for this remark: but the opinion of Cicero is more

probable, that Caesar’s mind was seduced with the temptations of

chimerical glory. It is observable that neither Cicero nor Pompey

intimates any suspicion that Caesar was apprehensive of being impeached

for his conduct, had he returned to Rome in a private station. Yet, that

there was reason for such an apprehension, the positive declaration of L.

Domitius leaves little room to doubt: especially when we consider the

number of enemies that Caesar had in the Senate, and the coolness of his

former friend Pompey ever after the death of Julia. The proposed

impeachment was founded upon a notorious charge of prosecuting measures

destructive of the interests of the commonwealth, and tending ultimately

to an object incompatible with public freedom. Indeed, considering the

extreme corruption which prevailed amongst the Romans at this time, it is

more than probable that Caesar would have been acquitted of the charge,

but at such an expense as must have stripped him of all his riches, and

placed him again in a situation ready to attempt a disturbance of the

public tranquillity. For it is said, that he purchased the friendship of

Curio, at the commencement of the civil war, with a bribe little short of

half a million sterling.

Whatever Caesar’s private motive may have been for taking arms against

his country, he embarked in an enterprise of a nature the most dangerous:

and had Pompey conducted himself in any degree suitable to the reputation

which he had formerly acquired, the contest would in all probability have

terminated in favour of public freedom. But by dilatory measures in the

beginning, by imprudently withdrawing his army from Italy into a distant

province, and by not pursuing the advantage he had gained by the vigorous

repulse of Caesar’s troops in their attack upon his camp, this commander

lost every opportunity of extinguishing a war which was to determine the

fate, and even the existence, of the Republic. It was accordingly

determined on the plains of Pharsalia, where Caesar obtained a victory

which was not more decisive than unexpected. He was now no longer

amenable either to the tribunal of the Senate or the power of the laws,

but triumphed at once over his enemies and the constitution of his

country.

It is to the honour of Caesar, that when he had obtained the supreme

power, he exercised it with a degree of moderation beyond what was

generally expected by those who had fought on the side of the Republic.

Of his private life either before or after this period, little is

transmitted in history. Henceforth, however, he seems to have lived

chiefly at Rome, near which he had a small villa, upon an eminence,

commanding a beautiful prospect. His time was almost entirely occupied

with public affairs, in the management of which, though he employed many

agents, he appears to have had none in the character of actual minister.

He was in general easy of access: but Cicero, in a letter to a friend,

complains of having been treated with the indignity of waiting a

considerable time amongst a crowd in an anti-chamber, before he could

have an audience. The elevation of Caesar placed him not above

discharging reciprocally the social duties in the intercourse of life.

He returned the visits of those who waited upon him, and would sup at

their houses. At table, and in the use of wine, he was habitually

temperate. Upon the whole, he added nothing to his own happiness by all

the dangers, the fatigues, and the perpetual anxiety which he had

incurred in the pursuit of unlimited power. His health was greatly

impaired: his former cheerfulness of temper, though not his magnanimity,

appears to have forsaken him; and we behold in his fate a memorable

example of illustrious talents rendered, by inordinate ambition,

destructive to himself, and irretrievably pernicious to his country.

From beholding the ruin of the Roman Republic, after intestine divisions,

and the distractions of civil war, it will afford some relief to take a

view of the progress of literature, which flourished even during those

calamities.

The commencement of literature in Rome is to be dated from the reduction

of the Grecian States, when the conquerors imported into their own

country the valuable productions of the Greek language, and the first

essay of Roman genius was in dramatic composition. Livius Andronicus,

who flourished about 240 years before the Christian aera, formed the

Fescennine verses into a kind of regular drama, upon the model of the

Greeks. He was followed some time after by Ennius, who, besides dramatic

and other compositions, (60) wrote the annals of the Roman Republic in

heroic verse. His style, like that of Andronicus, was rough and

unpolished, in conformity to the language of those times; but for

grandeur of sentiment and energy of expression, he was admired by the

greatest poets in the subsequent ages. Other writers of distinguished

reputation in the dramatic department were Naevius, Pacuvius, Plautus,

Afranius, Caecilius, Terence, Accius, etc. Accius and Pacuvius are

mentioned by Quintilian as writers of extraordinary merit. Of

twenty-five comedies written by Plautus, the number transmitted to

posterity is nineteen; and of a hundred and eight which Terence is said to

have translated from Menander, there now remain only six. Excepting a few

inconsiderable fragments, the writings of all the other authors have

perished. The early period of Roman literature was distinguished for the

introduction of satire by Lucilius, an author celebrated for writing with

remarkable ease, but whose compositions, in the opinion of Horace, though

Quintilian thinks otherwise, were debased with a mixture of feculency.

Whatever may have been their merit, they also have perished, with the

works of a number of orators, who adorned the advancing state of letters

in the Roman Republic. It is observable, that during this whole period,

of near two centuries and a half, there appeared not one historian of

eminence sufficient to preserve his name from oblivion.

Julius Caesar himself is one of the most eminent writers of the age in

which he lived. His commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars are

written with a purity, precision, and perspicuity, which command

approbation. They are elegant without affectation, and beautiful without

ornament. Of the two books which he composed on Analogy, and those under

the title of Anti-Cato, scarcely any fragment is preserved; but we may be

assured of the justness of the observations on language, which were made

by an author so much distinguished by the excellence of his own

compositions. His poem entitled The Journey, which was probably an

entertaining narrative, is likewise totally lost.

The most illustrious prose writer of this or any other age is M. Tullius

Cicero; and as his life is copiously related in biographical works, it

will be sufficient to mention his writings. From his earliest years, he

applied himself with unremitting assiduity to the cultivation of

literature, and, whilst he was yet a boy, wrote a poem, called Glaucus

Pontius, which was extant in Plutarch’s time. Amongst his juvenile

productions was a translation into Latin verse, of Aratus on the

Phaenomena of the Heavens; of which many fragments are still extant. He

also published a poem of the heroic kind, in honour of his countryman C.

Marius, who was born at Arpinum, the birth-place of Cicero. (61) This

production was greatly admired by Atticus; and old Scaevola was so much

pleased with it, that in an epigram written on the subject, he declares

that it would live as long as the Roman name and learning subsisted.

From a little specimen which remains of it, describing a memorable omen

given to Marina from an oak at Arpinum, there is reason to believe that

his poetical genius was scarcely inferior to his oratorical, had it been

cultivated with equal industry. He published another poem called Limon,

of which Donatus has preserved four lines in the life of Terence, in

praise of the elegance and purity of that poet’s style. He composed in

the Greek language, and in the style and manner of Isocrates, a

Commentary or Memoirs of the Transactions of his Consulship. This he

sent to Atticus, with a desire, if he approved it, to publish it in

Athens and the cities of Greece. He sent a copy of it likewise to

Posidonius of Rhodes, and requested of him to undertake the same subject

in a more elegant and masterly manner. But the latter returned for

answer, that, instead of being encouraged to write by the perusal of his

tract, he was quite deterred from attempting it.

Upon the plan of those Memoirs, he afterwards composed a Latin poem in

three books, in which he carried down the history to the end of his

exile, but did not publish it for several years, from motives of

delicacy. The three books were severally inscribed to the three Muses;

but of this work there now remain only a few fragments, scattered in

different parts of his other writings. He published, about the same

time, a collection of the principal speeches which he had made in his

consulship, under the title of his Consular Orations. They consisted

originally of twelve; but four are entirely lost, and some of the rest

are imperfect. He now published also, in Latin verse, a translation of

the Prognostics of Aratus, of which work no more than two or three small

fragments now remain. A few years after, he put the last hand to his

Dialogues upon the Character and Idea of the perfect Orator. This

admirable work remains entire; a monument both of the astonishing

industry and transcendent abilities of its author. At his Cuman villa,

he next began a Treatise on Politics, or on the best State of a City, and

the Duties of a Citizen. He calls it a great and a laborious work, yet

worthy of his pains, if he could succeed in it. This likewise was

written in the form of a dialogue, in which the speakers were Scipio,

Laelius, Philus, Manilius, and other great persons in the former times of

the Republic. It was comprised in six books, and survived him for

several ages, though it is now unfortunately lost. From the fragments

which remain, it appears to have been a masterly production, in which all

the important questions in politics and morality were discussed with

elegance and accuracy.

(62) Amidst all the anxiety for the interests of the Republic, which

occupied the thoughts of this celebrated personage, he yet found leisure

to write several philosophical tracts, which still subsist, to the

gratification of the literary world. He composed a treatise on the

Nature of the Gods, in three books, containing a comprehensive view of

religion, faith, oaths, ceremonies, etc. In elucidating this important

subject, he not only delivers the opinions of all the philosophers who

had written anything concerning it, but weighs and compares attentively

all the arguments with each other; forming upon the whole such a rational

and perfect system of natural religion, as never before was presented to

the consideration of mankind, and approaching nearly to revelation. He

now likewise composed in two books, a discourse on Divination, in which

he discusses at large all the arguments that may be advanced for and

against the actual existence of such a species of knowledge. Like the

preceding works, it is written in the form of dialogue, and in which the

chief speaker is Laelius. The same period gave birth to his treatise on

Old Age, called Cato Major; and to that on Friendship, written also in

dialogue, and in which the chief speaker is Laelius. This book,

considered merely as an essay, is one of the most entertaining

productions of ancient times; but, beheld as a picture drawn from life,

exhibiting the real characters and sentiments of men of the first

distinction for virtue and wisdom in the Roman Republic, it becomes

doubly interesting to every reader of observation and taste. Cicero now

also wrote his discourse on Fate, which was the subject of a conversation

with Hirtius, in his villa near Puteoli; and he executed about the same

time a translation of Plato’s celebrated Dialogue, called Timaeus, on the

nature and origin of the universe. He was employing himself also on a

history of his own times, or rather of his own conduct; full of free and

severe reflections on those who had abused their power to the oppression

of the Republic. Dion Cassius says, that he delivered this book sealed

up to his son, with strict orders not to read or publish it till after

his death; but from this time he never saw his son, and it is probable

that he left the work unfinished. Afterwards, however, some copies of it

were circulated; from which his commentator, Asconius, has quoted several

particulars.

During a voyage which he undertook to Sicily, he wrote his treatise on

Topics, or the Art of finding Arguments on any Question. This was an

abstract from Aristotle’s treatise on the same subject; and though he had

neither Aristotle nor any other book to assist him, he drew it up from

his memory, and finished it as he sailed along the coast of Calabria.

The last (63) work composed by Cicero appears to have been his Offices,

written for the use of his son, to whom it is addressed. This treatise

contains a system of moral conduct, founded upon the noblest principles

of human action, and recommended by arguments drawn from the purest

sources of philosophy.

Such are the literary productions of this extraordinary man, whose

comprehensive understanding enabled him to conduct with superior ability

the most abstruse disquisitions into moral and metaphysical science.

Born in an age posterior to Socrates and Plato, he could not anticipate

the principles inculcated by those divine philosophers, but he is justly

entitled to the praise, not only of having prosecuted with unerring

judgment the steps which they trod before him, but of carrying his

researches to greater extent into the most difficult regions of

philosophy. This too he had the merit to perform, neither in the station

of a private citizen, nor in the leisure of academic retirement, but in

the bustle of public life, amidst the almost constant exertions of the

bar, the employment of the magistrate, the duty of the senator, and the

incessant cares of the statesman; through a period likewise chequered

with domestic afflictions and fatal commotions in the Republic. As a

philosopher, his mind appears to have been clear, capacious, penetrating,

and insatiable of knowledge. As a writer, he was endowed with every

talent that could captivate either the judgment or taste. His researches

were continually employed on subjects of the greatest utility to mankind,

and those often such as extended beyond the narrow bounds of temporal

existence. The being of a God, the immortality of the soul, a future

state of rewards and punishments, and the eternal distinction of good and

evil; these were in general the great objects of his philosophical

enquiries, and he has placed them in a more convincing point of view than

they ever were before exhibited to the pagan world. The variety and

force of the arguments which he advances, the splendour of his diction,

and the zeal with which he endeavours to excite the love and admiration

of virtue, all conspire to place his character, as a philosophical

writer, including likewise his incomparable eloquence, on the summit of

human celebrity.

The form of dialogue, so much used by Cicero, he doubtless adopted in

imitation of Plato, who probably took the hint of it from the colloquial

method of instruction practised by Socrates. In the early stage of

philosophical enquiry, this mode of composition was well adapted, if not

to the discovery, at least to the confirmation of moral truth; especially

as the practice was then not uncommon, for speculative men to converse

together on important subjects, for mutual information. In treating of

any subject respecting which the different sects of philosophers differed

(64) from each other in point of sentiment, no kind of composition could

be more happily suited than dialogue, as it gave alternately full scope

to the arguments of the various disputants. It required, however, that

the writer should exert his understanding with equal impartiality and

acuteness on the different sides of the question; as otherwise he might

betray a cause under the appearance of defending it. In all the

dialogues of Cicero, he manages the arguments of the several disputants

in a manner not only the most fair and interesting, but also such as

leads to the most probable and rational conclusion.

After enumerating the various tracts composed and published by Cicero, we

have now to mention his Letters, which, though not written for

publication, deserve to be ranked among the most interesting remains of

Roman literature. The number of such as are addressed to different

correspondents is considerable, but those to Atticus alone, his

confidential friend, amount to upwards of four hundred; among which are

many of great length. They are all written in the genuine spirit of the

most approved epistolary composition; uniting familiarity with elevation,

and ease with elegance. They display in a beautiful light the author’s

character in the social relations of life; as a warm friend, a zealous

patron, a tender husband, an affectionate brother, an indulgent father,

and a kind master. Beholding them in a more extensive view, they exhibit

an ardent love of liberty and the constitution of his country: they

discover a mind strongly actuated with the principles of virtue and

reason; and while they abound in sentiments the most judicious and

philosophical, they are occasionally blended with the charms of wit, and

agreeable effusions of pleasantry. What is likewise no small addition to

their merit, they contain much interesting description of private life,

with a variety of information relative to public transactions and

characters of that age. It appears from Cicero’s correspondence, that

there was at that time such a number of illustrious Romans, as never

before existed in any one period of the Republic. If ever, therefore,

the authority of men the most respectable for virtue, rank, and

abilities, could have availed to overawe the first attempts at a

violation of public liberty, it must have been at this period; for the

dignity of the Roman senate was now in the zenith of its splendour.

Cicero has been accused of excessive vanity, and of arrogating to himself

an invidious superiority, from his extraordinary talents but whoever

peruses his letters to Atticus, must readily acknowledge, that this

imputation appears to be destitute of truth. In those excellent

productions, though he adduces the strongest arguments for and against

any object of consideration, that the (65) most penetrating understanding

can suggest, weighs them with each other, and draws from them the most

rational conclusions, he yet discovers such a diffidence in his own

opinion, that he resigns himself implicitly to the judgment and direction

of his friend; a modesty not very compatible with the disposition of the

arrogant, who are commonly tenacious of their own opinion, particularly

in what relates to any decision of the understanding.

It is difficult to say, whether Cicero appears in his letters more great

or amiable: but that he was regarded by his contemporaries in both these

lights, and that too in the highest degree, is sufficiently evident. We

may thence infer, that the great poets in the subsequent age must have

done violence to their own liberality and discernment, when, in

compliment to Augustus, whose sensibility would have been wounded by the

praises of Cicero, and even by the mention of his name, they have so

industriously avoided the subject, as not to afford the most distant

intimation that this immortal orator and philosopher had ever existed.

Livy however, there is reason to think, did some justice to his memory:

but it was not until the race of the Caesars had become extinct, that he

received the free and unanimous applause of impartial posterity. Such

was the admiration which Quintilian entertained of his writings, that he

considered the circumstance or being delighted with them, as an

indubitable proof of judgment and taste in literature. Ille se

profecisse sciat, cui Cicero valde placebit. [105]

In this period is likewise to be placed M. Terentius Varro, the

celebrated Roman grammarian, and the Nestor of ancient learning. The

first mention made of him is, that he was lieutenant to Pompey in his

piratical wars, and obtained in that service a naval crown. In the civil

wars he joined the side of the Republic, and was taken by Caesar; by whom

he was likewise proscribed, but obtained a remission of the sentence. Of

all the ancients, he has acquired the greatest fame for his extensive

erudition; and we may add, that he displayed the same industry in

communicating, as he had done in collecting it. His works originally

amounted to no less than five hundred volumes, which have all perished,

except a treatise De Lingua Latina, and one De Re Rustica. Of the former

of these, which is addressed to Cicero, three books at the beginning are

also lost. It appears from the introduction of the fourth book, that

they all related to etymology. The first contained such observations as

might be made against it; the second, such as might be made in its

favour; and the third, observations upon it. He next proceeds to

investigate the origin of (66) Latin words. In the fourth book, he

traces those which relate to place; in the fifth, those connected with

the idea of time; and in the sixth, the origin of both these classes, as

they appear in the writings of the poets. The seventh book is employed

on declension; in which the author enters upon a minute and extensive

enquiry, comprehending a variety of acute and profound observations on

the formation of Latin nouns, and their respective natural declinations

from the nominative case. In the eighth, he examines the nature and

limits of usage and analogy in language; and in the ninth and last book

on the subject, takes a general view of what is the reverse of analogy,

viz. anomaly. The precision and perspicuity which Varro displays in this

work merit the highest encomiums, and justify the character given him in

his own time, of being the most learned of the Latin grammarians. To the

loss of the first three books, are to be added several chasms in the

others; but fortunately they happen in such places as not to affect the

coherency of the author’s doctrine, though they interrupt the

illustration of it. It is observable that this great grammarian makes

use of quom for quum, heis for his, and generally queis for quibus. This

practice having become rather obsolete at the time in which he wrote, we

must impute his continuance of it to his opinion of its propriety, upon

its established principles of grammar, and not to any prejudice of

education, or an affectation of singularity. As Varro makes no mention

of Caesar’s treatise on Analogy, and had commenced author long before

him, it is probable that Caesar’s production was of a much later date;

and thence we may infer, that those two writers differed from each other,

at least with respect to some particulars on that subject.

This author’s treatise De Re Rustica was undertaken at the desire of a

friend, who, having purchased some lands, requested of Varro the favour

of his instructions relative to farming, and the economy of a country

life, in its various departments. Though Varro was at this time in his

eightieth year, he writes with all the vivacity, though without the

levity, of youth, and sets out with invoking, not the Muses, like Homer

and Ennius, as he observes, but the twelve deities supposed to be chiefly

concerned in the operations of agriculture. It appears from the account

which he gives, that upwards of fifty Greek authors had treated of this

subject in prose, besides Hesiod and Menecrates the Ephesian, who both

wrote in verse; exclusive likewise of many Roman writers, and of Mago the

Carthaginian, who wrote in the Punic language. Varro’s work is divided

into three books, the first of which treats of agriculture; the second,

of rearing of cattle; and the third, of feeding animals for the use of

the table. (67) In the last of these, we meet with a remarkable instance

of the prevalence of habit and fashion over human sentiment, where the

author delivers instructions relative to the best method of fattening

rats.

We find from Quintilian, that Varro likewise composed satires in various

kinds of verse. It is impossible to behold the numerous fragments of

this venerable author without feeling the strongest regret for the loss

of that vast collection of information which he had compiled, and of

judicious observations which he had made on a variety of subjects, during

a life of eighty-eight years, almost entirely devoted to literature. The

remark of St. Augustine is well founded, That it is astonishing how

Varro, who read such a number of books, could find time to compose so

many volumes; and how he who composed so many volumes, could be at

leisure to peruse such a variety of books, and to gain so much literary

information.

Catullus is said to have been born at Verona, of respectable parents; his

father and himself being in the habit of intimacy with Julius Caesar. He

was brought to Rome by Mallius, to whom several of his epigrams are

addressed. The gentleness of his manners, and his application to study,

we are told, recommended him to general esteem; and he had the good

fortune to obtain the patronage of Cicero. When he came to be known as a

poet, all these circumstances would naturally contribute to increase his

reputation for ingenuity; and accordingly we find his genius applauded by

several of his contemporaries. It appears that his works are not

transmitted entire to posterity; but there remain sufficient specimens by

which we may be enabled to appreciate his poetical talents.

Quintilian, and Diomed the grammarian, have ranked Catullus amongst the

iambic writers, while others have placed him amongst the lyric. He has

properly a claim to each of these stations; but his versification being

chiefly iambic, the former of the arrangements seems to be the most

suitable. The principal merit of Catullus’s Iambics consists in a

simplicity of thought and expression. The thoughts, however, are often

frivolous, and, what is yet more reprehensible, the author gives way to

gross obscenity: in vindication of which, he produces the following

couplet, declaring that a good poet ought to be chaste in his own person,

but that his verses need not be so.

Nam castum esse decet pium poetam

Ipsum: versiculos nihil necesse est.

This sentiment has been frequently cited by those who were inclined to

follow the example of Catullus; but if such a practice be in any case

admissible, it is only where the poet personates (68) a profligate

character; and the instances in which it is adopted by Catullus are not

of that description. It had perhaps been a better apology, to have

pleaded the manners of the times; for even Horace, who wrote only a few

years after, has suffered his compositions to be occasionally debased by

the same kind of blemish.

Much has been said of this poet’s invective against Caesar, which

produced no other effect than an invitation to sup at the dictator’s

house. It was indeed scarcely entitled to the honour of the smallest

resentment. If any could be shewn, it must have been for the freedom

used by the author, and not for any novelty in his lampoon. There are

two poems on this subject, viz. the twenty-ninth and fifty-seventh, in

each of which Caesar is joined with Mamurra, a Roman knight, who had

acquired great riches in the Gallic war. For the honour of Catullus’s

gratitude, we should suppose that the latter is the one to which

historians allude: but, as poetical compositions, they are equally

unworthy of regard. The fifty seventh is nothing more than a broad

repetition of the raillery, whether well or ill founded, with which

Caesar was attacked on various occasions, and even in the senate, after

his return from Bithynia. Caesar had been taunted with this subject for

upwards of thirty years; and after so long a familiarity with reproach,

his sensibility to the scandalous imputation must now have been much

diminished, if not entirely extinguished. The other poem is partly in

the same strain, but extended to greater length, by a mixture of common

jocular ribaldry of the Roman soldiers, expressed nearly in the same

terms which Caesar’s legions, though strongly attached to his person,

scrupled not to sport publicly in the streets of Rome, against their

general, during the celebration of his triumph. In a word, it deserves

to be regarded as an effusion of Saturnalian licentiousness, rather than

of poetry. With respect to the Iambics of Catullus, we may observe in

general, that the sarcasm is indebted for its force, not so much to

ingenuity of sentiment, as to the indelicate nature of the subject, or

coarseness of expression.

The descriptive poems of Catullus are superior to the others, and

discover a lively imagination. Amongst the best of his productions, is a

translation of the celebrated ode of Sappho:

Ille mi par esse Deo videtur,

me, etc.

This ode is executed both with spirit and elegance; it is, however,

imperfect; and the last stanza seems to be spurious. Catullus’s epigrams

are entitled to little praise, with regard either to sentiment or point;

and on the whole, his merit, as a poet, appears to have been magnified

beyond its real extent. He is said to have died about the thirtieth year

of his age.

(69) Lucretius is the author of a celebrated poem, in six books, De Rerum

Natura; a subject which had been treated many ages before by Empedocles,

a philosopher and poet of Agrigentum. Lucretius was a zealous partizan

of Democritus, and the sect of Epicurus, whose principles concerning the

eternity of matter, the materiality of the soul, and the non-existence of

a future state of rewards and punishments, he affects to maintain with a

certainty equal to that of mathematical demonstration. Strongly

prepossessed with the hypothetical doctrines of his master, and ignorant

of the physical system of the universe, he endeavours to deduce from the

phenomena of the material world conclusions not only unsupported by

legitimate theory, but repugnant to the principles of the highest

authority in metaphysical disquisition. But while we condemn his

speculative notions as degrading to human nature, and subversive of the

most important interests of mankind, we must admit that he has prosecuted

his visionary hypothesis with uncommon ingenuity. Abstracting from it

the rhapsodical nature of this production, and its obscurity in some

parts, it has great merit as a poem. The style is elevated, and the

versification in general harmonious. By the mixture of obsolete words,

it possesses an air of solemnity well adapted to abstruse researches; at

the same time that by the frequent resolution of diphthongs, it instils

into the Latin the sonorous and melodious powers of the Greek language.

While Lucretius was engaged in this work, he fell into a state of

insanity, occasioned, as is supposed, by a philtre, or love-potion, given

him by his wife Lucilia. The complaint, however, having lucid intervals,

he employed them in the execution of his plan, and, soon after it was

finished, laid violent hands upon himself, in the forty-third year of his

age. This fatal termination of his life, which perhaps proceeded from

insanity, was ascribed by his friends and admirers to his concern for the

banishment of one Memmius, with whom he was intimately connected, and for

the distracted state of the republic. It was, however, a catastrophe

which the principles of Epicurus, equally erroneous and irreconcilable to

resignation and fortitude, authorized in particular circumstances. Even

Atticus, the celebrated correspondent of Cicero, a few years after this

period, had recourse to the same desperate expedient, by refusing all

sustenance, while he laboured under a lingering disease.

It is said that Cicero revised the poem of Lucretius after the death of

the author, and this circumstance is urged by the abettors of atheism, as

a proof that the principles contained in the work had the sanction of his

authority. But no inference in favour of Lucretius’s doctrine can justly

be drawn from this circumstance. (70) Cicero, though already

sufficiently acquainted with the principles of the Epicurean sect, might

not be averse to the perusal of a production, which collected and

enforced them in a nervous strain of poetry; especially as the work was

likely to prove interesting to his friend Atticus, and would perhaps

afford subject for some letters or conversation between them. It can

have been only with reference to composition that the poem was submitted

to Cicero’s revisal: for had he been required to exercise his judgment

upon its principles, he must undoubtedly have so much mutilated the work,

as to destroy the coherency of the system. He might be gratified with

the shew of elaborate research, and confident declamation, which it

exhibited, but he must have utterly disapproved of the conclusions which

the author endeavoured to establish. According to the best information,

Lucretius died in the year from the building of Rome 701, when Pompey was

the third time consul. Cicero lived several years beyond this period,

and in the two last years of his life, he composed those valuable works

which contain sentiments diametrically repugnant to the visionary system

of Epicurus. The argument, therefore, drawn from Cicero’s revisal, so

far from confirming the principle of Lucretius, affords the strongest

tacit declaration against their validity; because a period sufficient for

mature consideration had elapsed, before Cicero published his own

admirable system of philosophy. The poem of Lucretius, nevertheless, has

been regarded as the bulwark of atheism--of atheism, which, while it

impiously arrogates the support of reason, both reason and nature

disclaim.

Many more writers flourished in this period, but their works have totally

perished. Sallust was now engaged in historical productions; but as they

were not yet completed, they will be noticed in the next division of the

review.

(71)

I. That the family of the Octavii was of the first distinction in

Velitrae [106], is rendered evident by many circumstances. For in the

most frequented part of the town, there was, not long since, a street

named the Octavian; and an altar was to be seen, consecrated to one

Octavius, who being chosen general in a war with some neighbouring

people, the enemy making a sudden attack, while he was sacrificing to

Mars, he immediately snatched the entrails of the victim from off the

fire, and offered them half raw upon the altar; after which, marching out

to battle, he returned victorious. This incident gave rise to a law, by

which it was enacted, that in all future times the entrails should be

offered to Mars in the same manner; and the rest of the victim be carried

to the Octavii.

II. This family, as well as several in Rome, was admitted into the

senate by Tarquinius Priscus, and soon afterwards placed by Servius

Tullius among the patricians; but in process of time it transferred

itself to the plebeian order, and, after the lapse of a long interval,

was restored by Julius Caesar to the rank of patricians. The first

person of the family raised by the suffrages of the people to the

magistracy, was Caius Rufus. He obtained the quaestorship, and had two

sons, Cneius and Caius; from whom are descended the two branches of the

Octavian family, which have had very different fortunes. For Cneius, and

his descendants in uninterrupted succession, held all the highest offices

of the state; whilst Caius and his posterity, whether from their

circumstances or their choice, remained in the equestrian order until the

father of Augustus. The great-grandfather of Augustus served as a

military tribune in the second Punic war in Sicily, under the command of

Aemilius Pappus. His grandfather contented himself with bearing the

public offices of his own municipality, and grew old in the tranquil

enjoyment of an ample patrimony. Such is the account given (72) by

different authors. Augustus himself, however, tells us nothing more than

that he was descended of an equestrian family, both ancient and rich, of

which his father was the first who obtained the rank of senator. Mark

Antony upbraidingly tells him that his great-grandfather was a freedman

of the territory of Thurium [107], and a rope-maker, and his grandfather

a usurer. This is all the information I have any where met with,

respecting the ancestors of Augustus by the father’s side.

III. His father Caius Octavius was, from his earliest years, a person

both of opulence and distinction: for which reason I am surprised at

those who say that he was a money-dealer [108], and was employed in

scattering bribes, and canvassing for the candidates at elections, in the

Campus Martius. For being bred up in all the affluence of a great

estate, he attained with ease to honourable posts, and discharged the

duties of them with much distinction. After his praetorship, he obtained

by lot the province of Macedonia; in his way to which he cut off some

banditti, the relics of the armies of Spartacus and Catiline, who had

possessed themselves of the territory of Thurium; having received from

the senate an extraordinary commission for that purpose. In his

government of the province, he conducted himself with equal justice and

resolution; for he defeated the Bessians and Thracians in a great battle,

and treated the allies of the republic in such a manner, that there are

extant letters from M. Tullius Cicero, in which he advises and exhorts

his brother Quintus, who then held the proconsulship of Asia with no

great reputation, to imitate the example of his neighbour Octavius, in

gaining the affections of the allies of Rome.

IV. After quitting Macedonia, before he could declare himself a

candidate for the consulship, he died suddenly, leaving behind him a

daughter, the elder Octavia, by Ancharia; and another daughter, Octavia

the younger, as well as Augustus, by Atia, who was the daughter of Marcus

Atius Balbus, and Julia, sister to Caius Julius Caesar. Balbus was, by

the father’s (73) side, of a family who were natives of Aricia [109], and

many of whom had been in the senate. By the mother’s side he was nearly

related to Pompey the Great; and after he had borne the office of

praetor, was one of the twenty commissioners appointed by the Julian law

to divide the land in Campania among the people. But Mark Antony,

treating with contempt Augustus’s descent even by the mother’s side, says

that his great grand-father was of African descent, and at one time kept

a perfumer’s shop, and at another, a bake-house, in Aricia. And Cassius

of Parma, in a letter, taxes Augustus with being the son not only of a

baker, but a usurer. These are his words: “Thou art a lump of thy

mother’s meal, which a money-changer of Nerulum taking from the newest

bake-house of Aricia, kneaded into some shape, with his hands all

discoloured by the fingering of money.”

V. Augustus was born in the consulship of Marcus Tullius Cicero and

Caius Antonius [110], upon the ninth of the calends of October [the 23rd

September], a little before sunrise, in the quarter of the Palatine Hill

chapel dedicated to him, and built a little after his death. For, as it

is recorded in the proceedings of the senate, when Caius Laetorius, a

young man of a patrician family, in pleading before the senators for a

lighter sentence, upon his being convicted of adultery, alleged, besides

his youth and quality, that he was the possessor, and as it were the

guardian, of the ground which the Divine Augustus first touched upon his

coming into the world; and entreated that (74) he might find favour, for

the sake of that deity, who was in a peculiar manner his; an act of the

senate was passed, for the consecration of that part of his house in

which Augustus was born.

VI. His nursery is shewn to this day, in a villa belonging to the

family, in the suburbs of Velitrae; being a very small place, and much

like a pantry. An opinion prevails in the neighbourhood, that he was

also born there. Into this place no person presumes to enter, unless

upon necessity, and with great devotion, from a belief, for a long time

prevalent, that such as rashly enter it are seized with great horror and

consternation, which a short while since was confirmed by a remarkable

incident. For when a new inhabitant of the house had, either by mere

chance, or to try the truth of the report, taken up his lodging in that

apartment, in the course of the night, a few hours afterwards, he was

thrown out by some sudden violence, he knew not how, and was found in a

state of stupefaction, with the coverlid of his bed, before the door of

the chamber.

VII. While he was yet an infant, the surname of Thurinus was given him,

in memory of the birth-place of his family, or because, soon after he was

born, his father Octavius had been successful against the fugitive

slaves, in the country near Thurium. That he was surnamed Thurinus, I

can affirm upon good foundation, for when a boy, I had a small bronze

statue of him, with that name upon it in iron letters, nearly effaced by

age, which I presented to the emperor [113], by whom it is now revered

amongst the other tutelary deities in his chamber. He is also often

called Thurinus contemptuously, by Mark Antony in his letters; to which

he makes only this reply: “I am surprised that my former name should be

made a subject of reproach.” He afterwards assumed the name of Caius

Caesar, and then of Augustus; the former in compliance with the will of

his great-uncle, and the latter upon a motion of Munatius Plancus in the

senate. For when some proposed to confer upon him the name of Romulus,

as being, in a manner, a second founder of the city, it was resolved that

he should rather be called Augustus, a surname not only new, but of more

dignity, because places devoted to religion, and those in which anything

(75) is consecrated by augury, are denominated august, either from the

word auctus, signifying augmentation, or ab avium gestu, gustuve, from

the flight and feeding of birds; as appears from this verse of Ennius:

When glorious Rome by august augury was built. [114]

VIII. He lost his father when he was only four years of age; and, in his

twelfth year, pronounced a funeral oration in praise of his grand-mother

Julia. Four years afterwards, having assumed the robe of manhood, he was

honoured with several military rewards by Caesar in his African triumph,

although he took no part in the war, on account of his youth. Upon his

uncle’s expedition to Spain against the sons of Pompey, he was followed

by his nephew, although he was scarcely recovered from a dangerous

sickness; and after being shipwrecked at sea, and travelling with very

few attendants through roads that were infested with the enemy, he at

last came up with him. This activity gave great satisfaction to his

uncle, who soon conceived an increasing affection for him, on account of

such indications of character. After the subjugation of Spain, while

Caesar was meditating an expedition against the Dacians and Parthians, he

was sent before him to Apollonia, where he applied himself to his

studies; until receiving intelligence that his uncle was murdered, and

that he was appointed his heir, he hesitated for some time whether he

should call to his aid the legions stationed in the neighbourhood; but he

abandoned the design as rash and premature. However, returning to Rome,

he took possession of his inheritance, although his mother was

apprehensive that such a measure might be attended with danger, and his

step-father, Marcius Philippus, a man of consular rank, very earnestly

dissuaded him from it. From this time, collecting together a strong

military force, he first held the government in conjunction with Mark

Antony and Marcus Lepidus, then with Antony only, for nearly twelve

years, and at last in his own hands during a period of four and forty.

IX. Having thus given a very short summary of his life, I shall

prosecute the several parts of it, not in order of time, but arranging

his acts into distinct classes, for the sake of (76) perspicuity. He was

engaged in five civil wars, namely those of Modena, Philippi, Perugia,

Sicily, and Actium; the first and last of which were against Antony, and

the second against Brutus and Cassius; the third against Lucius Antonius,

the triumvir’s brother, and the fourth against Sextus Pompeius, the son

of Cneius Pompeius.

X. The motive which gave rise to all these wars was the opinion he

entertained that both his honour and interest were concerned in revenging

the murder of his uncle, and maintaining the state of affairs he had

established. Immediately after his return from Apollonia, he formed the

design of taking forcible and unexpected measures against Brutus and

Cassius; but they having foreseen the danger and made their escape, he

resolved to proceed against them by an appeal to the laws in their

absence, and impeach them for the murder. In the mean time, those whose

province it was to prepare the sports in honour of Caesar’s last victory

in the civil war, not daring to do it, he undertook it himself. And that

he might carry into effect his other designs with greater authority, he

declared himself a candidate in the room of a tribune of the people who

happened to die at that time, although he was of a patrician family, and

had not yet been in the senate. But the consul, Mark Antony, from whom

he had expected the greatest assistance, opposing him in his suit, and

even refusing to do him so much as common justice, unless gratified with

a large bribe, he went over to the party of the nobles, to whom he

perceived Sylla to be odious, chiefly for endeavouring to drive Decius

Brutus, whom he besieged in the town of Modena, out of the province,

which had been given him by Caesar, and confirmed to him by the senate.

At the instigation of persons about him, he engaged some ruffians to

murder his antagonist; but the plot being discovered, and dreading a

similar attempt upon himself, he gained over Caesar’s veteran soldiers,

by distributing among them all the money he could collect. Being now

commissioned by the senate to command the troops he had gathered, with

the rank of praetor, and in conjunction with Hirtius and Pansa, who had

accepted the consulship, to carry assistance to Decius Brutus, he put an

end to the war by two battles in three months. Antony writes, that in

the former of these he ran away, and two days afterwards made his

appearance (77) without his general’s cloak and his horse. In the last

battle, however, it is certain that he performed the part not only of a

general, but a soldier; for, in the heat of the battle; when the

standard-bearer of his legion was severely wounded, he took the eagle

upon his shoulders, and carried it a long time.

XI. In this war [115], Hirtius being slain in battle, and Pansa dying a

short time afterwards of a wound, a report was circulated that they both

were killed through his means, in order that, when Antony fled, the

republic having lost its consuls, he might have the victorious armies

entirely at his own command. The death of Pansa was so fully believed to

have been caused by undue means, that Glyco, his surgeon, was placed in

custody, on a suspicion of having poisoned his wound. And to this,

Aquilius Niger adds, that he killed Hirtius, the other consul, in the

confusion of the battle, with his own hands.

XII. But upon intelligence that Antony, after his defeat, had been

received by Marcus Lepidus, and that the rest of the generals and armies

had all declared for the senate, he, without any hesitation, deserted

from the party of the nobles; alleging as an excuse for his conduct, the

actions and sayings of several amongst them; for some said, “he was a

mere boy,” and others threw out, “that he ought to be promoted to

honours, and cut off,” to avoid the making any suitable acknowledgment

either to him or the veteran legions. And the more to testify his regret

for having before attached himself to the other faction, he fined the

Nursini in a large sum of money, which they were unable to pay, and then

expelled them from the town, for having inscribed upon a monument,

erected at the public charge to their countrymen who were slain in the

battle of Modena, “That they fell in the cause of liberty.”

XIII. Having entered into a confederacy with Antony and Lepidus, he

brought the war at Philippi to an end in two battles, although he was at

that time weak, and suffering from sickness [116]. In the first battle

he was driven from his camp, (78) and with some difficulty made his

escape to the wing of the army commanded by Antony. And now, intoxicated

with success, he sent the head of Brutus [117] to be cast at the foot of

Caesar’s statue, and treated the most illustrious of the prisoners not

only with cruelty, but with abusive language; insomuch that he is said to

have answered one of them who humbly intreated that at least he might not

remain unburied, “That will be in the power of the birds.” Two others,

father and son, who begged for their lives, he ordered to cast lots which

of them should live, or settle it between themselves by the sword; and

was a spectator of both their deaths: for the father offering his life to

save his son, and being accordingly executed, the son likewise killed

himself upon the spot. On this account, the rest of the prisoners, and

amongst them Marcus Favonius, Cato’s rival, being led up in fetters,

after they had saluted Antony, the general, with much respect, reviled

Octavius in the foulest language. After this victory, dividing between

them the offices of the state, Mark Antony [118] undertook to restore

order in the east, while Caesar conducted the veteran soldiers back to

Italy, and settled them in colonies on the lands belonging to the

municipalities. But he had the misfortune to please neither the soldiers

nor the owners of the lands; one party complaining of the injustice done

them, in being violently ejected from their possessions, and the other,

that they were not rewarded according to their merit. [119]

XIV. At this time he obliged Lucius Antony, who, presuming upon his own

authority as consul, and his brother’s power, was raising new commotions,

to fly to Perugia, and forced him, by famine, to surrender at last,

although not without having been exposed to great hazards, both before

the war and during its continuance. For a common soldier having got into

the seats of the equestrian order in the theatre, at the public

spectacles, Caesar ordered him to be removed by an officer; and a rumour

being thence spread by his enemies, that he had (79) put the man to death

by torture, the soldiers flocked together so much enraged, that he

narrowly escaped with his life. The only thing that saved him, was the

sudden appearance of the man, safe and sound, no violence having been

offered him. And whilst he was sacrificing under the walls of Perugia,

he nearly fell into the hands of a body of gladiators, who sallied out of

the town.

XV. After the taking of Perugia [120], he sentenced a great number of

the prisoners to death, making only one reply to all who implored pardon,

or endeavoured to excuse themselves, “You must die.” Some authors write,

that three hundred of the two orders, selected from the rest, were

slaughtered, like victims, before an altar raised to Julius Caesar, upon

the ides of March [15th April] [121]. Nay, there are some who relate,

that he entered upon the war with no other view, than that his secret

enemies, and those whom fear more than affection kept quiet, might be

detected, by declaring themselves, now they had an opportunity, with

Lucius Antony at their head; and that having defeated them, and

confiscated their estates, he might be enabled to fulfil his promises to

the veteran soldiers.

XVI. He soon commenced the Sicilian war, but it was protracted by

various delays during a long period [122]; at one time for the purpose of

repairing his fleets, which he lost twice by storm, even in the summer;

at another, while patching up a peace, to which he was forced by the

clamours of the people, in consequence of a famine occasioned by Pompey’s

cutting off the supply of corn by sea. But at last, having built a new

fleet, and obtained twenty thousand manumitted slaves [123], who were

given him for the oar, he formed the Julian harbour at Baiae, by letting

the sea into the Lucrine and Avernian lakes; and having exercised his

forces there during the whole winter, he defeated Pompey betwixt Mylae

and Naulochus; although (80) just as the engagement commenced, he

suddenly fell into such a profound sleep, that his friends were obliged

to wake him to give the signal. This, I suppose, gave occasion for

Antony’s reproach: “You were not able to take a clear view of the fleet,

when drawn up in line of battle, but lay stupidly upon your back, gazing

at the sky; nor did you get up and let your men see you, until Marcus

Agrippa had forced the enemies’ ships to sheer off.” Others imputed to

him both a saying and an action which were indefensible; for, upon the

loss of his fleets by storm, he is reported to have said: “I will conquer

in spite of Neptune;” and at the next Circensian games, he would not

suffer the statue of that God to be carried in procession as usual.

Indeed he scarcely ever ran more or greater risks in any of his wars than

in this. Having transported part of his army to Sicily, and being on his

return for the rest, he was unexpectedly attacked by Demochares and

Apollophanes, Pompey’s admirals, from whom he escaped with great

difficulty, and with one ship only. Likewise, as he was travelling on

foot through the Locrian territory to Rhegium, seeing two of Pompey’s

vessels passing by that coast, and supposing them to be his own, he went

down to the shore, and was very nearly taken prisoner. On this occasion,

as he was making his escape by some bye-ways, a slave belonging to

Aemilius Paulus, who accompanied him, owing him a grudge for the

proscription of Paulus, the father of Aemilius, and thinking he had now

an opportunity of revenging it, attempted to assassinate him. After the

defeat of Pompey, one of his colleagues [124], Marcus Lepidus, whom he

had summoned to his aid from Africa, affecting great superiority, because

he was at the head of twenty legions, and claiming for himself the

principal management of affairs in a threatening manner, he divested him

of his command, but, upon his humble submission, granted him his life,

but banished him for life to Circeii.

XVII. The alliance between him and Antony, which had always been

precarious, often interrupted, and ill cemented by repeated

reconciliations, he at last entirely dissolved. And to make it known to

the world how far Antony had degenerated from patriotic feelings, he

caused a will of his, which had been left at Rome, and in which he had

nominated Cleopatra’s children, amongst others, as his heirs, to be

opened and read in an assembly of the people. Yet upon his being

declared an enemy, he sent to him all his relations and friends, among

whom were Caius Sosius and Titus Domitius, at that time consuls. He

likewise spoke favourably in public of the people of Bologna, for joining

in the association with the rest of Italy to support his cause, because

they had, in former times, been under the protection of the family of the

Antonii. And not long afterwards he defeated him in a naval engagement

near Actium, which was prolonged to so late an hour, that, after the

victory, he was obliged to sleep on board his ship. From Actium he went

to the isle of Samoa to winter; but being alarmed with the accounts of a

mutiny amongst the soldiers he had selected from the main body of his

army sent to Brundisium after the victory, who insisted on their being

rewarded for their service and discharged, he returned to Italy. In his

passage thither, he encountered two violent storms, the first between the

promontories of Peloponnesus and Aetolia, and the other about the

Ceraunian mountains; in both which a part of his Liburnian squadron was

sunk, the spars and rigging of his own ship carried away, and the rudder

broken in pieces. He remained only twenty-seven days at Brundisium,

until the demands of the soldiers were settled, and then went, by way of

Asia and Syria, to Egypt, where laying siege to Alexandria, whither

Antony had fled with Cleopatra, he made himself master of it in a short

time. He drove Antony to kill himself, after he had used every effort to

obtain conditions of peace, and he saw his corpse [126]. Cleopatra he

anxiously wished to save for his triumph; and when she was supposed to

have been bit to death by an asp, he sent for the Psylli [127] to (82)

endeavour to suck out the poison. He allowed them to be buried together

in the same grave, and ordered a mausoleum, begun by themselves, to be

completed. The eldest of Antony’s two sons by Fulvia he commanded to be

taken by force from the statue of Julius Caesar, to which he had fled,

after many fruitless supplications for his life, and put him to death.

The same fate attended Caesario, Cleopatra’s son by Caesar, as he

pretended, who had fled for his life, but was retaken. The children

which Antony had by Cleopatra he saved, and brought up and cherished in a

manner suitable to their rank, just as if they had been his own

relations.

XVIII. At this time he had a desire to see the sarcophagus and body of

Alexander the Great, which, for that purpose, were taken out of the cell

in which they rested [128]; and after viewing them for some time, he paid

honours to the memory of that prince, by offering a golden crown, and

scattering flowers upon the body [129]. Being asked if he wished to see

the tombs of the Ptolemies also; he replied, “I wish to see a king, not

dead men.” [130] He reduced Egypt into the form of a province and to

render it more fertile, and more capable of supplying Rome with corn, he

employed his army to scour the canals, into which the Nile, upon its

rise, discharges itself; but which during a long series of years had

become nearly choked up with mud. To perpetuate the glory of his victory

at Actium, he built the city of Nicopolis on that part of the coast, and

established games to be celebrated there every five years; enlarging

likewise an old temple of Apollo, he ornamented with naval trophies [131]

the spot on which he had pitched his camp, and consecrated it to Neptune

and Mars.

(83) XIX. He afterwards [132] quashed several tumults and insurrections,

as well as several conspiracies against his life, which were discovered,

by the confession of accomplices, before they were ripe for execution;

and others subsequently. Such were those of the younger Lepidus, of

Varro Muraena, and Fannius Caepio; then that of Marcus Egnatius,

afterwards that of Plautius Rufus, and of Lucius Paulus, his

grand-daughter’s husband; and besides these, another of Lucius Audasius,

an old feeble man, who was under prosecution for forgery; as also of

Asinius Epicadus, a Parthinian mongrel [133], and at last that of

Telephus, a lady’s prompter [134]; for he was in danger of his life from

the plots and conspiracies of some of the lowest of the people against

him. Audasius and Epicadus had formed the design of carrying off to the

armies his daughter Julia, and his grandson Agrippa, from the islands in

which they were confined. Telephus, wildly dreaming that the government

was destined to him by the fates, proposed to fall both upon Octavius and

the senate. Nay, once, a soldier’s servant belonging to the army in

Illyricum, having passed the porters unobserved, was found in the

night-time standing before his chamber-door, armed with a hunting-dagger.

Whether the person was really disordered in the head, or only

counterfeited madness, is uncertain; for no confession was obtained from

him by torture.

XX. He conducted in person only two foreign wars; the Dalmatian, whilst

he was yet but a youth; and, after Antony’s final defeat, the Cantabrian.

He was wounded in the former of these wars; in one battle he received a

contusion in the right knee from a stone--and in another, he was much

hurt in (84) one leg and both arms, by the fall of a fridge [135]. His

other wars he carried on by his lieutenants; but occasionally visited the

army, in some of the wars of Pannonia and Germany, or remained at no

great distance, proceeding from Rome as far as Ravenna, Milan, or

Aquileia.

XXI. He conquered, however, partly in person, and partly by his

lieutenants, Cantabria [136], Aquitania and Pannonia [137], Dalmatia,

with all Illyricum and Rhaetia [138], besides the two Alpine nations, the

Vindelici and the Salassii [139]. He also checked the incursions of the

Dacians, by cutting off three of their generals with vast armies, and

drove the Germans beyond the river Elbe; removing two other tribes who

submitted, the Ubii and Sicambri, into Gaul, and settling them in the

country bordering on the Rhine. Other nations also, which broke into

revolt, he reduced to submission. But he never made war upon any nation

without just and necessary cause; and was so far from being ambitious

either to extend the empire, or advance his own military glory, that he

obliged the chiefs of some barbarous tribes to swear in the temple of

Mars the Avenger [140], that they would faithfully observe their

engagements, and not violate the peace which they had implored. Of some

he demanded a new description of hostages, their women, having found from

experience that they cared little for their men when given as hostages;

but he always afforded them the means of getting back their hostages

whenever they wished it. Even those who engaged most frequently and with

the greatest perfidy in their rebellion, he never punished more severely

than by selling their captives, on the terms (85) of their not serving in

any neighbouring country, nor being released from their slavery before

the expiration of thirty years. By the character which he thus acquired,

for virtue and moderation, he induced even the Indians and Scythians,

nations before known to the Romans by report only, to solicit his

friendship, and that of the Roman people, by ambassadors. The Parthians

readily allowed his claim to Armenia; restoring at his demand, the

standards which they had taken from Marcus Crassus and Mark Antony, and

offering him hostages besides. Afterwards, when a contest arose between

several pretenders to the crown of that kingdom, they refused to

acknowledge any one who was not chosen by him.

XXII. The temple of Janus Quirinus, which had been shut twice only, from

the era of the building of the city to his own time, he closed thrice in

a much shorter period, having established universal peace both by sea and

land. He twice entered the city with the honours of an Ovation [141],

namely, after the war of Philippi, and again after that of Sicily. He

had also three curule triumphs [142] for his several victories in (86)

Dalmatia, at Actium, and Alexandria; each of which lasted three days.

XXIII. In all his wars, he never received any signal or ignominious

defeat, except twice in Germany, under his lieutenants Lollius and Varus.

The former indeed had in it more of dishonour than disaster; but that of

Varus threatened the security of the empire itself; three legions, with

the commander, his lieutenants, and all the auxiliaries, being cut off.

Upon receiving intelligence of this disaster, he gave orders for keeping

a strict watch over the city, to prevent any public disturbance, and

prolonged the appointments of the prefects in the provinces, that the

allies might be kept in order by experience of persons to whom they were

used. He made a vow to celebrate the great games in honour of Jupiter,

Optimus, Maximus, “if he would be pleased to restore the state to more

prosperous circumstances.” This had formerly been resorted to in the

Cimbrian and Marsian wars. In short, we are informed that he was in such

consternation at this event, that he let the hair of his head and beard

grow for several months, and sometimes knocked his head against the

door-posts, crying out, “O, Quintilius Varus! Give me back my legions!”

And (87) ever after, he observed the anniversary of this calamity, as a

day of sorrow and mourning.

XXIV. In military affairs he made many alterations, introducing some

practices entirely new, and reviving others, which had become obsolete.

He maintained the strictest discipline among the troops; and would not

allow even his lieutenants the liberty to visit their wives, except

reluctantly, and in the winter season only. A Roman knight having cut

off the thumbs of his two young sons, to render them incapable of serving

in the wars, he exposed both him and his estate to public sale. But upon

observing the farmers of the revenue very greedy for the purchase, he

assigned him to a freedman of his own, that he might send him into the

country, and suffer him to retain his freedom. The tenth legion becoming

mutinous, he disbanded it with ignominy; and did the same by some others

which petulantly demanded their discharge; withholding from them the

rewards usually bestowed on those who had served their stated time in the

wars. The cohorts which yielded their ground in time of action, he

decimated, and fed with barley. Centurions, as well as common sentinels,

who deserted their posts when on guard, he punished with death. For

other misdemeanors he inflicted upon them various kinds of disgrace; such

as obliging them to stand all day before the praetorium, sometimes in

their tunics only, and without their belts, sometimes to carry poles ten

feet long, or sods of turf.

XXV. After the conclusion of the civil wars, he never, in any of his

military harangues, or proclamations, addressed them by the title of

“Fellow-soldiers,” but as “Soldiers” only. Nor would he suffer them to

be otherwise called by his sons or step-sons, when they were in command;

judging the former epithet to convey the idea of a degree of

condescension inconsistent with military discipline, the maintenance of

order, and his own majesty, and that of his house. Unless at Rome, in

case of incendiary fires, or under the apprehension of public

disturbances during a scarcity of provisions, he never employed in his

army slaves who had been made freedmen, except upon two occasions; on

one, for the security of the colonies bordering upon Illyricum, and on

the other, to guard (88) the banks of the river Rhine. Although he

obliged persons of fortune, both male and female, to give up their

slaves, and they received their manumission at once, yet he kept them

together under their own standard, unmixed with soldiers who were better

born, and armed likewise after different fashion. Military rewards, such

as trappings, collars, and other decorations of gold and silver, he

distributed more readily than camp or mural crowns, which were reckoned

more honourable than the former. These he bestowed sparingly, without

partiality, and frequently even on common soldiers. He presented M.

Agrippa, after the naval engagement in the Sicilian war, with a sea-green

banner. Those who shared in the honours of a triumph, although they had

attended him in his expeditions, and taken part in his victories, he

judged it improper to distinguish by the usual rewards for service,

because they had a right themselves to grant such rewards to whom they

pleased. He thought nothing more derogatory to the character of an

accomplished general than precipitancy and rashness; on which account he

had frequently in his mouth those proverbs:

Speude bradeos,

Hasten slowly,

And

‘Asphalaes gar est’ ameinon, hae erasus strataelataes.

The cautious captain’s better than the bold.

And “That is done fast enough, which is done well enough.”

He was wont to say also, that “a battle or a war ought never to be

undertaken, unless the prospect of gain overbalanced the fear of loss.

For,” said he, “men who pursue small advantages with no small hazard,

resemble those who fish with a golden hook, the loss of which, if the

line should happen to break, could never be compensated by all the fish

they might take.”

XXVI. He was advanced to public offices before the age at which he was

legally qualified for them; and to some, also, of a new kind, and for

life. He seized the consulship in the twentieth year of his age,

quartering his legions in a threatening manner near the city, and sending

deputies to demand it for him in the name of the army. When the senate

demurred, (89) a centurion, named Cornelius, who was at the head of the

chief deputation, throwing back his cloak, and shewing the hilt of his

sword, had the presumption to say in the senate-house, “This will make

him consul, if ye will not.” His second consulship he filled nine years

afterwards; his third, after the interval of only one year, and held the

same office every year successively until the eleventh. From this

period, although the consulship was frequently offered him, he always

declined it, until, after a long interval, not less than seventeen years,

he voluntarily stood for the twelfth, and two years after that, for a

thirteenth; that he might successively introduce into the forum, on their

entering public life, his two sons, Caius and Lucius, while he was

invested with the highest office in the state. In his five consulships

from the sixth to the eleventh, he continued in office throughout the

year; but in the rest, during only nine, six, four, or three months, and

in his second no more than a few hours. For having sat for a short time

in the morning, upon the calends of January [1st January], in his curule

chair [143], before the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, he abdicated the

office, and substituted another in his room. Nor did he enter upon them

all at Rome, but upon the fourth in Asia, the fifth in the Isle of Samos,

and the eighth and ninth at Tarragona. [144]

XXVII. During ten years he acted as one of the triumvirate for settling

the commonwealth, in which office he for some time opposed his colleagues

in their design of a proscription; but after it was begun, he prosecuted

it with more determined rigour than either of them. For whilst they were

often prevailed upon, by the interest and intercession of friends, to

shew mercy, he alone strongly insisted that no one should be spared, and

even proscribed Caius Toranius [145], his guardian; who had (90) been

formerly the colleague of his father Octavius in the aedileship. Junius

Saturnius adds this farther account of him: that when, after the

proscription was over, Marcus Lepidus made an apology in the senate for

their past proceedings, and gave them hopes of a more mild administration

for the future, because they had now sufficiently crushed their enemies;

he, on the other hand, declared that the only limit he had fixed to the

proscription was, that he should be free to act as he pleased.

Afterwards, however, repenting of his severity, he advanced T. Vinius

Philopoemen to the equestrian rank, for having concealed his patron at

the time he was proscribed. In this same office he incurred great odium

upon many accounts. For as he was one day making an harangue, observing

among the soldiers Pinarius, a Roman knight, admit some private citizens,

and engaged in taking notes, he ordered him to be stabbed before his

eyes, as a busy-body and a spy upon him. He so terrified with his

menaces Tedius Afer, the consul elect [146], for having reflected upon

some action of his, that he threw himself from a great height, and died

on the spot. And when Quintus Gallius, the praetor, came to compliment

him with a double tablet under his cloak, suspecting that it was a sword

he had concealed, and yet not venturing to make a search, lest it should

be found to be something else, he caused him to be dragged from his

tribunal by centurions and soldiers, and tortured like a slave: and

although he made no confession, ordered him to be put to death, after he

had, with his own hands, plucked out his eyes. His own account of the

matter, however, is, that Quintus Gallius sought a private conference

with him, for the purpose of assassinating him; that he therefore put him

in prison, but afterwards released him, and banished him the city; when

he perished either in a storm at sea, or by falling into the hands of

robbers.

He accepted of the tribunitian power for life, but more than once chose a

colleague in that office for two lustra [147] successively. He also had

the supervision of morality and observance of the laws, for life, but

without the title of censor; yet he thrice (91) took a census of the

people, the first and third time with a colleague, but the second by

himself.

XXVIII. He twice entertained thoughts of restoring the republic [148];

first, immediately after he had crushed Antony, remembering that he had

often charged him with being the obstacle to its restoration. The second

time was in consequence of a long illness, when he sent for the

magistrates and the senate to his own house, and delivered them a

particular account of the state of the empire. But reflecting at the

same time that it would be both hazardous to himself to return to the

condition of a private person, and might be dangerous to the public to

have the government placed again under the control of the people, he

resolved to keep it in his own hands, whether with the better event or

intention, is hard to say. His good intentions he often affirmed in

private discourse, and also published an edict, in which it was declared

in the following terms: “May it be permitted me to have the happiness of

establishing the commonwealth on a safe and sound basis, and thus enjoy

the reward of which I am ambitious, that of being celebrated for moulding

it into the form best adapted to present circumstances; so that, on my

leaving the world, I may carry with me the hope that the foundations

which I have laid for its future government, will stand firm and stable.”

XXIX. The city, which was not built in a manner suitable to the grandeur

of the empire, and was liable to inundations of the Tiber [149], as well

as to fires, was so much improved under his administration, that he

boasted, not without reason, that he “found it of brick, but left it of

marble.” [150] He also rendered (92) it secure for the time to come

against such disasters, as far as could be effected by human foresight.

A great number of public buildings were erected by him, the most

considerable of which were a forum [151], containing the temple of Mars

the Avenger, the temple of Apollo on the Palatine hill, and the temple of

Jupiter Tonans in the Capitol. The reason of his building a new forum

was the vast increase in the population, and the number of causes to be

tried in the courts, for which, the two already existing not affording

sufficient space, it was thought necessary to have a third. It was

therefore opened for public use before the temple of Mars was completely

finished; and a law was passed, that causes should be tried, and judges

chosen by lot, in that place. The temple of Mars was built in fulfilment

of a vow made during the war of Philippi, undertaken by him to avenge his

father’s murder. He ordained that the senate should always assemble

there when they met to deliberate respecting wars and triumphs; that

thence should be despatched all those who were sent into the provinces in

the command of armies; and that in it those who returned victorious from

the wars, should lodge the trophies of their triumphs. He erected the

temple of Apollo [152] in that part of his house on the Palatine hill

which had been struck with lightning, and which, on that account, the

soothsayers declared the God to have chosen. He added porticos to it,

with a library of Latin and Greek authors [153]; and when advanced in

years, (93) used frequently there to hold the senate, and examine the

rolls of the judges.

He dedicated the temple to Apollo Tonans [154], in acknowledgment of his

escape from a great danger in his Cantabrian expedition; when, as he was

travelling in the night, his litter was struck by lightning, which killed

the slave who carried a torch before him. He likewise constructed some

public buildings in the name of others; for instance, his grandsons, his

wife, and sister. Thus he built the portico and basilica of Lucius and

Caius, and the porticos of Livia and Octavia [155], and the theatre of

Marcellus [156]. He also often exhorted other persons of rank to

embellish the city by new buildings, or repairing and improving the old,

according to their means. In consequence of this recommendation, many

were raised; such as the temple of Hercules and the Muses, by Marcius

Philippus; a temple of Diana by Lucius Cornificius; the Court of Freedom

by Asinius Pollio; a temple of Saturn by Munatius Plancus; a theatre by

Cornelius Balbus [157]; an amphitheatre by Statilius Taurus; and several

other noble edifices by Marcus Agrippa. [158]

(94) XXX. He divided the city into regions and districts, ordaining that

the annual magistrates should take by lot the charge of the former; and

that the latter should be superintended by wardens chosen out of the

people of each neighbourhood. He appointed a nightly watch to be on

their guard against accidents from fire; and, to prevent the frequent

inundations, he widened and cleansed the bed of the Tiber, which had in

the course of years been almost dammed up with rubbish, and the channel

narrowed by the ruins of houses [159]. To render the approaches to the

city more commodious, he took upon himself the charge of repairing the

Flaminian way as far as Ariminum [160], and distributed the repairs of

the other roads amongst several persons who had obtained the honour of a

triumph; to be defrayed out of the money arising from the spoils of war.

Temples decayed by time, or destroyed by fire, he either repaired or

rebuilt; and enriched them, as well as many others, with splendid

offerings. On a single occasion, he deposited in the cell of the temple

of Jupiter Capitolinus, sixteen thousand pounds of gold, with jewels and

pearls to the amount of fifty millions of sesterces.

XXXI. The office of Pontifex Maximus, of which he could (95) not

decently deprive Lepidus as long as he lived [161], he assumed as soon as

he was dead. He then caused all prophetical books, both in Latin and

Greek, the authors of which were either unknown, or of no great

authority, to be brought in; and the whole collection, amounting to

upwards of two thousand volumes, he committed to the flames, preserving

only the Sibylline oracles; but not even those without a strict

examination, to ascertain which were genuine. This being done, he

deposited them in two gilt coffers, under the pedestal of the statue of

the Palatine Apollo. He restored the calendar, which had been corrected

by Julius Caesar, but through negligence was again fallen into confusion

Sextilis [163], by his own name, August, rather than September, in which

he was born; because in it he had obtained his first consulship, and all

his most considerable victories [164]. He increased the number, dignity,

and revenues of the priests, and especially those of the Vestal Virgins.

And when, upon the death of one of them, a new one was to be taken [165],

and many persons made interest that their daughters’ names might be

omitted in the lists for election, he replied with an oath, “If either of

my own grand-daughters were old enough, I would have proposed her.”

He likewise revived some old religious customs, which had become

obsolete; as the augury of public health [166], the office of (96) high

priest of Jupiter, the religious solemnity of the Lupercalia, with the

Secular, and Compitalian games. He prohibited young boys from running in

the Lupercalia; and in respect of the Secular games, issued an order,

that no young persons of either sex should appear at any public

diversions in the night-time, unless in the company of some elderly

relation. He ordered the household gods to be decked twice a year with

spring and summer flowers [167], in the Compitalian festival.

Next to the immortal gods, he paid the highest honours to the memory of

those generals who had raised the Roman state from its low origin to the

highest pitch of grandeur. He accordingly repaired or rebuilt the public

edifices erected by them; preserving the former inscriptions, and placing

statues of them all, with triumphal emblems, in both the porticos of his

forum, issuing an edict on the occasion, in which he made the following

declaration: “My design in so doing is, that the Roman people may require

from me, and all succeeding princes, a conformity to those illustrious

examples.” He likewise removed the statue of Pompey from the

senate-house, in which Caius Caesar had been killed, and placed it under

a marble arch, fronting the palace attached to Pompey’s theatre.

XXXII. He corrected many ill practices, which, to the detriment of the

public, had either survived the licentious habits of the late civil wars,

or else originated in the long peace. Bands of robbers showed themselves

openly, completely armed, under colour of self-defence; and in different

parts of the country, travellers, freemen and slaves without distinction,

were forcibly carried off, and kept to work in the houses of correction

a new college, which banded together for the perpetration of all kinds of

villany. The banditti he quelled by establishing posts of soldiers in

suitable stations for the purpose; the houses of correction were

subjected to a strict superintendence; all associations, those only

excepted which were of ancient standing, and recognised by the laws, were

dissolved. He burnt all the notes of those who had been a long time in

arrear with the treasury, as being the principal source of vexatious

suits and prosecutions. Places in the city claimed by the public, where

the right was doubtful, he adjudged to the actual possessors. He struck

out of the list of criminals the names of those over whom prosecutions

had been long impending, where nothing further was intended by the

informers than to gratify their own malice, by seeing their enemies

humiliated; laying it down as a rule, that if any one chose to renew a

prosecution, he should incur the risk of the punishment which he sought

to inflict. And that crimes might not escape punishment, nor business be

neglected by delay, he ordered the courts to sit during the thirty days

which were spent in celebrating honorary games. To the three classes of

judges then existing, he added a fourth, consisting of persons of

inferior order, who were called Ducenarii, and decided all litigations

about trifling sums. He chose judges from the age of thirty years and

upwards; that is five years younger than had been usual before. And a

great many declining the office, he was with much difficulty prevailed

upon to allow each class of judges a twelve-month’s vacation in turn; and

the courts to be shut during the months of November and December. [169]

XXXIII. He was himself assiduous in his functions as a judge, and would

sometimes prolong his sittings even into the night [170]: if he were

indisposed, his litter was placed before (98) the tribunal, or he

administered justice reclining on his couch at home; displaying always

not only the greatest attention, but extreme lenity. To save a culprit,

who evidently appeared guilty of parricide, from the extreme penalty of

being sewn up in a sack, because none were punished in that manner but

such as confessed the fact, he is said to have interrogated him thus:

“Surely you did not kill your father, did you?” And when, in a trial of

a cause about a forged will, all those who had signed it were liable to

the penalty of the Cornelian law, he ordered that his colleagues on the

tribunal should not only be furnished with the two tablets by which they

decided, “guilty or not guilty,” but with a third likewise, ignoring the

offence of those who should appear to have given their signatures through

any deception or mistake. All appeals in causes between inhabitants of

Rome, he assigned every year to the praetor of the city; and where

provincials were concerned, to men of consular rank, to one of whom the

business of each province was referred.

XXXIV. Some laws he abrogated, and he made some new ones; such as the

sumptuary law, that relating to adultery and the violation of chastity,

the law against bribery in elections, and likewise that for the

encouragement of marriage. Having been more severe in his reform of this

law than the rest, he found the people utterly averse to submit to it,

unless the penalties were abolished or mitigated, besides allowing an

interval of three years after a wife’s death, and increasing the premiums

on marriage. The equestrian order clamoured loudly, at a spectacle in

the theatre, for its total repeal; whereupon he sent for the children of

Germanicus, and shewed them partly sitting upon his own lap, and partly

on their father’s; intimating by his looks and gestures, that they ought

not to think it a grievance to follow the example of that young man. But

finding that the force of the law was eluded, by marrying girls under the

age of puberty, and by frequent change of wives, he limited the time for

consummation after espousals, and imposed restrictions on divorce.

XXXV. By two separate scrutinies he reduced to their former number and

splendour the senate, which had been swamped by a disorderly crowd; for

they were now more than a (99) thousand, and some of them very mean

persons, who, after Caesar’s death, had been chosen by dint of interest

and bribery, so that they had the nickname of Orcini among the people

senator naming another; but the last was conducted by himself and

Agrippa. On this occasion he is believed to have taken his seat as he

presided, with a coat of mail under his tunic, and a sword by his side,

and with ten of the stoutest men of senatorial rank, who were his

friends, standing round his chair. Cordus Cremutius [172] relates that

no senator was suffered to approach him, except singly, and after having

his bosom searched [for secreted daggers]. Some he obliged to have the

grace of declining the office; these he allowed to retain the privileges

of wearing the distinguishing dress, occupying the seats at the solemn

spectacles, and of feasting publicly, reserved to the senatorial order

functions under more solemn obligations, and with less inconvenience, he

ordered that every senator, before he took his seat in the house, should

pay his devotions, with an offering of frankincense and wine, at the

altar of that God in whose temple the senate then assembled [174], and

that their stated meetings should be only twice in the month, namely, on

the calends and ides; and that in the months of September and October

give validity to a decree, should be required to attend. For himself, he

resolved to choose every six (100) months a new council, with whom he

might consult previously upon such affairs as he judged proper at any

time to lay before the full senate. He also took the votes of the

senators upon any subject of importance, not according to custom, nor in

regular order, but as he pleased; that every one might hold himself ready

to give his opinion, rather than a mere vote of assent.

XXXVI. He also made several other alterations in the management of

public affairs, among which were these following: that the acts of the

senate should not be published [176]; that the magistrates should not be

sent into the provinces immediately after the expiration of their office;

that the proconsuls should have a certain sum assigned them out of the

treasury for mules and tents, which used before to be contracted for by

the government with private persons; that the management of the treasury

should be transferred from the city-quaestors to the praetors, or those

who had already served in the latter office; and that the decemviri

should call together the court of One hundred, which had been formerly

summoned by those who had filled the office of quaestor.

XXXVII. To augment the number of persons employed in the administration

of the state, he devised several new offices; such as surveyors of the

public buildings, of the roads, the aqueducts, and the bed of the Tiber;

for the distribution of corn to the people; the praefecture of the city;

a triumvirate for the election of the senators; and another for

inspecting the several troops of the equestrian order, as often as it was

necessary. He revived the office of censor [177], which had been long

disused, and increased the number of praetors. He likewise required that

whenever the consulship was conferred on him, he should have two

colleagues instead of one; but his proposal (101) was rejected, all the

senators declaring by acclamation that he abated his high majesty quite

enough in not filling the office alone, and consenting to share it with

another.

XXXVIII. He was unsparing in the reward of military merit, having

granted to above thirty generals the honour of the greater triumph;

besides which, he took care to have triamphal decorations voted by the

senate for more than that number. That the sons of senators might become

early acquainted with the administration of affairs, he permitted them,

at the age when they took the garb of manhood [178], to assume also the

distinction of the senatorian robe, with its broad border, and to be

present at the debates in the senate-house. When they entered the

military service, he not only gave them the rank of military tribunes in

the legions, but likewise the command of the auxiliary horse. And that

all might have an opportunity of acquiring military experience, he

commonly joined two sons of senators in command of each troop of horse.

He frequently reviewed the troops of the equestrian order, reviving the

ancient custom of a cavalcade [179], which had been long laid aside. But

he did not suffer any one to be obliged by an accuser to dismount while

he passed in review, as had formerly been the practice. As for such as

were infirm with age, or (102) any way deformed, he allowed them to send

their horses before them, coming on foot to answer to their names, when

the muster roll was called over soon afterwards. He permitted those who

had attained the age of thirty-five years, and desired not to keep their

horse any longer, to have the privilege of giving it up.

XXXIX. With the assistance of ten senators, he obliged each of the Roman

knights to give an account of his life: in regard to those who fell under

his displeasure, some were punished; others had a mark of infamy set

against their names. The most part he only reprimanded, but not in the

same terms. The mildest mode of reproof was by delivering them tablets

on the spot. Some he disgraced for borrowing money at low interest, and

letting it out again upon usurious profit.

XL. In the election of tribunes of the people, if there was not a

sufficient number of senatorian candidates, he nominated others from the

equestrian order; granting them the liberty, after the expiration of

their office, to continue in whichsoever of the two orders they pleased.

As most of the knights had been much reduced in their estates by the

civil wars, and therefore durst not sit to see the public games in the

theatre in the seats allotted to their order, for fear of the penalty

provided by the law in that case, he enacted, that none were liable to

it, who had themselves, or whose parents had ever, possessed a knight’s

estate. He took the census of the Roman people street by street: and

that the people might not be too often taken from their business to

receive the distribution of corn, it was his intention to deliver tickets

three times a year for four months respectively; but at their request, he

continued the former regulation, that they should receive their (103)

share monthly. He revived the former law of elections, endeavouring, by

various penalties, to suppress the practice of bribery. Upon the day of

election, he distributed to the freemen of the Fabian and Scaptian

tribes, in which he himself was enrolled, a thousand sesterces each, that

they might look for nothing from any of the candidates. Considering it

of extreme importance to preserve the Roman people pure, and untainted

with a mixture of foreign or servile blood, he not only bestowed the

freedom of the city with a sparing hand, but laid some restriction upon

the practice of manumitting slaves. When Tiberius interceded with him

for the freedom of Rome in behalf of a Greek client of his, he wrote to

him for answer, “I shall not grant it, unless he comes himself, and

satisfies me that he has just grounds for the application.” And when

Livia begged the freedom of the city for a tributary Gaul, he refused it,

but offered to release him from payment of taxes, saying, “I shall sooner

suffer some loss in my exchequer, than that the citizenship of Rome be

rendered too common.” Not content with interposing many obstacles to

either the partial or complete emancipation of slaves, by quibbles

respecting the number, condition and difference of those who were to be

manumitted; he likewise enacted that none who had been put in chains or

tortured, should ever obtain the freedom of the city in any degree. He

endeavoured also to restore the old habit and dress of the Romans; and

upon seeing once, in an assembly of the people, a crowd in grey cloaks

Romanos rerum dominos, gentemque togatem.” [182]

Rome’s conquering sons, lords of the wide-spread globe,

Stalk proudly in the toga’s graceful robe.

And he gave orders to the ediles not to permit, in future, any Roman to

be present in the forum or circus unless they took off their short coats,

and wore the toga.

(104) XLI. He displayed his munificence to all ranks of the people on

various occasions. Moreover, upon his bringing the treasure belonging to

the kings of Egypt into the city, in his Alexandrian triumph, he made

money so plentiful, that interest fell, and the price of land rose

considerably. And afterwards, as often as large sums of money came into

his possession by means of confiscations, he would lend it free of

interest, for a fixed term, to such as could give security for the double

of what was borrowed. The estate necessary to qualify a senator, instead

of eight hundred thousand sesterces, the former standard, he ordered, for

the future, to be twelve hundred thousand; and to those who had not so

much, he made good the deficiency. He often made donations to the

people, but generally of different sums; sometimes four hundred,

sometimes three hundred, or two hundred and fifty sesterces upon which

occasions, he extended his bounty even to young boys, who before were not

used to receive anything, until they arrived at eleven years of age. In

a scarcity of corn, he would frequently let them have it at a very low

price, or none at all; and doubled the number of the money tickets.

XLII. But to show that he was a prince who regarded more the good of his

people than their applause, he reprimanded them very severely, upon their

complaining of the scarcity and dearness of wine. “My son-in-law,

Agrippa,” he said, “has sufficiently provided for quenching your thirst,

by the great plenty of water with which he has supplied the town.” Upon

their demanding a gift which he had promised them, he said, “I am a man

of my word.” But upon their importuning him for one which he had not

promised, he issued a proclamation upbraiding them for their scandalous

impudence; at the same time telling them, “I shall now give you nothing,

whatever I may have intended to do.” With the same strict firmness,

when, upon a promise he had made of a donative, he found many slaves had

been emancipated and enrolled amongst the citizens, he declared that no

one should receive anything who was not included in the promise, and he

gave the rest less than he had promised them, in order that the amount he

had set apart might hold out. On one occasion, in a season of great

scarcity, which it was difficult to remedy, he ordered out of the city

the troops of slaves brought for sale, the gladiators (105) belonging to

the masters of defence, and all foreigners, excepting physicians and the

teachers of the liberal sciences. Part of the domestic slaves were

likewise ordered to be dismissed. When, at last, plenty was restored, he

writes thus “I was much inclined to abolish for ever the practice of

allowing the people corn at the public expense, because they trust so

much to it, that they are too lazy to till their lands; but I did not

persevere in my design, as I felt sure that the practice would some time

or other be revived by some one ambitious of popular favour.” However,

he so managed the affair ever afterwards, that as much account was taken

of husbandmen and traders, as of the idle populace. [183]

XLIII. In the number, variety, and magnificence of his public

spectacles, he surpassed all former example. Four-and-twenty times, he

says, he treated the people with games upon his own account, and

three-and-twenty times for such magistrates as were either absent, or not

able to afford the expense. The performances took place sometimes in the

different streets of the city, and upon several stages, by players in all

languages. The same he did not only in the forum and amphitheatre, but

in the circus likewise, and in the septa [184]: and sometimes he

exhibited only the hunting of wild beasts. He entertained the people

with wrestlers in the Campus Martius, where wooden seats were erected for

the purpose; and also with a naval fight, for which he excavated the

ground near the Tiber, where there is now the grove of the Caesars.

During these two entertainments he stationed guards in the city, lest, by

robbers taking advantage of the small number of people left at home, it

might be exposed to depredations. In the circus he exhibited chariot and

foot races, and combats with wild beasts, in which the performers were

often youths of the highest rank. His favourite spectacle was the Trojan

game, acted by a select number of boys, in parties differing in age and

station; thinking (106) that it was a practice both excellent in itself,

and sanctioned by ancient usage, that the spirit of the young nobles

should be displayed in such exercises. Caius Nonius Asprenas, who was

lamed by a fall in this diversion, he presented with a gold collar, and

allowed him and his posterity to bear the surname of Torquati. But soon

afterwards he gave up the exhibition of this game, in consequence of a

severe and bitter speech made in the senate by Asinius Pollio, the

orator, in which he complained bitterly of the misfortune of Aeserninus,

his grandson, who likewise broke his leg in the same diversion.

Sometimes he engaged Roman knights to act upon the stage, or to fight as

gladiators; but only before the practice was prohibited by a decree of

the senate. Thenceforth, the only exhibition he made of that kind, was

that of a young man named Lucius, of a good family, who was not quite two

feet in height, and weighed only seventeen pounds, but had a stentorian

voice. In one of his public spectacles, he brought the hostages of the

Parthians, the first ever sent to Rome from that nation, through the

middle of the amphitheatre, and placed them in the second tier of seats

above him. He used likewise, at times when there were no public

entertainments, if any thing was brought to Rome which was uncommon, and

might gratify curiosity, to expose it to public view, in any place

whatever; as he did a rhinoceros in the Septa, a tiger upon a stage, and

a snake fifty cubits long in the Comitium. It happened in the Circensian

games, which he performed in consequence of a vow, that he was taken ill,

and obliged to attend the Thensae [185], reclining on a litter. Another

time, in the games celebrated for the opening of the theatre of

Marcellus, the joints of his curule chair happening to give way, he fell

on his back. And in the games exhibited by his (107) grandsons, when the

people were in such consternation, by an alarm raised that the theatre

was falling, that all his efforts to re-assure them and keep them quiet,

failed, he moved from his place, and seated himself in that part of the

theatre which was thought to be exposed to most danger.

XLIV. He corrected the confusion and disorder with which the spectators

took their seats at the public games, after an affront which was offered

to a senator at Puteoli, for whom, in a crowded theatre, no one would

make room. He therefore procured a decree of the senate, that in all

public spectacles of any sort, and in any place whatever, the first tier

of benches should be left empty for the accommodation of senators. He

would not even permit the ambassadors of free nations, nor of those which

were allies of Rome, to sit in the orchestra; having found that some

manumitted slaves had been sent under that character. He separated the

soldiery from the rest of the people, and assigned to married plebeians

their particular rows of seats. To the boys he assigned their own

benches, and to their tutors the seats which were nearest it; ordering

that none clothed in black should sit in the centre of the circle [186].

Nor would he allow any women to witness the combats of gladiators, except

from the upper part of the theatre, although they formerly used to take

their places promiscuously with the rest of the spectators. To the

vestal virgins he granted seats in the theatre, reserved for them only,

opposite the praetor’s bench. He excluded, however, the whole female sex

from seeing the wrestlers: so that in the games which he exhibited upon

his accession to the office of high-priest, he deferred producing a pair

of combatants which the people called for, until the next morning; and

intimated by proclamation, “his pleasure that no woman should appear in

the theatre before five o’clock.”

XLV. He generally viewed the Circensian games himself, from the upper

rooms of the houses of his friends or freedmen; sometimes from the place

appointed for the statues of the gods, and sitting in company with his

wife and children. He (108) occasionally absented himself from the

spectacles for several hours, and sometimes for whole days; but not

without first making an apology, and appointing substitutes to preside in

his stead. When present, he never attended to anything else either to

avoid the reflections which he used to say were commonly made upon his

father, Caesar, for perusing letters and memorials, and making rescripts

during the spectacles; or from the real pleasure he took in attending

those exhibitions; of which he made no secret, he often candidly owning

it. This he manifested frequently by presenting honorary crowns and

handsome rewards to the best performers, in the games exhibited by

others; and he never was present at any performance of the Greeks,

without rewarding the most deserving, according to their merit. He took

particular pleasure in witnessing pugilistic contests, especially those

of the Latins, not only between combatants who had been trained

scientifically, whom he used often to match with the Greek champions; but

even between mobs of the lower classes fighting in streets, and tilting

at random, without any knowledge of the art. In short, he honoured with

his patronage all sorts of people who contributed in any way to the

success of the public entertainments. He not only maintained, but

enlarged, the privileges of the wrestlers. He prohibited combats of

gladiators where no quarter was given. He deprived the magistrates of

the power of correcting the stage-players, which by an ancient law was

allowed them at all times, and in all places; restricting their

jurisdiction entirely to the time of performance and misdemeanours in the

theatres. He would, however, admit, of no abatement, and exacted with

the utmost rigour the greatest exertions of the wrestlers and gladiators

in their several encounters. He went so far in restraining the

licentiousness of stage-players, that upon discovering that Stephanio, a

performer of the highest class, had a married woman with her hair

cropped, and dressed in boy’s clothes, to wait upon him at table, he

ordered him to be whipped through all the three theatres, and then

banished him. Hylas, an actor of pantomimes, upon a complaint against

him by the praetor, he commanded to be scourged in the court of his own

house, which, however, was open to the public. And Pylades he not only

banished from the city, but from Italy also, for pointing with his finger

at a spectator by whom he was hissed, and turning the eyes of the

audience upon him.

(109) XLVI. Having thus regulated the city and its concerns, he

augmented the population of Italy by planting in it no less than

twenty-eight colonies [187], and greatly improved it by public works, and

a beneficial application of the revenues. In rights and privileges, he

rendered it in a measure equal to the city itself, by inventing a new kind

of suffrage, which the principal officers and magistrates of the colonies

might take at home, and forward under seal to the city, against the time

of the elections. To increase the number of persons of condition, and of

children among the lower ranks, he granted the petitions of all those who

requested the honour of doing military service on horseback as knights,

provided their demands were seconded by the recommendation of the town in

which they lived; and when he visited the several districts of Italy, he

distributed a thousand sesterces a head to such of the lower class as

presented him with sons or daughters.

XLVII. The more important provinces, which could not with ease or safety

be entrusted to the government of annual magistrates, he reserved for his

own administration: the rest he distributed by lot amongst the

proconsuls: but sometimes he made exchanges, and frequently visited most

of both kinds in person. Some cities in alliance with Rome, but which by

their great licentiousness were hastening to ruin, he deprived of their

independence. Others, which were much in debt, he relieved, and rebuilt

such as had been destroyed by earthquakes. To those that could produce

any instance of their having deserved well of the Roman people, he

presented the freedom of Latium, or even that of the City. There is not,

I believe, a province, except Africa and Sardinia, which he did not

visit. After forcing Sextus Pompeius to take refuge in those provinces,

he was indeed preparing to cross over from Sicily to them, but was

prevented by continual and violent storms, and afterwards there was no

occasion or call for such a voyage.

XLVIII. Kingdoms, of which he had made himself master by the right of

conquest, a few only excepted, he either restored to their former

possessors [188], or conferred upon aliens. Between (110) kings of

alliance with Rome, he encouraged most intimate union; being always ready

to promote or favour any proposal of marriage or friendship amongst them;

and, indeed, treated them all with the same consideration, as if they

were members and parts of the empire. To such of them as were minors or

lunatics he appointed guardians, until they arrived at age, or recovered

their senses; and the sons of many of them he brought up and educated

with his own.

XLIX. With respect to the army, he distributed the legions and auxiliary

troops throughout the several provinces, he stationed a fleet at Misenum,

and another at Ravenna, for the protection of the Upper and Lower Seas

in the city, and partly for his own body-guard; but he dismissed the

Spanish guard, which he retained about him till the fall of Antony; and

also the Germans, whom he had amongst his guards, until the defeat of

Varus. Yet he never permitted a greater force than three cohorts in the

city, and had no (pretorian) camps [190]. The rest he quartered in the

neighbourhood of the nearest towns, in winter and summer camps. All the

troops throughout the empire he reduced to one fixed model with regard to

their pay and their pensions; determining these according to their rank

in the army, the time they had served, and their private means; so that

after their discharge, they might not be tempted by age or necessities to

join the agitators for a revolution. For the purpose of providing a fund

always ready to meet their pay and pensions, he instituted a military

exchequer, and appropriated new taxes to that object. In order to obtain

the earliest intelligence of what was passing in the provinces, he

established posts, consisting at first of young men stationed at moderate

distances along the military roads, and afterwards of regular couriers

with fast vehicles; which appeared to him the most commodious, because

the persons who were the bearers of dispatches, written on the spot,

might then be questioned about the business, as occasion occurred.

L. In sealing letters-patent, rescripts, or epistles, he at first used

the figure of a sphinx, afterwards the head of Alexander (111) the Great,

and at last his own, engraved by the hand of Dioscorides; which practice

was retained by the succeeding emperors. He was extremely precise in

dating his letters, putting down exactly the time of the day or night at

which they were dispatched.

LI. Of his clemency and moderation there are abundant and signal

instances. For, not to enumerate how many and what persons of the

adverse party he pardoned, received into favour, and suffered to rise to

the highest eminence in the state; he thought it sufficient to punish

Junius Novatus and Cassius Patavinus, who were both plebeians, one of

them with a fine, and the other with an easy banishment; although the

former had published, in the name of young Agrippa, a very scurrilous

letter against him, and the other declared openly, at an entertainment

where there was a great deal of company, “that he neither wanted

inclination nor courage to stab him.” In the trial of Aemilius Aelianus,

of Cordova, when, among other charges exhibited against him, it was

particularly insisted upon, that he used to calumniate Caesar, he turned

round to the accuser, and said, with an air and tone of passion, “I wish

you could make that appear; I shall let Aelianus know that I have a

tongue too, and shall speak sharper of him than he ever did of me.” Nor

did he, either then or afterwards, make any farther inquiry into the

affair. And when Tiberius, in a letter, complained of the affront with

great earnestness, he returned him an answer in the following terms: “Do

not, my dear Tiberius, give way to the ardour of youth in this affair;

nor be so indignant that any person should speak ill of me. It is

enough, for us, if we can prevent any one from really doing us mischief.”

LII. Although he knew that it had been customary to decree temples in

honour of the proconsuls, yet he would not permit them to be erected in

any of the provinces, unless in the joint names of himself and Rome.

Within the limits of the city, he positively refused any honour of that

kind. He melted down all the silver statues which had been erected to

him, and converted the whole into tripods, which he consecrated to the

Palatine Apollo. And when the people importuned him to accept the

dictatorship, he bent down on one knee, with his toga thrown over his

shoulders, and his breast exposed to view, begging to be excused.

(112) LIII. He always abhorred the title of Lord [191], as ill-omened

and offensive. And when, in a play, performed at the theatre, at which

he was present, these words were introduced, “O just and gracious lord,”

and the whole company, with joyful acclamations, testified their

approbation of them, as applied to him, he instantly put a stop to their

indecent flattery, by waving his hand, and frowning sternly, and next day

publicly declared his displeasure, in a proclamation. He never

afterwards would suffer himself to be addressed in that manner, even by

his own children or grand-children, either in jest or earnest and forbad

them the use of all such complimentary expressions to one another. He

rarely entered any city or town, or departed from it, except in the

evening or the night, to avoid giving any person the trouble of

complimenting him. During his consulships, he commonly walked the

streets on foot; but at other times, rode in a close carriage. He

admitted to court even plebeians, in common with people of the higher

ranks; receiving the petitions of those who approached him with so much

affability, that he once jocosely rebuked a man, by telling him, “You

present your memorial with as much hesitation as if you were offering

money to an elephant.” On senate days, he used to pay his respects to

the Conscript Fathers only in the house, addressing them each by name as

they sat, without any prompter; and on his departure, he bade each of

them farewell, while they retained their seats. In the same manner, he

maintained with many of them a constant intercourse of mutual civilities,

giving them his company upon occasions of any particular festivity in

their families; until he became advanced in years, and was incommoded by

the crowd at a wedding. Being informed that Gallus Terrinius, a senator,

with whom he had only a slight acquaintance, had suddenly lost his sight,

and under that privation had resolved to starve himself to death, he paid

him a visit, and by his consolatory admonitions diverted him from his

purpose.

LIV. On his speaking in the senate, he has been told by (113) one of the

members, “I did not understand you,” and by another, “I would contradict

you, could I do it with safety.” And sometimes, upon his being so much

offended at the heat with which the debates were conducted in the senate,

as to quit the house in anger, some of the members have repeatedly

exclaimed: “Surely, the senators ought to have liberty of speech on

matters of government.” Antistius Labeo, in the election of a new

senate, when each, as he was named, chose another, nominated Marcus

Lepidus, who had formerly been Augustus’s enemy, and was then in

banishment; and being asked by the latter, “Is there no other person more

deserving?” he replied, “Every man has his own opinion.” Nor was any one

ever molested for his freedom of speech, although it was carried to the

extent of insolence.

LV. Even when some infamous libels against him were dispersed in the

senate-house, he was neither disturbed, nor did he give himself much

trouble to refute them. He would not so much as order an enquiry to be

made after the authors; but only proposed, that, for the future, those

who published libels or lampoons, in a borrowed name, against any person,

should be called to account.

LVI. Being provoked by some petulant jests, which were designed to

render him odious, he answered them by a proclamation; and yet he

prevented the senate from passing an act, to restrain the liberties which

were taken with others in people’s wills. Whenever he attended at the

election of magistrates, he went round the tribes, with the candidates of

his nomination, and begged the votes of the people in the usual manner.

He likewise gave his own vote in his tribe, as one of the people. He

suffered himself to be summoned as a witness upon trials, and not only to

be questioned, but to be cross-examined, with the utmost patience. In

building his Forum, he restricted himself in the site, not presuming to

compel the owners of the neighbouring houses to give up their property.

He never recommended his sons to the people, without adding these words,

“If they deserve it.” And upon the audience rising on their entering the

theatre, while they were yet minors, and giving them applause in a

standing position, he made it a matter of serious complaint.

(114) He was desirous that his friends should be great and powerful in

the state, but have no exclusive privileges, or be exempt from the laws

which governed others. When Asprenas Nonius, an intimate friend of his,

was tried upon a charge of administering poison at the instance of

Cassius Severus, he consulted the senate for their opinion what was his

duty under the circumstances: “For,” said he, “I am afraid, lest, if I

should stand by him in the cause, I may be supposed to screen a guilty

man; and if I do not, to desert and prejudge a friend.” With the

unanimous concurrence, therefore, of the senate, he took his seat amongst

his advocates for several hours, but without giving him the benefit of

speaking to character, as was usual. He likewise appeared for his

clients; as on behalf of Scutarius, an old soldier of his, who brought an

action for slander. He never relieved any one from prosecution but in a

single instance, in the case of a man who had given information of the

conspiracy of Muraena; and that he did only by prevailing upon the

accuser, in open court, to drop his prosecution.

LVII. How much he was beloved for his worthy conduct in all these

respects, it is easy to imagine. I say nothing of the decrees of the

senate in his honour, which may seem to have resulted from compulsion or

deference. The Roman knights voluntarily, and with one accord, always

celebrated his birth for two days together; and all ranks of the people,

yearly, in performance of a vow they had made, threw a piece of money

into the Curtian lake [192], as an offering for his welfare. They

likewise, on the calends [first] of January, presented for his acceptance

new-year’s gifts in the Capitol, though he was not present with which

donations he purchased some costly images of the Gods, which he erected

in several streets of the city; as that of Apollo Sandaliarius, Jupiter

Tragoedus [193], and others. When his house on the Palatine hill was

accidentally destroyed by fire, the veteran soldiers, the judges, the

tribes, and even the people, individually, contributed, according to the

ability of each, for rebuilding it; but he would (115) accept only of

some small portion out of the several sums collected, and refused to take

from any one person more than a single denarius [194]. Upon his return

home from any of the provinces, they attended him not only with joyful

acclamations, but with songs. It is also remarked, that as often as he

entered the city, the infliction of punishment was suspended for the

time.

LVIII. The whole body of the people, upon a sudden impulse, and with

unanimous consent, offered him the title of FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY. It

was announced to him first at Antium, by a deputation from the people,

and upon his declining the honour, they repeated their offer on his

return to Rome, in a full theatre, when they were crowned with laurel.

The senate soon afterwards adopted the proposal, not in the way of

acclamation or decree, but by commissioning M. Messala, in an unanimous

vote, to compliment him with it in the following terms: “With hearty

wishes for the happiness and prosperity of yourself and your family,

Caesar Augustus, (for we think we thus most effectually pray for the

lasting welfare of the state), the senate, in agreement with the Roman

people, salute you by the title of FATHER OF YOUR COUNTRY.” To this

compliment Augustus replied, with tears in his eyes, in these words (for

I give them exactly as I have done those of Messala): “Having now arrived

at the summit of my wishes, O Conscript Fathers [195], what else have I

to beg of the Immortal (116) Gods, but the continuance of this your

affection for me to the last moments of my life?”

LIX. To the physician Antonius Musa [196], who had cured him of a

dangerous illness, they erected a statue near that of Aesculapius, by a

general subscription. Some heads of families ordered in their wills,

that their heirs should lead victims to the Capitol, with a tablet

carried before them, and pay their vows, “Because Augustus still

survived.” Some Italian cities appointed the day upon which he first

visited them, to be thenceforth the beginning of their year. And most of

the provinces, besides erecting temples and altars, instituted games, to

be celebrated to his honour, in most towns, every five years.

LX. The kings, his friends and allies, built cities in their respective

kingdoms, to which they gave the name of Caesarea; and all with one

consent resolved to finish, at their common expense, the temple of

Jupiter Olympius, at Athens, which had been begun long before, and

consecrate it to his Genius. They frequently also left their kingdoms,

laid aside the badges of royalty, and assuming the toga, attended and

paid their respects to him daily, in the manner of clients to their

patrons; not only at Rome, but when he was travelling through the

provinces.

LXI. Having thus given an account of the manner in which he filled his

public offices both civil and military, and his conduct in the government

of the empire, both in peace and war; I shall now describe his private

and domestic life, his habits at home and among his friends and

dependents, and the fortune attending him in those scenes of retirement,

from his youth to the day of his death. He lost his mother in his first

consulship, and his sister Octavia, when he was in the fifty-fourth year

of his age [197]. He behaved towards them both with the utmost kindness

whilst living, and after their decease paid the highest honours to their

memory.

(117) LXII. He was contracted when very young to the daughter of Publius

Servilius Isauricus; but upon his reconciliation with Antony after their

first rupture [198], the armies on both sides insisting on a family

alliance between them, he married Antony’s step-daughter Claudia, the

daughter of Fulvia by Publius Claudius, although at that time she was

scarcely marriageable; and upon a difference arising with his

mother-in-law Fulvia, he divorced her untouched, and a pure virgin. Soon

afterwards he took to wife Scribonia, who had before been twice married

to men of consular rank [199], and was a mother by one of them. With her

likewise he parted [200], being quite tired out, as he himself writes,

with the perverseness of her temper; and immediately took Livia Drusilla,

though then pregnant, from her husband Tiberius Nero; and she had never

any rival in his love and esteem.

LXIII. By Scribonia he had a daughter named Julia, but no children by

Livia, although extremely desirous of issue. She, indeed, conceived

once, but miscarried. He gave his daughter Julia in the first instance

to Marcellus, his sister’s son, who had just completed his minority; and,

after his death, to Marcus Agrippa, having prevailed with his sister to

yield her son-in-law to his wishes; for at that time Agrippa was married

to one of the Marcellas, and had children by her. Agrippa dying also, he

for a long time thought of several matches for Julia in even the

equestrian order, and at last resolved upon selecting Tiberius for his

step-son; and he obliged him to part with his wife at that time pregnant,

and who had already brought him a child. Mark Antony writes, “That he

first contracted Julia to his son, and afterwards to Cotiso, king of the

Getae [201], demanding at the same time the king’s daughter in marriage

for himself.”

(118) LXIV. He had three grandsons by Agrippa and Julia, namely, Caius,

Lucius, and Agrippa; and two grand-daughters, Julia and Agrippina. Julia

he married to Lucius Paulus, the censor’s son, and Agrippina to

Germanicus, his sister’s grandson. Caius and Lucius he adopted at home,

by the ceremony of purchase [202] from their father, advanced them, while

yet very young, to offices in the state, and when they were

consuls-elect, sent them to visit the provinces and armies. In bringing

up his daughter and grand-daughters, he accustomed them to domestic

employments, and even spinning, and obliged them to speak and act every

thing openly before the family, that it might be put down in the diary.

He so strictly prohibited them from all converse with strangers, that he

once wrote a letter to Lucius Vinicius, a handsome young man of a good

family, in which he told him, “You have not behaved very modestly, in

making a visit to my daughter at Baiae.” He usually instructed his

grandsons himself in reading, swimming, and other rudiments of knowledge;

and he laboured nothing more than to perfect them in the imitation of his

hand-writing. He never supped but he had them sitting at the foot of his

couch; nor ever travelled but with them in a chariot before him, or riding

beside him.

LXV. But in the midst of all his joy and hopes in his numerous and

well-regulated family, his fortune failed him. The two Julias, his

daughter and grand-daughter, abandoned themselves to such courses of

lewdness and debauchery, that he banished them both. Caius and Lucius he

lost within the space of eighteen months; the former dying in Lycia, and

the latter at Marseilles. His third grandson Agrippa, with his step-son

Tiberius, he adopted in the forum, by a law passed for the purpose by the

Sections [203]; but he soon afterwards discarded Agrippa for his coarse

and unruly temper, and confined him at Surrentum. He bore the death of

his relations with more patience than he did their disgrace; for he was

not overwhelmed by the loss of Caius and Lucius; but in the case of his

daughter, he stated the facts to the senate in a message read to them by

(119) the quaestor, not having the heart to be present himself; indeed, he

was so much ashamed of her infamous conduct, that for some time he avoided

all company, and had thoughts of putting her to death. It is certain that

when one Phoebe, a freed-woman and confidant of hers, hanged herself about

the same time, he said, “I had rather be the father of Phoebe than of

Julia.” In her banishment he would not allow her the use of wine, nor any

luxury in dress; nor would he suffer her to be waited upon by any male

servant, either freeman or slave, without his permission, and having

received an exact account of his age, stature, complexion, and what marks

or scars he had about him. At the end of five years he removed her from

the island [where she was confined] to the continent [204], and treated

her with less severity, but could never be prevailed upon to recall her.

When the Roman people interposed on her behalf several times with much

importunity, all the reply he gave was: “I wish you had all such daughters

and wives as she is.” He likewise forbad a child, of which his

grand-daughter Julia was delivered after sentence had passed against her,

to be either owned as a relation, or brought up. Agrippa, who was equally

intractable, and whose folly increased every day, he transported to an

island [205], and placed a guard of soldiers about him; procuring at the

same time an act of the senate for his confinement there during life.

Upon any mention of him and the two Julias, he would say, with a heavy

sigh,

Aith’ ophelon agamos t’ emenai, agonos t’ apoletai.

Would I were wifeless, or had childless died! [206]

nor did he usually call them by any other name than that of his “three

imposthumes or cancers.”

LXVI. He was cautious in forming friendships, but clung to them with

great constancy; not only rewarding the virtues and merits of his friends

according to their deserts, but bearing likewise with their faults and

vices, provided that they were (120) of a venial kind. For amongst all

his friends, we scarcely find any who fell into disgrace with him, except

Salvidienus Rufus, whom he raised to the consulship, and Cornelius

Gallus, whom he made prefect of Egypt; both of them men of the lowest

extraction. One of these, being engaged in plotting a rebellion, he

delivered over to the senate, for condemnation; and the other, on account

of his ungrateful and malicious temper, he forbad his house, and his

living in any of the provinces. When, however, Gallus, being denounced

by his accusers, and sentenced by the senate, was driven to the desperate

extremity of laying violent hands upon himself, he commended, indeed, the

attachment to his person of those who manifested so much indignation, but

he shed tears, and lamented his unhappy condition, “That I alone,” said

he, “cannot be allowed to resent the misconduct of my friends in such a

way only as I would wish.” The rest of his friends of all orders

flourished during their whole lives, both in power and wealth, in the

highest ranks of their several orders, notwithstanding some occasional

lapses. For, to say nothing of others, he sometimes complained that

Agrippa was hasty, and Mecaenas a tattler; the former having thrown up

all his employments and retired to Mitylene, on suspicion of some slight

coolness, and from jealousy that Marcellus received greater marks of

favour; and the latter having confidentially imparted to his wife

Terentia the discovery of Muraena’s conspiracy.

He likewise expected from his friends, at their deaths as well as during

their lives, some proofs of their reciprocal attachment. For though he

was far from coveting their property, and indeed would never accept of

any legacy left him by a stranger, yet he pondered in a melancholy mood

over their last words; not being able to conceal his chagrin, if in their

wills they made but a slight, or no very honourable mention of him, nor

his joy, on the other hand, if they expressed a grateful sense of his

favours, and a hearty affection for him. And whatever legacies or shares

of their property were left him by such as were parents, he used to

restore to their children, either immediately, or if they were under age,

upon the day of their assuming the manly dress, or of their marriage;

with interest.

LXVII. As a patron and master, his behaviour in general was mild and

conciliating; but when occasion required it, he (121) could be severe.

He advanced many of his freedmen to posts of honour and great importance,

as Licinus, Enceladus, and others; and when his slave, Cosmus, had

reflected bitterly upon him, he resented the injury no further than by

putting him in fetters. When his steward, Diomedes, left him to the

mercy of a wild boar, which suddenly attacked them while they were

walking together, he considered it rather a cowardice than a breach of

duty; and turned an occurrence of no small hazard into a jest, because

there was no knavery in his steward’s conduct. He put to death Proculus,

one of his most favourite freedmen, for maintaining a criminal commerce

with other men’s wives. He broke the legs of his secretary, Thallus, for

taking a bribe of five hundred denarii to discover the contents of one of

his letters. And the tutor and other attendants of his son Caius, having

taken advantage of his sickness and death, to give loose to their

insolence and rapacity in the province he governed, he caused heavy

weights to be tied about their necks, and had them thrown into a river.

LXVIII. In his early youth various aspersions of an infamous character

were heaped upon him. Sextus Pompey reproached him with being an

effeminate fellow; and M. Antony, with earning his adoption from his

uncle by prostitution. Lucius Antony, likewise Mark’s brother, charges

him with pollution by Caesar; and that, for a gratification of three

hundred thousand sesterces, he had submitted to Aulus Hirtius in the same

way, in Spain; adding, that he used to singe his legs with burnt

nut-shells, to make the hair become softer [207]. Nay, the whole

concourse of the people, at some public diversions in the theatre, when

the following sentence was recited, alluding to the Gallic priest of the

mother of the gods [208], beating a drum [209],

Videsne ut cinaedus orbem digito temperet?

See with his orb the wanton’s finger play!

applied the passage to him, with great applause.

(122) LXIX. That he was guilty of various acts of adultery, is not

denied even by his friends; but they allege in excuse for it, that he

engaged in those intrigues not from lewdness, but from policy, in order

to discover more easily the designs of his enemies, through their wives.

Mark Antony, besides the precipitate marriage of Livia, charges him with

taking the wife of a man of consular rank from table, in the presence of

her husband, into a bed-chamber, and bringing her again to the

entertainment, with her ears very red, and her hair in great disorder:

that he had divorced Scribonia, for resenting too freely the excessive

influence which one of his mistresses had gained over him: that his

friends were employed to pimp for him, and accordingly obliged both

matrons and ripe virgins to strip, for a complete examination of their

persons, in the same manner as if Thoranius, the dealer in slaves, had

them under sale. And before they came to an open rupture, he writes to

him in a familiar manner, thus: “Why are you changed towards me? Because

I lie with a queen? She is my wife. Is this a new thing with me, or

have I not done so for these nine years? And do you take freedoms with

Drusilla only? May health and happiness so attend you, as when you read

this letter, you are not in dalliance with Tertulla, Terentilla, Rufilla

where, or upon whom, you spend your manly vigour?”

LXX. A private entertainment which he gave, commonly called the Supper

of the Twelve Gods [211], and at which the guests (123) were dressed in

the habit of gods and goddesses, while he personated Apollo himself,

afforded subject of much conversation, and was imputed to him not only by

Antony in his letters, who likewise names all the parties concerned, but

in the following well-known anonymous verses:

Cum primum istorum conduxit mensa choragum,

Sexque deos vidit Mallia, sexque deas

Impia dum Phoebi Caesar mendacia ludit,

Dum nova divorum coenat adulteria:

Omnia se a terris tunc numina declinarunt:

Fugit et auratos Jupiter ipse thronos.

When Mallia late beheld, in mingled train,

Twelve mortals ape twelve deities in vain;

Caesar assumed what was Apollo’s due,

And wine and lust inflamed the motley crew.

At the foul sight the gods avert their eyes,

And from his throne great Jove indignant flies.

What rendered this supper more obnoxious to public censure, was that it

happened at a time when there was a great scarcity, and almost a famine,

in the city. The day after, there was a cry current among the people,

“that the gods had eaten up all the corn; and that Caesar was indeed

Apollo, but Apollo the Tormentor;” under which title that god was

worshipped in some quarter of the city [212]. He was likewise charged

with being excessively fond of fine furniture, and Corinthian vessels, as

well as with being addicted to gaming. For, during the time of the

proscription, the following line was written upon his statue:--

Pater argentarius, ego Corinthiarius;

My father was a silversmith [213], my dealings are in brass;

because it was believed, that he had put some persons upon the list of

the proscribed, only to obtain the Corinthian vessels in (124) their

possession. And afterwards, in the Sicilian war, the following epigram

was published:--

Postquam bis classe victus naves perdidit,

Aliquando ut vincat, ludit assidue aleam.

Twice having lost a fleet in luckless fight,

To win at last, he games both day and night.

LXXI. With respect to the charge or imputation of loathsome impurity

before-mentioned, he very easily refuted it by the chastity of his life,

at the very time when it was made, as well as ever afterwards. His

conduct likewise gave the lie to that of luxurious extravagance in his

furniture, when, upon the taking of Alexandria, he reserved for himself

nothing of the royal treasures but a porcelain cup, and soon afterwards

melted down all the vessels of gold, even such as were intended for

common use. But his amorous propensities never left him, and, as he grew

older, as is reported, he was in the habit of debauching young girls, who

were procured for him, from all quarters, even by his own wife. To the

observations on his gaming, he paid not the smallest regard; but played

in public, but purely for his diversion, even when he was advanced in

years; and not only in the month of December [214], but at other times,

and upon all days, whether festivals or not. This evidently appears from

a letter under his own hand, in which he says, “I supped, my dear

Tiberius, with the same company. We had, besides, Vinicius, and Silvius

the father. We gamed at supper like old fellows, both yesterday and

today. And as any one threw upon the tali [215] aces or sixes, he put

down for every talus a denarius; all which was gained by him who threw a

Venus.” [216] In another letter, he says: “We had, my dear Tiberius, a

pleasant time of it during the festival of Minerva: for we played every

day, and kept the gaming-board warm. Your brother uttered many

exclamations at a desperate run of ill-fortune; but recovering by

degrees, and unexpectedly, he in the end lost not much. I lost twenty

thousand sesterces for my part; but then I was profusely (125) generous

in my play, as I commonly am; for had I insisted upon the stakes which I

declined, or kept what I gave away, I should have won about fifty

thousand. But this I like better for it will raise my character for

generosity to the skies.” In a letter to his daughter, he writes thus:

“I have sent you two hundred and fifty denarii, which I gave to every one

of my guests; in case they were inclined at supper to divert themselves

with the Tali, or at the game of Even-or-Odd.”

LXXII. In other matters, it appears that he was moderate in his habits,

and free from suspicion of any kind of vice. He lived at first near the

Roman Forum, above the Ring-maker’s Stairs, in a house which had once

been occupied by Calvus the orator. He afterwards moved to the Palatine

Hill, where he resided in a small house [217] belonging to Hortensius, no

way remarkable either for size or ornament; the piazzas being but small,

the pillars of Alban stone [218], and the rooms without any thing of

marble, or fine paving. He continued to use the same bed-chamber, both

winter and summer, during forty years [219]: for though he was sensible

that the city did not agree with his health in the winter, he

nevertheless resided constantly in it during that season. If at any time

he wished to be perfectly retired, and secure from interruption, he shut

himself up in an apartment at the top of his house, which he called his

Syracuse or Technophuon [220], or he went to some villa belonging to his

freedmen near the city. But when he was indisposed, he commonly took up

his residence in the house of Mecaenas [221]. Of all the places of

retirement from the city, he (126) chiefly frequented those upon the

sea-coast, and the islands of Campania [222], or the towns nearest the

city, such as Lanuvium, Praeneste, and Tibur [223], where he often used to

sit for the administration of justice, in the porticos of the temple of

Hercules. He had a particular aversion to large and sumptuous palaces;

and some which had been raised at a vast expense by his grand-daughter,

Julia, he levelled to the ground. Those of his own, which were far from

being spacious, he adorned, not so much with statues and pictures, as with

walks and groves, and things which were curious either for their antiquity

or rarity; such as, at Capri, the huge limbs of sea-monsters and wild

beasts, which some affect to call the bones of giants; and also the arms

of ancient heroes.

LXXIII. His frugality in the furniture of his house appears even at this

day, from some beds and tables still remaining, most of which are

scarcely elegant enough for a private family. It is reported that he

never lay upon a bed, but such as was low, and meanly furnished. He

seldom wore any garment but what was made by the hands of his wife,

sister, daughter, and grand-daughters. His togas [224] were neither

scanty nor full; (127) and the clavus was neither remarkably broad or

narrow. His shoes were a little higher than common, to make him appear

taller than he was. He had always clothes and shoes, fit to appear in

public, ready in his bed-chamber for any sudden occasion.

LXXIV. At his table, which was always plentiful and elegant, he

constantly entertained company; but was very scrupulous in the choice of

them, both as to rank and character. Valerius Messala informs us, that

he never admitted any freedman to his table, except Menas, when rewarded

with the privilege of citizenship, for betraying Pompey’s fleet. He

writes, himself, that he invited to his table a person in whose villa he

lodged, and who had formerly been employed by him as a spy. He often

came late to table, and withdrew early; so that the company began supper

before his arrival, and continued at table after his departure. His

entertainments consisted of three entries, or at most of only six. But

if his fare was moderate, his courtesy was extreme. For those who were

silent, or talked in whispers, he encouraged to join in the general

conversation; and introduced buffoons and stage players, or even low

performers from the circus, and very often itinerant humourists, to

enliven the company.

LXXV. Festivals and holidays he usually celebrated very expensively, but

sometimes only with merriment. In the Saturnalia, or at any other time

when the fancy took him, he distributed to his company clothes, gold, and

silver; sometimes coins of all sorts, even of the ancient kings of Rome

and of foreign nations; sometimes nothing but towels, sponges, rakes, and

tweezers, and other things of that kind, with tickets on them, which were

enigmatical, and had a double meaning [225]. He used likewise to sell by

lot among his guests articles of very unequal value, and pictures with

their fronts reversed; and so, by the unknown quality of the lot,

disappoint or gratify the expectation of the purchasers. This sort of

traffic (128) went round the whole company, every one being obliged to

buy something, and to run the chance of loss or gain wits the rest.

LXXVI. He ate sparingly (for I must not omit even this), and commonly

used a plain diet. He was particularly fond of coarse bread, small

fishes, new cheese made of cow’s milk [226], and green figs of the sort

which bear fruit twice a year [227]. He did not wait for supper, but

took food at any time, and in any place, when he had an appetite. The

following passages relative to this subject, I have transcribed from his

letters. “I ate a little bread and some small dates, in my carriage.”

Again. “In returning home from the palace in my litter, I ate an ounce

of bread, and a few raisins.” Again. “No Jew, my dear Tiberius, ever

keeps such strict fast upon the Sabbath [228], as I have to-day; for

while in the bath, and after the first hour of the night, I only ate two

biscuits, before I began to be rubbed with oil.” From this great

indifference about his diet, he sometimes supped by himself, before his

company began, or after they had finished, and would not touch a morsel

at table with his guests.

LXXVII. He was by nature extremely sparing in the use of wine.

Cornelius Nepos says, that he used to drink only three times at supper in

the camp at Modena; and when he indulged himself the most, he never

exceeded a pint; or if he did, his stomach rejected it. Of all wines, he

gave the (129) preference to the Rhaetian [229], but scarcely ever drank

any in the day-time. Instead of drinking, he used to take a piece of

bread dipped in cold water, or a slice of cucumber, or some leaves of

lettuce, or a green, sharp, juicy apple.

LXXVIII. After a slight repast at noon, he used to seek repose [230],

dressed as he was, and with his shoes on, his feet covered, and his hand

held before his eyes. After supper he commonly withdrew to his study, a

small closet, where he sat late, until he had put down in his diary all

or most of the remaining transactions of the day, which he had not before

registered. He would then go to bed, but never slept above seven hours

at most, and that not without interruption; for he would wake three or

four times during that time. If he could not again fall asleep, as

sometimes happened, he called for some one to read or tell stories to

him, until he became drowsy, and then his sleep was usually protracted

till after day-break. He never liked to lie awake in the dark, without

somebody to sit by him. Very early rising was apt to disagree with him.

On which account, if he was obliged to rise betimes, for any civil or

religious functions, in order to guard as much as possible against the

inconvenience resulting from it, he used to lodge in some apartment near

the spot, belonging to any of his attendants. If at any time a fit of

drowsiness seized him in passing along the streets, his litter was set

down while he snatched a few moments’ sleep.

LXXIX. In person he was handsome and graceful, through every period of

his life. But he was negligent in his dress; and so careless about

dressing his hair, that he usually had it done in great haste, by several

barbers at a time. His beard he sometimes clipped, and sometimes shaved;

and either read or wrote during the operation. His countenance, either

when discoursing or silent, was so calm and serene, that a (130) Gaul of

the first rank declared amongst his friends, that he was so softened by

it, as to be restrained from throwing him down a precipice, in his

passage over the Alps, when he had been admitted to approach him, under

pretence of conferring with him. His eyes were bright and piercing; and

he was willing it should be thought that there was something of a divine

vigour in them. He was likewise not a little pleased to see people, upon

his looking steadfastly at them, lower their countenances, as if the sun

shone in their eyes. But in his old age, he saw very imperfectly with

his left eye. His teeth were thin set, small and scaly, his hair a

little curled, and inclining to a yellow colour. His eye-brows met; his

ears were small, and he had an aquiline nose. His complexion was betwixt

brown and fair; his stature but low; though Julius Marathus, his

freedman, says he was five feet and nine inches in height. This,

however, was so much concealed by the just proportion of his limbs, that

it was only perceivable upon comparison with some taller person standing

by him.

LXXX. He is said to have been born with many spots upon his breast and

belly, answering to the figure, order, and number of the stars in the

constellation of the Bear. He had besides several callosities resembling

scars, occasioned by an itching in his body, and the constant and violent

use of the strigil [231] in being rubbed. He had a weakness in his left

hip, thigh, and leg, insomuch that he often halted on that side; but he

received much benefit from the use of sand and reeds. He likewise

sometimes found the fore-finger of his right hand so weak, that when it

was benumbed and contracted with cold, to use it in writing, he was

obliged to have recourse to a circular piece of horn. He had

occasionally a complaint in the bladder; but upon voiding some stones in

his urine, he was relieved from that pain.

LXXXI. During the whole course of his life, he suffered, at times,

dangerous fits of sickness, especially after the conquest of Cantabria;

when his liver being injured by a defluxion (131) upon it, he was reduced

to such a condition, that he was obliged to undergo a desperate and

doubtful method of cure: for warm applications having no effect, Antonius

Musa [232] directed the use of those which were cold. He was likewise

subject to fits of sickness at stated times every year; for about his

birth-day [233] he was commonly a little indisposed. In the beginning of

spring, he was attacked with an inflation of the midriff; and when the

wind was southerly, with a cold in his head. By all these complaints,

his constitution was so shattered, that he could not easily bear either

heat or cold.

LXXXII. In winter, he was protected against the inclemency of the

weather by a thick toga, four tunics, a shirt, a flannel stomacher, and

swathings upon his legs and thighs [234]. In summer, he lay with the

doors of his bedchamber open, and frequently in a piazza, refreshed by a

bubbling fountain, and a person standing by to fan him. He could not

bear even the winter’s sun; and at home, never walked in the open air

without a broad-brimmed hat on his head. He usually travelled in a

litter, and by night: and so slow, that he was two days in going to

Praeneste or Tibur. And if he could go to any place by sea, he preferred

that mode of travelling. He carefully nourished his health against his

many infirmities, avoiding chiefly the free use of the bath; but he was

often rubbed with oil, and sweated in a stove; after which he was washed

with tepid water, warmed either by a fire, or by being exposed to the

heat of the sun. When, upon account of his nerves, he was obliged to

have recourse to sea-water, or the waters of Albula [235], he was

contented with sitting over a wooden tub, which he called by a Spanish

name (132) Dureta, and plunging his hands and feet in the water by turns.

LXXXIII. As soon as the civil wars were ended, he gave up riding and

other military exercises in the Campus Martius, and took to playing at

ball, or foot-ball; but soon afterwards used no other exercise than that

of going abroad in his litter, or walking. Towards the end of his walk,

he would run leaping, wrapped up in a short cloak or cape. For amusement

he would sometimes angle, or play with dice, pebbles, or nuts, with

little boys, collected from various countries, and particularly Moors and

Syrians, for their beauty or amusing talk. But dwarfs, and such as were

in any way deformed, he held in abhorrence, as lusus naturae (nature’s

abortions), and of evil omen.

LXXXIV. From early youth he devoted himself with great diligence and

application to the study of eloquence, and the other liberal arts. In

the war of Modena, notwithstanding the weighty affairs in which he was

engaged, he is said to have read, written, and declaimed every day. He

never addressed the senate, the people, or the army, but in a

premeditated speech, though he did not want the talent of speaking

extempore on the spur of the occasion. And lest his memory should fail

him, as well as to prevent the loss of time in getting up his speeches,

it was his general practice to recite them. In his intercourse with

individuals, and even with his wife Livia, upon subjects of importance he

wrote on his tablets all he wished to express, lest, if he spoke

extempore, he should say more or less than was proper. He delivered

himself in a sweet and peculiar tone, in which he was diligently

instructed by a master of elocution. But when he had a cold, he

sometimes employed a herald to deliver his speeches to the people.

LXXXV. He composed many tracts in prose on various subjects, some of

which he read occasionally in the circle of his friends, as to an

auditory. Among these was his “Rescript to Brutus respecting Cato.”

Most of the pages he read himself, although he was advanced in years, but

becoming fatigued, he gave the rest to Tiberius to finish. He likewise

read over to (133) his friends his “Exhortations to Philosophy,” and the

“History of his own Life,” which he continued in thirteen books, as far

as the Cantabrian war, but no farther. He likewise made some attempts at

poetry. There is extant one book written by him in hexameter verse, of

which both the subject and title is “Sicily.” There is also a book of

Epigrams, no larger than the last, which he composed almost entirely

while he was in the bath. These are all his poetical compositions for

though he begun a tragedy with great zest, becoming dissatisfied with the

style, he obliterated the whole; and his friends saying to him, “What is

your Ajax doing?” he answered, “My Ajax has met with a sponge.” [236]

LXXXVI. He cultivated a style which was neat and chaste, avoiding

frivolous or harsh language, as well as obsolete words, which he calls

disgusting. His chief object was to deliver his thoughts with all

possible perspicuity. To attain this end, and that he might nowhere

perplex, or retard the reader or hearer, he made no scruple to add

prepositions to his verbs, or to repeat the same conjunction several

times; which, when omitted, occasion some little obscurity, but give a

grace to the style. Those who used affected language, or adopted

obsolete words, he despised, as equally faulty, though in different ways.

He sometimes indulged himself in jesting, particularly with his friend

Mecaenas, whom he rallied upon all occasions for his fine phrases [237],

and bantered by imitating his way of talking. Nor did he spare Tiberius,

who was fond of obsolete and far-fetched expressions. He charges Mark

Antony with insanity, writing rather to make men stare, than to be

understood; and by way of sarcasm upon his depraved and fickle taste in

the choice of words, he writes to him thus: “And are you yet in doubt,

whether Cimber Annius or Veranius Flaccus be more proper for your

imitation? Whether you will adopt words which Sallustius Crispus has

borrowed from the ‘Origines’ of Cato? Or do you think that the verbose

empty bombast of Asiatic orators is fit to be transfused into (134) our

language?” And in a letter where he commends the talent of his

grand-daughter, Agrippina, he says, “But you must be particularly careful,

both in writing and speaking, to avoid affectation.”

LXXXVII. In ordinary conversation, he made use of several peculiar

expressions, as appears from letters in his own hand-writing; in which,

now and then, when he means to intimate that some persons would never pay

their debts, he says, “They will pay at the Greek Calends.” And when he

advised patience in the present posture of affairs, he would say, “Let us

be content with our Cato.” To describe anything in haste, he said, “It

was sooner done than asparagus is cooked.” He constantly puts baceolus

for stultus, pullejaceus for pullus, vacerrosus for cerritus, vapide se

habere for male, and betizare for languere, which is commonly called

lachanizare. Likewise simus for sumus, domos for domus in the genitive

singular [238]. With respect to the last two peculiarities, lest any

person should imagine that they were only slips of his pen, and not

customary with him, he never varies. I have likewise remarked this

singularity in his hand-writing; he never divides his words, so as to

carry the letters which cannot be inserted at the end of a line to the

next, but puts them below the other, enclosed by a bracket.

LXXXVIII. He did not adhere strictly to orthography as laid down by the

grammarians, but seems to have been of the opinion of those who think,

that we ought to write as we speak; for as to his changing and omitting

not only letters but whole syllables, it is a vulgar mistake. Nor should

I have taken notice of it, but that it appears strange to me, that any

person should have told us, that he sent a successor to a consular

lieutenant of a province, as an ignorant, illiterate fellow, upon his

observing that he had written ixi for ipsi. When he had occasion to

write in cypher, he put b for a, c for b, and so forth; and instead

of z, aa.

LXXXIX. He was no less fond of the Greek literature, in which he made

considerable proficiency; having had Apollodorus (135) of Pergamus, for

his master in rhetoric; whom, though much advanced in years, he took with

him from The City, when he was himself very young, to Apollonia.

Afterwards, being instructed in philology by Sephaerus, he received into

his family Areus the philosopher, and his sons Dionysius and Nicanor; but

he never could speak the Greek tongue readily, nor ever ventured to

compose in it. For if there was occasion for him to deliver his

sentiments in that language, he always expressed what he had to say in

Latin, and gave it another to translate. He was evidently not

unacquainted with the poetry of the Greeks, and had a great taste for the

ancient comedy, which he often brought upon the stage, in his public

spectacles. In reading the Greek and Latin authors, he paid particular

attention to precepts and examples which might be useful in public or

private life. Those he used to extract verbatim, and gave to his

domestics, or send to the commanders of the armies, the governors of the

provinces, or the magistrates of the city, when any of them seemed to

stand in need of admonition. He likewise read whole books to the senate,

and frequently made them known to the people by his edicts; such as the

orations of Quintus Metellus “for the Encouragement of Marriage,” and

those of Rutilius “On the Style of Building;” [239] to shew the people

that he was not the first who had promoted those objects, but that the

ancients likewise had thought them worthy their attention. He patronised

the men of genius of that age in every possible way. He would hear them

read their works with a great deal of patience and good nature; and not

only poetry [240] and history, but orations and dialogues. He was

displeased, however, that anything should be written upon himself, except

in a grave manner, and by men of the most eminent abilities: and he

enjoined the praetors not to suffer his name to be made too common in the

contests amongst orators and poets in the theatres.

XC. We have the following account of him respecting his (136) belief in

omens and such like. He had so great a dread of thunder and lightning

that he always carried about him a seal’s skin, by way of preservation.

And upon any apprehension of a violent storm, he would retire to some

place of concealment in a vault under ground; having formerly been

terrified by a flash of lightning, while travelling in the night, as we

have already mentioned. [241]

XCI. He neither slighted his own dreams nor those of other people

relating to himself. At the battle of Philippi, although he had resolved

not to stir out of his tent, on account of his being indisposed, yet,

being warned by a dream of one of his friends, he changed his mind; and

well it was that he did so, for in the enemy’s attack, his couch was

pierced and cut to pieces, on the supposition of his being in it. He had

many frivolous and frightful dreams during the spring; but in the other

parts of the year, they were less frequent and more significative. Upon

his frequently visiting a temple near the Capitol, which he had dedicated

to Jupiter Tonans, he dreamt that Jupiter Capitolinus complained that his

worshippers were taken from him, and that upon this he replied, he had

only given him The Thunderer for his porter [242]. He therefore

immediately suspended little bells round the summit of the temple;

because such commonly hung at the gates of great houses. In consequence

of a dream, too, he always, on a certain day of the year, begged alms of

the people, reaching out his hand to receive the dole which they offered

him.

XCII. Some signs and omens he regarded as infallible. If in the morning

his shoe was put on wrong, the left instead of the right, that boded some

disaster. If when he commenced a long journey, by sea or land, there

happened to fall a mizzling rain, he held it to be a good sign of a

speedy and happy return. He was much affected likewise with any thing

out of the common course of nature. A palm-tree [243] which (137)

chanced to grow up between some stone’s in the court of his house, he

transplanted into a court where the images of the Household Gods were

placed, and took all possible care to make it thrive in the island of

Capri, some decayed branches of an old ilex, which hung drooping to the

ground, recovered themselves upon his arrival; at which he was so

delighted, that he made an exchange with the Republic [244] of Naples, of

the island of Oenaria [Ischia], for that of Capri. He likewise observed

certain days; as never to go from home the day after the Nundiae [245],

nor to begin any serious business upon the nones [246]; avoiding nothing

else in it, as he writes to Tiberius, than its unlucky name.

XCIII. With regard to the religious ceremonies of foreign nations, he

was a strict observer of those which had been established by ancient

custom; but others he held in no esteem. For, having been initiated at

Athens, and coming afterwards to hear a cause at Rome, relative to the

privileges of the priests of the Attic Ceres, when some of the mysteries

of their sacred rites were to be introduced in the pleadings, he

dismissed those who sat upon the bench as judges with him, as well as the

by-standers, and beard the argument upon those points himself. But, on

the other hand, he not only declined, in his progress through Egypt, to

go out of his way to pay a visit to Apis, but he likewise commended his

grandson Caius (138) for not paying his devotions at Jerusalem in his

passage through Judaea. [247]

XCIV. Since we are upon this subject, it may not be improper to give an

account of the omens, before and at his birth, as well as afterwards,

which gave hopes of his future greatness, and the good fortune that

constantly attended him. A part of the wall of Velletri having in former

times been struck with thunder, the response of the soothsayers was, that

a native of that town would some time or other arrive at supreme power;

relying on which prediction, the Velletrians both then, and several times

afterwards, made war upon the Roman people, to their own ruin. At last

it appeared by the event, that the omen had portended the elevation of

Augustus.

Julius Marathus informs us, that a few months before his birth, there

happened at Rome a prodigy, by which was signified that Nature was in

travail with a king for the Roman people; and that the senate, in alarm,

came to the resolution that no child born that year should be brought up;

but that those amongst them, whose wives were pregnant, to secure to

themselves a chance of that dignity, took care that the decree of the

senate should not be registered in the treasury.

I find in the theological books of Asclepiades the Mendesian [248], that

Atia, upon attending at midnight a religious solemnity in honour of

Apollo, when the rest of the matrons retired home, fell asleep on her

couch in the temple, and that a serpent immediately crept to her, and

soon after withdrew. She awaking upon it, purified herself, as usual

after the embraces of her husband; and instantly there appeared upon her

body a mark in the form of a serpent, which she never after could efface,

and which obliged her, during the subsequent part of her life, to decline

the use of the public baths. Augustus, it was added, was born in the

tenth month after, and for that reason was thought to be the son of

Apollo. The (139) same Atia, before her delivery, dreamed that her

bowels stretched to the stars, and expanded through the whole circuit of

heaven and earth. His father Octavius, likewise, dreamt that a sun-beam

issued from his wife’s womb.

Upon the day he was born, the senate being engaged in a debate on

Catiline’s conspiracy, and Octavius, in consequence of his wife’s being

in childbirth, coming late into the house, it is a well-known fact, that

Publius Nigidius, upon hearing the occasion of his coming so late, and

the hour of his wife’s delivery, declared that the world had got a

master. Afterwards, when Octavius, upon marching with his army through

the deserts of Thrace, consulted the oracle in the grove of father

Bacchus, with barbarous rites, concerning his son, he received from the

priests an answer to the same purpose; because, when they poured wine

upon the altar, there burst out so prodigious a flame, that it ascended

above the roof of the temple, and reached up to the heavens; a

circumstance which had never happened to any one but Alexander the Great,

upon his sacrificing at the same altars. And next night he dreamt that

he saw his son under a more than human appearance, with thunder and a

sceptre, and the other insignia of Jupiter, Optimus, Maximus, having on

his head a radiant crown, mounted upon a chariot decked with laurel, and

drawn by six pair of milk-white horses.

Whilst he was yet an infant, as Caius Drusus relates, being laid in his

cradle by his nurse, and in a low place, the next day he was not to be

found, and after he had been sought for a long time, he was at last

discovered upon a lofty tower, lying with his face towards the rising sun

to make a troublesome noise, upon an estate belonging to the family near

the town, to be silent; and there goes a report that frogs never croaked

there since that time. As he was dining in a grove at the fourth

mile-stone on the Campanian road, an eagle suddenly snatched a piece of

bread out of his hand, and, soaring to a prodigious height, after

hovering, came down most unexpectedly, and returned it to him.

Quintus Catulus had a dream, for two nights successively after his

dedication of the Capitol. The first night he dreamt (140) that Jupiter,

out of several boys of the order of the nobility who were playing about

his altar, selected one, into whose bosom he put the public seal of the

commonwealth, which he held in his hand; but in his vision the next

night, he saw in the bosom of Jupiter Capitolinus, the same boy; whom he

ordered to be removed, but it was forbidden by the God, who declared that

it must be brought up to become the guardian of the state. The next day,

meeting Augustus, with whom till that hour he had not the least

acquaintance, and looking at him with admiration, he said he was

extremely like the boy he had seen in his dream. Some give a different

account of Catulus’s first dream, namely, that Jupiter, upon several

noble lads requesting of him that they might have a guardian, had pointed

to one amongst them, to whom they were to prefer their requests; and

putting his fingers to the boy’s mouth to kiss, he afterwards applied

them to his own.

Marcus Cicero, as he was attending Caius Caesar to the Capitol, happened

to be telling some of his friends a dream which he had the preceding

night, in which he saw a comely youth, let down from heaven by a golden

chain, who stood at the door of the Capitol, and had a whip put into his

hands by Jupiter. And immediately upon sight of Augustus, who had been

sent for by his uncle Caesar to the sacrifice, and was as yet perfectly

unknown to most of the company, he affirmed that it was the very boy he

had seen in his dream. When he assumed the manly toga, his senatorian

tunic becoming loose in the seam on each side, fell at his feet. Some

would have this to forbode, that the order, of which that was the badge

of distinction, would some time or other be subject to him.

Julius Caesar, in cutting down a wood to make room for his camp near

Munda [250], happened to light upon a palm-tree, and ordered it to be

preserved as an omen of victory. From the root of this tree there put

out immediately a sucker, which, in a few days, grew to such a height as

not only to equal, but overshadow it, and afford room for many nests of

wild pigeons which built in it, though that species of bird particularly

avoids a hard and rough leaf. It is likewise reported, that Caesar was

chiefly influenced by this prodigy, to prefer his sister’s grandson

before all others for his successor.

(141) In his retirement at Apollonia, he went with his friend Agrippa to

visit Theogenes, the astrologer, in his gallery on the roof. Agrippa,

who first consulted the fates, having great and almost incredible

fortunes predicted of him, Augustus did not choose to make known his

nativity, and persisted for some time in the refusal, from a mixture of

shame and fear, lest his fortunes should be predicted as inferior to

those of Agrippa. Being persuaded, however, after much importunity, to

declare it, Theogenes started up from his seat, and paid him adoration.

Not long afterwards, Augustus was so confident of the greatness of his

destiny, that he published his horoscope, and struck a silver coin,

bearing upon it the sign of Capricorn, under the influence of which he

was born.

XCV. After the death of Caesar, upon his return from Apollonia, as he

was entering the city, on a sudden, in a clear and bright sky, a circle

resembling the rainbow surrounded the body of the sun; and, immediately

afterwards, the tomb of Julia, Caesar’s daughter, was struck by

lightning. In his first consulship, whilst he was observing the

auguries, twelve vultures presented themselves, as they had done to

Romulus. And when he offered sacrifice, the livers of all the victims

were folded inward in the lower part; a circumstance which was regarded

by those present, who had skill in things of that nature, as an

indubitable prognostic of great and wonderful fortune.

XCVI. He certainly had a presentiment of the issue of all his wars.

When the troops of the Triumviri were collected about Bolognia, an eagle,

which sat upon his tent, and was attacked by two crows, beat them both,

and struck them to the ground, in the view of the whole army; who thence

inferred that discord would arise between the three colleagues, which

would be attended with the like event: and it accordingly happened. At

Philippi, he was assured of success by a Thessalian, upon the authority,

as he pretended, of the Divine Caesar himself, who had appeared to him

while he was travelling in a bye-road. At Perugia, the sacrifice not

presenting any favourable intimations, but the contrary, he ordered fresh

victims; the enemy, however, carrying off the sacred things in a sudden

sally, it was agreed amongst the augurs, that all the (142) dangers and

misfortunes which had threatened the sacrificer, would fall upon the

heads of those who had got possession of the entrails. And, accordingly,

so it happened. The day before the sea-fight near Sicily, as he was

walking upon the shore, a fish leaped out of the sea, and laid itself at

his feet. At Actium, while he was going down to his fleet to engage the

enemy, he was met by an ass with a fellow driving it. The name of the

man was Eutychus, and that of the animal, Nichon [251]. After the

victory, he erected a brazen statue to each, in a temple built upon the

spot where he had encamped.

XCVII. His death, of which I shall now speak, and his subsequent

deification, were intimated by divers manifest prodigies. As he was

finishing the census amidst a great crowd of people in the Campus

Martius, an eagle hovered round him several times, and then directed its

course to a neighbouring temple, where it settled upon the name of

Agrippa, and at the first letter. Upon observing this, he ordered his

colleague Tiberius to put up the vows, which it is usual to make on such

occasions, for the succeeding Lustrum. For he declared he would not

meddle with what it was probable he should never accomplish, though the

tables were ready drawn for it. About the same time, the first letter of

his name, in an inscription upon one of his statues, was struck out by

lightning; which was interpreted as a presage that he would live only a

hundred days longer, the letter C denoting that number; and that he would

be placed amongst the Gods, as Aesar, which is the remaining part of the

word Caesar, signifies, in the Tuscan language, a God [252]. Being,

therefore, about dispatching Tiberius to Illyricum, and designing to go

with him as far as Beneventum, but being detained by several persons who

applied to him respecting causes they had depending, he cried out, (and

it was afterwards regarded as an omen of his death), “Not all the

business in the world, shall detain me at home one moment longer;” and

setting out upon his journey, he went (143) as far as Astura [253];

whence, contrary to his custom, he put to sea in the night-time, as there

was a favourable wind.

XCVIII. His malady proceeded from diarrhoea; notwithstanding which, he

went round the coast of Campania, and the adjacent islands, and spent

four days in that of Capri; where he gave himself up entirely to repose

and relaxation. Happening to sail by the bay of Puteoli, the passengers

and mariners aboard a ship of Alexandria [254], just then arrived, clad

all in white, with chaplets upon their heads, and offering incense,

loaded him with praises and joyful acclamations, crying out, “By you we

live, by you we sail securely, by you enjoy our liberty and our

fortunes.” At which being greatly pleased, he distributed to each of

those who attended him, forty gold pieces, requiring from them an

assurance on oath, not to employ the sum given them in any other way,

than the purchase of Alexandrian merchandize. And during several days

afterwards, he distributed Togae [255] and Pallia, among other gifts, on

condition that the Romans should use the Greek, and the Greeks the Roman

dress and language. He likewise constantly attended to see the boys

perform their exercises, according to an ancient custom still continued

at Capri. He gave them likewise an entertainment in his presence, and

not only permitted, but required from them the utmost freedom in jesting,

and scrambling for fruit, victuals, and other things which he threw

amongst them. In a word, he indulged himself in all the ways of

amusement he could contrive.

He called an island near Capri, Apragopolis, “The City of the

Do-littles,” from the indolent life which several of his party led there.

A favourite of his, one Masgabas [256], he used (144) to call Ktistaes.

as if he had been the planter of the island. And observing from his room

a great company of people with torches, assembled at the tomb of this

Masgabas, who died the year before, he uttered very distinctly this verse,

which he made extempore.

Ktistou de tumbo, eisoro pyroumenon.

Blazing with lights I see the founder’s tomb.

Then turning to Thrasyllus, a companion of Tiberius, who reclined on the

other side of the table, he asked him, who knew nothing about the matter,

what poet he thought was the author of that verse; and on his hesitating

to reply, he added another:

Oras phaessi Masgaban timomenon.

Honor’d with torches Masgabas you see;

and put the same question to him concerning that likewise. The latter

replying, that, whoever might be the author, they were excellent verses

jesting upon it. Soon afterwards, passing over to Naples, although at

that time greatly disordered in his bowels by the frequent returns of his

disease, he sat out the exhibition of the gymnastic games which were

performed in his honour every five years, and proceeded with Tiberius to

the place intended. But on his return, his disorder increasing, he

stopped at Nola, sent for Tiberius back again, and had a long discourse

with him in private; after which, he gave no further attention to

business of any importance.

XCIX. Upon the day of his death, he now and then enquired, if there was

any disturbance in the town on his account; and calling for a mirror, he

ordered his hair to be combed, and his shrunk cheeks to be adjusted.

Then asking his friends who were admitted into the room, “Do ye think

that I have acted my part on the stage of life well?” he immediately

subjoined,

Ei de pan echei kalos, to paignio

Dote kroton, kai pantes umeis meta charas ktupaesate.

If all be right, with joy your voices raise,

In loud applauses to the actor’s praise.

(145) After which, having dismissed them all, whilst he was inquiring of

some persons who were just arrived from Rome, concerning Drusus’s

daughter, who was in a bad state of health, he expired suddenly, amidst

the kisses of Livia, and with these words: “Livia! live mindful of our

union; and now, farewell!” dying a very easy death, and such as he

himself had always wished for. For as often as he heard that any person

had died quickly and without pain, he wished for himself and his friends

the like euthanasian (an easy death), for that was the word he made use

of. He betrayed but one symptom, before he breathed his last, of being

delirious, which was this: he was all on a sudden much frightened, and

complained that he was carried away by forty men. But this was rather a

presage, than any delirium: for precisely that number of soldiers

belonging to the pretorian cohort, carried out his corpse.

C. He expired in the same room in which his father Octavius had died,

when the two Sextus’s, Pompey and Apuleius, were consuls, upon the

fourteenth of the calends of September [the 19th August], at the ninth

hour of the day, being seventy-six years of age, wanting only thirty-five

days [258]. His remains were carried by the magistrates of the municipal

nighttime, because of the season of the year. During the intervals, the

body lay in some basilica, or great temple, of each town. At Bovillae it

was met by the Equestrian Order, who carried it to the city, and

deposited it in the vestibule of his own house. The senate proceeded

with so much zeal in the arrangement of his funeral, and paying honour to

his memory, that, amongst several other proposals, some were for having

the funeral procession made through the triumphal gate, preceded by the

image of Victory which is in the senate-house, and the children of

highest rank and of both sexes singing the funeral (146) dirge. Others

proposed, that on the day of the funeral, they should lay aside their

gold rings, and wear rings of iron; and others, that his bones should be

collected by the priests of the principal colleges. One likewise

proposed to transfer the name of August to September, because he was born

in the latter, but died in the former. Another moved, that the whole

period of time, from his birth to his death, should be called the

Augustan age, and be inserted in the calendar under that title. But at

last it was judged proper to be moderate in the honours paid to his

memory. Two funeral orations were pronounced in his praise, one before

the temple of Julius, by Tiberius; and the other before the rostra, under

the old shops, by Drusus, Tiberius’s son. The body was then carried upon

the shoulders of senators into the Campus Martius, and there burnt. A

man of pretorian rank affirmed upon oath, that he saw his spirit ascend

from the funeral pile to heaven. The most distinguished persons of the

equestrian order, bare-footed, and with their tunics loose, gathered up

his relics [261], and deposited them in the mausoleum, which had been

built in his sixth consulship between the Flaminian Way and the bank of

the Tiber [262]; at which time likewise he gave the groves and walks

about it for the use of the people.

CI. He had made a will a year and four months before his death, upon the

third of the nones of April [the 11th of April], in the consulship of

Lucius Plancus, and Caius Silius. It consisted of two skins of

parchment, written partly in his own hand, and partly by his freedmen

Polybius and Hilarian; and had been committed to the custody of the

Vestal Virgins, by whom it was now produced, with three codicils under

seal, as well as the will: all these were opened and read in the senate.

He appointed as his direct heirs, Tiberius for two (147) thirds of his

estate, and Livia for the other third, both of whom he desired to assume

his name. The heirs in remainder were Drusus, Tiberius’s son, for one

third, and Germanicus with his three sons for the residue. In the third

place, failing them, were his relations, and several of his friends. He

left in legacies to the Roman people forty millions of sesterces; to the

tribes [263] three millions five hundred thousand; to the pretorian

troops a thousand each man; to the city cohorts five hundred; and to the

legions and soldiers three hundred each; which several sums he ordered to

be paid immediately after his death, having taken due care that the money

should be ready in his exchequer. For the rest he ordered different

times of payment. In some of his bequests he went as far as twenty

thousand sesterces, for the payment of which he allowed a twelvemonth;

alleging for this procrastination the scantiness of his estate; and

declaring that not more than a hundred and fifty millions of sesterces

would come to his heirs: notwithstanding that during the twenty preceding

years, he had received, in legacies from his friends, the sum of fourteen

hundred millions; almost the whole of which, with his two paternal

estates [264], and others which had been left him, he had spent in the

service of the state. He left orders that the two Julias, his daughter

and grand-daughter, if anything happened to them, should not be buried in

his tomb [265]. With regard to the three codicils before-mentioned, in

one of them he gave orders about his funeral; another contained a summary

of his acts, which he intended should be inscribed on brazen plates, and

placed in front of his mausoleum; in the third he had drawn up a concise

account of the state of the empire; the number of troops enrolled, what

money there was in the treasury, the revenue, and arrears of taxes; to

which were added the names of the freedmen and slaves from whom the

several accounts might be taken.

* * * * * *

(148) OCTAVIUS CAESAR, afterwards Augustus, had now attained to the same

position in the state which had formerly been occupied by Julius Caesar;

and though he entered upon it by violence, he continued to enjoy it

through life with almost uninterrupted tranquillity. By the long

duration of the late civil war, with its concomitant train of public

calamities, the minds of men were become less averse to the prospect of

an absolute government; at the same time that the new emperor, naturally

prudent and politic, had learned from the fate of Julius the art of

preserving supreme power, without arrogating to himself any invidious

mark of distinction. He affected to decline public honours, disclaimed

every idea of personal superiority, and in all his behaviour displayed a

degree of moderation which prognosticated the most happy effects, in

restoring peace and prosperity to the harassed empire. The tenor of his

future conduct was suitable to this auspicious commencement. While he

endeavoured to conciliate the affections of the people by lending money

to those who stood in need of it, at low interest, or without any at all,

and by the exhibition of public shows, of which the Romans were

remarkably fond; he was attentive to the preservation of a becoming

dignity in the government, and to the correction of morals. The senate,

which, in the time of Sylla, had increased to upwards of four hundred,

and, during the civil war, to a thousand, members, by the admission of

improper persons, he reduced to six hundred; and being invested with

the ancient office of censor, which had for some time been disused, he

exercised an arbitrary but legal authority over the conduct of every rank

in the state; by which he could degrade senators and knights, and inflict

upon all citizens an ignominious sentence for any immoral or indecent

behaviour. But nothing contributed more to render the new form of

government acceptable to the people, than the frequent distribution of

corn, and sometimes largesses, amongst the commonalty: for an occasional

scarcity of provisions had always been the chief cause of discontents

and tumults in the capital. To the interests of the army he likewise

paid particular attention. It was by the assistance of the legions that

he had risen to power; and they were the men who, in the last resort,

if such an emergency should ever occur, could alone enable him to

preserve it.

History relates, that after the overthrow of Antony, Augustus held a

consultation with Agrippa and Mecaenas about restoring the republican

form of government; when Agrippa gave his opinion in favour of that

measure, and Mecaenas opposed it. (149) The object of this consultation,

in respect to its future consequences on society, is perhaps the most

important ever agitated in any cabinet, and required, for the mature

discussion of it, the whole collective wisdom of the ablest men in the

empire. But this was a resource which could scarcely be adopted, either

with security to the public quiet, or with unbiassed judgment in the

determination of the question. The bare agitation of such a point would

have excited immediate and strong anxiety for its final result; while the

friends of a republican government, who were still far more numerous than

those of the other party, would have strained every nerve to procure a

determination in their own favour; and the pretorian guards, the surest

protection of Augustus, finding their situation rendered precarious by

such an unexpected occurrence, would have readily listened to the secret

propositions and intrigues of the republicans for securing their

acquiescence to the decision on the popular side. If, when the subject

came into debate, Augustus should be sincere in the declaration to abide

by the resolution of the council, it is beyond all doubt, that the

restoration of a republican government would have been voted by a great

majority of the assembly. If, on the contrary, he should not be sincere,

which is the more probable supposition, and should incur the suspicion of

practising secretly with members for a decision according to his wish, he

would have rendered himself obnoxious to the public odium, and given rise

to discontents which might have endangered his future security.

But to submit this important question to the free and unbiassed decision

of a numerous assembly, it is probable, neither suited the inclination of

Augustus, nor perhaps, in his opinion, consisted with his personal

safety. With a view to the attainment of unconstitutional power, he had

formerly deserted the cause of the republic when its affairs were in a

prosperous situation; and now, when his end was accomplished, there could

be little ground to expect, that he should voluntarily relinquish the

prize for which he had spilt the best blood of Rome, and contended for so

many years. Ever since the final defeat of Antony in the battle of

Actium, he had governed the Roman state with uncontrolled authority; and

though there is in the nature of unlimited power an intoxicating quality,

injurious both to public and private virtue, yet all history contradicts

the supposition of its being endued with any which is unpalatable to the

general taste of mankind.

There were two chief motives by which Augustus would naturally be

influenced in a deliberation on this important subject; namely, the love

of power, and the personal danger which (150) he might incur from

relinquishing it. Either of these motives might have been a sufficient

inducement for retaining his authority; but when they both concurred, as

they seem to have done upon this occasion, their united force was

irresistible. The argument, so far as relates to the love of power,

rests upon a ground, concerning the solidity of which, little doubt can

be entertained: but it may be proper to inquire, in a few words, into the

foundation of that personal danger which he dreaded to incur, on

returning to the station of a private citizen.

Augustus, as has been already observed, had formerly sided with the party

which had attempted to restore public liberty after the death of Julius

Caesar: but he afterwards abandoned the popular cause, and joined in the

ambitious plans of Antony and Lepidus to usurp amongst themselves the

entire dominion of the state. By this change of conduct, he turned his

arms against the supporters of a form of government which he had

virtually recognized as the legal constitution of Rome; and it involved a

direct implication of treason against the sacred representatives of that

government, the consuls, formally and duly elected. Upon such a charge

he might be amenable to the capital laws of his country. This, however,

was a danger which might be fully obviated, by procuring from the senate

and people an act of oblivion, previously to his abdication of the

supreme power; and this was a preliminary which doubtless they would have

admitted and ratified with unanimous approbation. It therefore appears

that he could be exposed to no inevitable danger on this account: but

there was another quarter where his person was vulnerable, and where even

the laws might not be sufficient to protect him against the efforts of

private resentment. The bloody proscription of the Triumvirate no act of

amnesty could ever erase from the minds of those who had been deprived by

it of their nearest and dearest relations; and amidst the numerous

connections of the illustrious men sacrificed on that horrible occasion,

there might arise some desperate avenger, whose indelible resentment

nothing less would satisfy than the blood of the surviving delinquent.

Though Augustus, therefore, might not, like his great predecessor, be

stabbed in the senate-house, he might perish by the sword or the poniard

in a less conspicuous situation. After all, there seems to have been

little danger from this quarter likewise for Sylla, who in the preceding

age had been guilty of equal enormities, was permitted, on relinquishing

the place of perpetual dictator, to end his days in quiet retirement; and

the undisturbed security which Augustus ever afterwards enjoyed, affords

sufficient proof, that all apprehension of danger to his person was

merely chimerical.

(151) We have hitherto considered this grand consultation as it might be

influenced by the passions or prejudices of the emperor: we shall now

take a short view of the subject in the light in which it is connected

with considerations of a political nature, and with public utility. The

arguments handed down by history respecting this consultation are few,

and imperfectly delivered; but they may be extended upon the general

principles maintained on each side of the question.

For the restoration of the republican government, it might be contended,

that from the expulsion of the kings to the dictatorship of Julius

Caesar, through a period of upwards of four hundred and sixty years, the

Roman state, with the exception only of a short interval, had flourished

and increased with a degree of prosperity unexampled in the annals of

humankind: that the republican form of government was not only best

adapted to the improvement of national grandeur, but to the security of

general freedom, the great object of all political association: that

public virtue, by which alone nations could subsist in vigour, was

cherished and protected by no mode of administration so much as by that

which connected, in the strongest bonds of union, the private interests

of individuals with those of the community: that the habits and

prejudices of the Roman people were unalterably attached to the form of

government established by so long a prescription, and they would never

submit, for any length of time, to the rule of one person, without making

every possible effort to recover their liberty: that though despotism,

under a mild and wise prince, might in some respects be regarded as

preferable to a constitution which was occasionally exposed to the

inconvenience of faction and popular tumults, yet it was a dangerous

experiment to abandon the government of the nation to the contingency of

such a variety of characters as usually occurs in the succession of

princes; and, upon the whole, that the interests of the people were more

safely entrusted in the hands of annual magistrates elected by

themselves, than in those of any individual whose power was permanent,

and subject to no legal control.

In favour of despotic government it might be urged, that though Rome had

subsisted long and gloriously under a republican form of government, yet

she had often experienced such violent shocks from popular tumults or the

factions of the great, as had threatened her with imminent destruction:

that a republican government was only accommodated to a people amongst

whom the division of property gave to no class of citizens such a degree

of pre-eminence as might prove dangerous to public freedom: that there

was required in that form of political constitution, a simplicity (152)

of life and strictness of manners which are never observed to accompany a

high degree of public prosperity: that in respect of all these

considerations, such a form of government was utterly incompatible with

the present circumstances of the Romans that by the conquest of so many

foreign nations, by the lucrative governments of provinces, the spoils of

the enemy in war, and the rapine too often practised in time of peace, so

great had been the aggrandizement of particular families in the preceding

age, that though the form of the ancient constitution should still remain

inviolate, the people would no longer live under a free republic, but an

aristocratical usurpation, which was always productive of tyranny: that

nothing could preserve the commonwealth from becoming a prey to some

daring confederacy, but the firm and vigorous administration of one

person, invested with the whole executive power of the state, unlimited

and uncontrolled: in fine, that as Rome had been nursed to maturity by

the government of six princes successively, so it was only by a similar

form of political constitution that she could now be saved from

aristocratical tyranny on one hand, or, on the other, from absolute

anarchy.

On whichever side of the question the force of argument may be thought to

preponderate, there is reason to believe that Augustus was guided in his

resolution more by inclination and prejudice than by reason. It is

related, however, that hesitating between the opposite opinions of his

two counsellors, he had recourse to that of Virgil, who joined with

Mecaenas in advising him to retain the imperial power, as being the form

of government most suitable to the circumstances of the times.

It is proper in this place to give some account of the two ministers

above-mentioned, Agrippa and Mecaenas, who composed the cabinet of

Augustus at the settlement of his government, and seem to be the only

persons employed by him in a ministerial capacity during his whole reign.

M. Vipsanius Agrippa was of obscure extraction, but rendered himself

conspicuous by his military talents. He obtained a victory over Sextus

Pompey; and in the battles of Philippi and Actium, where he displayed

great valour, he contributed not a little to establish the subsequent

power of Augustus. In his expeditions afterwards into Gaul and Germany,

he performed many signal achievements, for which he refused the honours

of a triumph. The expenses which others would have lavished on that

frivolous spectacle, he applied to the more laudable purpose of

embellishing Rome with magnificent buildings, one of which, the Pantheon,

still remains. In consequence of a dispute with Marcellus, the nephew of

Augustus, he retired to Mitylene, (153) whence, after an absence of two

years, he was recalled by the emperor. He first married Pomponia, the

daughter of the celebrated Atticus, and afterwards one of the Marcellas,

the nieces of Augustus. While this lady, by whom he had children, was

still living, the emperor prevailed upon his sister Octavia to resign to

him her son-in-law, and gave him in marriage his own daughter Julia; so

strong was the desire of Augustus to be united with him in the closest

alliance. The high degree of favour in which he stood with the emperor

was soon after evinced by a farther mark of esteem: for during a visit to

the Roman provinces of Greece and Asia, in which Augustus was absent two

years, he left the government of the empire to the care of Agrippa.

While this minister enjoyed, and indeed seems to have merited, all the

partiality of Augustus, he was likewise a favourite with the people. He

died at Rome, in the sixty-first year of his age, universally lamented;

and his remains were deposited in the tomb which Augustus had prepared

for himself. Agrippa left by Julia three sons, Caius, Lucius, and

Posthumus Agrippa, with two daughters, Agrippina and Julia.

C. Cilnius Mecaenas was of Tuscan extraction, and derived his descent

from the ancient kings of that country. Though in the highest degree of

favour with Augustus, he never aspired beyond the rank of the equestrian

order; and though he might have held the government of extensive

provinces by deputies, he was content with enjoying the praefecture of

the city and Italy; a situation, however, which must have been attended

with extensive patronage. He was of a gay and social disposition. In

principle he is said to have been of the Epicurean sect, and in his dress

and manners to have bordered on effeminacy. With respect to his

political talents, we can only speak from conjecture; but from his being

the confidential minister of a prince of so much discernment as Augustus,

during the infancy of a new form of government in an extensive empire, we

may presume that he was endowed with no common abilities for that

important station. The liberal patronage which he displayed towards men

of genius and talents, will render his name for ever celebrated in the

annals of learning. It is to be regretted that history has transmitted

no particulars of this extraordinary personage, of whom all we know is

derived chiefly from the writings of Virgil and Horace; but from the

manner in which they address him, amidst the familiarity of their

intercourse, there is the strongest reason to suppose, that he was not

less amiable and respectable in private life, than illustrious in public

situation. “O my glory!” is the emphatic expression employed by them

both.

(154) O decus, O famae merito pars maxima nostrae. Vir. Georg. ii.

Light of my life, my glory, and my guide!

O et praesidium et dulce decus meum. Hor. Ode I.

My glory and my patron thou!

One would be inclined to think, that there was a nicety in the sense and

application of the word decus, amongst the Romans, with which we are

unacquainted, and that, in the passages now adduced, it was understood to

refer to the honour of the emperor’s patronage, obtained through the

means of Mecaenas; otherwise, such language to the minister might have

excited the jealousy of Augustus. But whatever foundation there may be

for this conjecture, the compliment was compensated by the superior

adulation which the poets appropriated to the emperor, whose deification

is more than insinuated, in sublime intimations, by Virgil.

Tuque adeo quem mox quae sint habitura deorum

Concilia, incertum est; urbisne invisere, Caesar,

Terrarumque velis curam; et te maximus orbis

Auctorem frugum, tempestatumque potentem

Accipiat, cingens materna tempora myrto:

An Deus immensi venias maris, ac tua nautae

Numina sola colant: tibi serviat ultima Thule;

Teque sibi generum Tethys emat omnibus undis. Geor. i. 1. 25, vi.

Thou Caesar, chief where’er thy voice ordain

To fix midst gods thy yet unchosen reign--

Wilt thou o’er cities fix thy guardian sway,

While earth and all her realms thy nod obey?

The world’s vast orb shall own thy genial power,

Giver of fruits, fair sun, and favouring shower;

Before thy altar grateful nations bow,

And with maternal myrtle wreathe thy brow;

O’er boundless ocean shall thy power prevail,

Thee her sole lord the world of waters hail,

Rule where the sea remotest Thule laves,

While Tethys dowers thy bride with all her waves. Sotheby.

Horace has elegantly adopted the same strain of compliment.

Te multa prece, te prosequitur mero

Defuso pateris; et Laribus tuum

Miscet numen, uti Graecia Castoris

Et magni memor Herculis. Carm. IV. 5.

To thee he chants the sacred song,

To thee the rich libation pours;

Thee placed his household gods among,

With solemn daily prayer adores

So Castor and great Hercules of old,

Were with her gods by grateful Greece enrolled.

(155) The panegyric bestowed upon Augustus by the great poets of that

time, appears to have had a farther object than the mere gratification of

vanity. It was the ambition of this emperor to reign in the hearts as

well as over the persons of his subjects; and with this view he was

desirous of endearing himself to their imagination. Both he and Mecaenas

had a delicate sensibility to the beauties of poetical composition; and

judging from their own feelings, they attached a high degree of influence

to the charms of poetry. Impressed with these sentiments, it became an

object of importance, in their opinion, to engage the Muses in the

service of the imperial authority; on which account, we find Mecaenas

tampering with Propertius, and we may presume, likewise with every other

rising genius in poetry, to undertake an heroic poem, of which Augustus

should be the hero. As the application to Propertius cannot have taken

place until after Augustus had been amply celebrated by the superior

abilities of Virgil and Horace, there seems to be some reason for

ascribing Mecaenas’s request to a political motive. Caius and Lucius,

the emperor’s grandsons by his daughter Julia, were still living, and

both young. As one of them, doubtless, was intended to succeed to the

government of the empire, prudence justified the adoption of every

expedient that might tend to secure a quiet succession to the heir, upon

the demise of Augustus. As a subsidiary resource, therefore, the

expedient above mentioned was judged highly plausible; and the Roman

cabinet indulged the idea of endeavouring to confirm imperial authority

by the support of poetical renown. Lampoons against the government were

not uncommon even in the time of Augustus; and elegant panegyric on the

emperor served to counteract their influence upon the minds of the

people. The idea was, perhaps, novel in the time of Augustus; but the

history of later ages affords examples of its having been adopted, under

different forms of government, with success.

The Roman empire, in the time of Augustus, had attained to a prodigious

magnitude; and, in his testament, he recommended to his successors never

to exceed the limits which he had prescribed to its extent. On the East

it stretched to the Euphrates; on the South to the cataracts of the Nile,

the deserts of Africa, and Mount Atlas; on the West to the Atlantic

Ocean; and on the North to the Danube and the Rhine; including the best

part of the then known world. The Romans, therefore, were not improperly

called rerum domini [266], and Rome, pulcherrima rerum [267], maxima

rerum [268]. Even the historians, Livy and Tacitus, (156) actuated

likewise with admiration, bestow magnificent epithets on the capital of

their country. The succeeding emperors, in conformity to the advice of

Augustus, made few additions to the empire. Trajan, however, subdued

Mesopotamia and Armenia, east of the Euphrates, with Dacia, north of the

Danube; and after this period the Roman dominion was extended over

Britain, as far as the Frith of Forth and the Clyde.

It would be an object of curiosity to ascertain the amount of the Roman

revenue in the reign of Augustus; but such a problem, even with respect

to contemporary nations, cannot be elucidated without access to the

public registers of their governments; and in regard to an ancient

monarchy, the investigation is impracticable. We can only be assured

that the revenue must have been immense, which arose from the accumulated

contribution of such a number of nations, that had supported their own

civil establishments with great splendour, and many of which were

celebrated for their extraordinary riches and commerce. The tribute paid

by the Romans themselves, towards the support of the government, was very

considerable during the latter ages of the republic, and it received an

increase after the consulship of Hirtius and Pansa. The establishments,

both civil and military, in the different provinces, were supported at

their own expense; the emperor required but a small naval force, an arm

which adds much to the public expenditure of maritime nations in modern

times; and the state was burdened with no diplomatic charges. The vast

treasure accruing from the various taxes centered in Rome, and the whole

was at the disposal of the emperor, without any control. We may

therefore justly conclude that, in the amount of taxes, customs, and

every kind of financial resources, Augustus exceeded all sovereigns who

had hitherto ever swayed the sceptre of imperial dominion; a noble

acquisition, had it been judiciously employed by his successors, in

promoting public happiness, with half the profusion in which it was

lavished in disgracing human nature, and violating the rights of mankind.

The reign of Augustus is distinguished by the most extraordinary event

recorded in history, either sacred or profane, the nativity of the

Saviour of mankind; which has since introduced a new epoch into the

chronology of all Christian nations. The commencement of the new aera

being the most flourishing period of the Roman empire, a general view of

the state of knowledge and taste at this period, may here not be

improper.

Civilization was at this time extended farther over the world than it had

ever been in any preceding period; but polytheism rather increased than

diminished with the advancement of commercial (157) intercourse between

the nations of Europe, Asia, and Africa; and, though philosophy had been

cultivated during several ages, at Athens, Cyrene, Rome, and other seats

of learning, yet the morals of mankind were little improved by the

diffusion of speculative knowledge. Socrates had laid an admirable

foundation for the improvement of human nature, by the exertion of reason

through the whole economy of life; but succeeding inquirers, forsaking

the true path of ethic investigation, deviated into specious discussions,

rather ingenious than useful; and some of them, by gratuitously adopting

principles, which, so far from being supported by reason, were repugnant

to its dictates, endeavoured to erect upon the basis of their respective

doctrines a system peculiar to themselves. The doctrines of the Stoics

and Epicureans were, in fact, pernicious to society; and those of the

different academies, though more intimately connected with reason than

the two former, were of a nature too abstract to have any immediate or

useful influence on life and manners. General discussions of truth and

probability, with magnificent declamations on the to kalon, and the

summum bonum, constituted the chief objects of attention amongst those

who cultivated moral science in the shades of academical retirement.

Cicero endeavoured to bring back philosophy from speculation to practice,

and clearly evinced the social duties to be founded in the unalterable

dictates of virtue; but it was easier to demonstrate the truth of the

principles which he maintained, than to enforce their observance, while

the morals of mankind were little actuated by the exercise of reason

alone.

The science chiefly cultivated at this period was rhetoric, which appears

to have differed considerably from what now passes under the same name.

The object of it was not so much justness of sentiment and propriety of

expression, as the art of declaiming, or speaking copiously upon any

subject. It is mentioned by Varro as the reverse of logic; and they are

distinguished from each other by a simile, that the former resembles the

palm of the hand expanded, and the latter, contracted into the fist. It

is observable that logic, though a part of education in modern times,

seems not to have been cultivated amongst the Romans. Perhaps they were

apprehensive, lest a science which concentered the force of argument,

might obstruct the cultivation of that which was meant to dilate it.

Astronomy was long before known in the eastern nations; but there is

reason to believe, from a passage in Virgil [269], that it was little

cultivated by the Romans; and it is certain, that in the reformation of

the calendar, Julius Caesar was chiefly indebted to the scientific

knowledge of (158) Sosigenes, a mathematician of Alexandria. The laws of

the solar system were still but imperfectly known; the popular belief,

that the sun moved round the earth, was universally maintained, and

continued until the sixteenth century, when the contrary was proved by

Copernicus. There existed many celebrated tracts on mathematics; and

several of the mechanical powers, particularly that of the lever, were

cultivated with success. The more necessary and useful rules of

arithmetic were generally known. The use of the load-stone not being as

yet discovered, navigation was conducted in the day-time by the sun, and

in the night, by the observation of certain stars. Geography was

cultivated during the present period by Strabo and Mela. In natural

philosophy little progress was made; but a strong desire of its

improvement was entertained, particularly by Virgil. Human anatomy being

not yet introduced, physiology was imperfect. Chemistry, as a science,

was utterly unknown. In medicine, the writings of Hippocrates, and other

Greek physicians, were in general the standard of practice; but the

Materia Medica contained few remedies of approved quality, and abounded

with useless substances, as well as with many which stood upon no other

foundation than the whimsical notions of those who first introduced them.

Architecture flourished, through the elegant taste of Vitruvius, and the

patronage of the emperor. Painting, statuary, and music, were

cultivated, but not with that degree of perfection which they had

obtained in the Grecian states. The musical instruments of this period

were the flute and the lyre, to which may be added the sistrum, lately

imported from Egypt. But the chief glory of the period is its

literature, of which we proceed to give some account.

At the head of the writers of this age, stands the emperor himself, with

his minister Mecaenas; but the works of both have almost totally

perished. It appears from the historian now translated, that Augustus

was the author of several productions in prose, besides some in verse.

He wrote Answers to Brutus in relation to Cato, Exhortations to

Philosophy, and the History of his own Life, which he continued, in

thirteen books, down to the war of Cantabria. A book of his, written in

hexameter verse, under the title of Sicily, was extant in the time of

Suetonius, as was likewise a book of Epigrams. He began a tragedy on the

subject of Ajax, but, being dissatisfied with the composition, destroyed

it. Whatever the merits of Augustus may have been as an author, of which

no judgment can be formed, his attachment to learning and eminent writers

affords a strong presumption that he was not destitute of taste.

Mecaenas is said to have written two tragedies, Octavia and Prometheus; a

History of (159) Animals; a Treatise on Precious Stones; a Journal of the

Life of Augustus; and other productions. Curiosity is strongly

interested to discover the literary talents of a man so much

distinguished for the esteem and patronage of them in others; but while

we regret the impossibility of such a development, we scarcely can

suppose the proficiency to have been small, where the love and admiration

were so great.

History was cultivated amongst the Romans during the present period, with

uncommon success. This species of composition is calculated both for

information and entertainment; but the chief design of it is to record

all transactions relative to the public, for the purpose of enabling

mankind to draw from past events a probable conjecture concerning the

future; and, by knowing the steps which have led either to prosperity or

misfortune, to ascertain the best means of promoting the former, and

avoiding the latter of those objects. This useful kind of narrative was

introduced about five hundred years before by Herodotus, who has thence

received the appellation of the Father of History. His style, in

conformity to the habits of thinking, and the simplicity of language, in

an uncultivated age, is plain and unadorned; yet, by the happy modulation

of the Ionic dialect, it gratified the ear, and afforded to the states of

Greece a pleasing mixture of entertainment, enriched not only with

various information, often indeed fabulous or unauthentic, but with the

rudiments, indirectly interspersed, of political wisdom. This writer,

after a long interval, was succeeded by Thucydides and Xenophon, the

former of whom carried historical narrative to the highest degree of

improvement it ever attained among the States of Greece. The plan of

Thucydides seems to have continued to be the model of historical

narrative to the writers of Rome; but the circumstances of the times,

aided perhaps by the splendid exertion of genius in other departments of

literature, suggested a new resource, which promised not only to animate,

but embellish the future productions of the historic Muse. This

innovation consisted in an attempt to penetrate the human heart, and

explore in its innermost recesses the sentiments and secret motives which

actuate the conduct of men. By connecting moral effects with their

probable internal and external causes, it tended to establish a

systematic consistency in the concatenation of transactions apparently

anomalous, accidental, or totally independent of each other.

The author of this improvement in history was SALLUST, who likewise

introduced the method of enlivening narrative with the occasional aid of

rhetorical declamation, particularly in his account of the Catilinian

conspiracy. The notorious (160) characters and motives of the principal

persons concerned in that horrible plot, afforded the most favourable

opportunity for exemplifying the former; while the latter, there is

reason to infer from the facts which must have been at that time publicly

known, were founded upon documents of unquestionable authority. Nay, it

is probable that Sallust was present in the senate during the debate

respecting the punishment of the Catilinian conspirators; his detail of

which is agreeable to the characters of the several speakers: but in

detracting, by invidious silence, or too faint representation, from the

merits of Cicero on that important occasion, he exhibits a glaring

instance of the partiality which too often debases the narratives of

those who record the transactions of their own time. He had married

Terentia, the divorced wife of Cicero; and there subsisted between the

two husbands a kind of rivalship from that cause, to which was probably

added some degree of animosity, on account of their difference in

politics, during the late dictatorship of Julius Caesar, by whom Sallust

was restored to the senate, whence he had been expelled for

licentiousness, and was appointed governor of Numidia. Excepting the

injustice with which Sallust treats Cicero, he is entitled to high

commendation. In both his remaining works, the Conspiracy of Catiline,

and the War of Jugurtha, there is a peculiar air of philosophical

sentiment, which, joined to the elegant conciseness of style, and

animated description of characters, gives to his writings a degree of

interest, superior to that which is excited in any preceding work of the

historical kind. In the occasional use of obsolete words, and in

laboured exordiums to both his histories, he is liable to the charge of

affectation; but it is an affectation of language which supports

solemnity without exciting disgust; and of sentiment which not only

exalts human nature, but animates to virtuous exertions. It seems to be

the desire of Sallust to atone for the dissipation of his youth by a

total change of conduct; and whoever peruses his exordiums with the

attention which they deserve, must feel a strong persuasion of the

justness of his remarks, if not the incentives of a resolution to be

governed by his example. It seems to be certain, that from the first

moment of his reformation, he incessantly practised the industry which he

so warmly recommends. He composed a History of Rome, of which nothing

remains but a few fragments. Sallust, during his administration of

Numidia, is said to have exercised great oppression. On his return to

Rome he built a magnificent house, and bought delightful gardens, the

name of which, with his own, is to this day perpetuated on the spot which

they formerly occupied. Sallust was born at Amiternum, in the country of

the Sabines, and (161) received his education at Rome. He incurred great

scandal by an amour with Fausta, the daughter of Sylla, and wife of Milo;

who detecting the criminal intercourse, is said to have beat him with

stripes, and extorted from him a large sum of money. He died, according

to tradition, in the fifty-first year of his age.

CORNELIUS NEPOS was born at Hostilia, near the banks of the Po. Of his

parentage we meet with no account; but from his respectable connections

early in life, it is probable that he was of good extraction. Among his

most intimate friends were Cicero and Atticus. Some authors relate that

he composed three books of Chronicles, with a biographical account of all

the most celebrated sovereigns, generals, and writers of antiquity.

The language of Cornelius Nepos is pure, his style perspicuous, and he

holds a middle and agreeable course between diffuseness and brevity. He

has not observed the same rule with respect to the treatment of every

subject; for the account of some of the lives is so short, that we might

suspect them to be mutilated, did they not contain evident marks of their

being completed in miniature. The great extent of his plan induced him,

as he informs us, to adopt this expedient. “Sed plura persequi, tum

magnitudo voluminis prohibet, tum festinatio, ut ea explicem, quae

exorsus sum.” [270]

Of his numerous biographical works, twenty-two lives only remain, which

are all of Greeks, except two Carthaginians, Hamilcar and Hannibal; and

two Romans, M. Porcius Cato and T. Pomponius Atticus. Of his own

life,--of him who had written the lives of so many, no account is

transmitted; but from the multiplicity of his productions, we may

conclude that it was devoted to literature.

TITUS LIVIUS may be ranked among the most celebrated historians the world

has ever produced. He composed a history of Rome from the foundation of

the city, to the conclusion of the German war conducted by Drusus in the

time of the emperor Augustus. This great work consisted, originally, of

one hundred and forty books; of which there now remain only thirty-five,

viz., the first decade, and the whole from book twenty-one to book

forty-five, both inclusive. Of the other hundred and five books, nothing

more has survived the ravages of time and barbarians than their general

contents. In a perspicuous arrangement of his subject, in a full and

circumstantial account of transactions, in the delineation of characters

and other objects of description, to justness and aptitude of sentiment,

and in an air of majesty (162) pervading the whole composition, this

author may be regarded as one of the best models extant of historical

narrative. His style is splendid without meretricious ornament, and

copious without being redundant; a fluency to which Quintilian gives the

expressive appellation of “lactea ubertas.” Amongst the beauties which

we admire in his writings, besides the animated speeches frequently

interspersed, are those concise and peculiarly applicable eulogiums, with

which he characterises every eminent person mentioned, at the close of

their life. Of his industry in collating, and his judgment in deciding

upon the preference due to, dissentient authorities, in matters of

testimony, the work affords numberless proofs. Of the freedom and

impartiality with which he treated even of the recent periods of history,

there cannot be more convincing evidence, than that he was rallied by

Augustus as a favourer of Pompey; and that, under the same emperor, he

not only bestowed upon Cicero the tribute of warm approbation, but dared

to ascribe, in an age when their names were obnoxious, even to Brutus and

Cassius the virtues of consistency and patriotism. If in any thing the

conduct of Livy violates our sentiments of historical dignity, it is the

apparent complacency and reverence with which he every where mentions the

popular belief in omens and prodigies; but this was the general

superstition of the times; and totally to renounce the prejudices of

superstitious education, is the last heroic sacrifice to philosophical

scepticism. In general, however, the credulity of Livy appears to be

rather affected than real; and his account of the exit of Romulus, in the

following passage, may be adduced as an instance in confirmation of this

remark.

“His immortalibus editis operibus, quum ad exercitum recensendum

concionem in campo ad Caprae paludem haberet, subita coorta tempestate

cum magno fragore tonitribusque tam denso regem operuit nimbo, ut

conspectum ejus concioni abstulerit; nec deinde in terris Romulus fuit.

Romana pubes, sedato tandem pavore, postquam ex tam turbido die serena,

et tranquilla lux rediit, ubi vacuam sedem regiam vidit; etsi satis

credebat Patribus, qui proximi steterant, sublimem raptum procella; tamen

veluti orbitatis metu icta, maestum aliquamdiu silentium obtinuit.

Deinde a paucis initio facto, Deum, Deo natum, regem parentemque urbis

Romanae, salvere universi Romulum jubent; pacem precibus exposcunt, uti

volens propitius suam semper sospitet progeniem. Fuisse credo tum quoque

aliquos, qui discerptum regem Patrum manibus taciti arguerent; manavit

enim haec quoque, et perobscura, fama. Illam alteram admiratio viri, et

pavor praesens nobilitavit. Consilio etiam unius hominis addita rei

dicitur fides; namque Proculus Julius sollicita civitate desiderio (163)

regis, et infensa Patribus, gravis, ut traditur, quamvis magnae rei

auctor, in concionem prodit. ‘Romulus, inquit, Quirites, parens urbis

hujus, prima hodierna luce coelo repente delapsus, se mihi obvium dedit;

quam profusus horrore venerabundusque astitissem, petens precibus, ut

contra intueri fas esset; Abi, nuncia, inquit, Romanis, Coelestes ita

velle, ut mea Roma caput orbis terrarum sit; proinde rem militarem

colant; sciantque, et ita posteris tradant, nullas opes humanas armis

Romanis resistere posse.’ Haec, inquit, locutus, sublimis abiit. Mirum,

quantum illi viro nuncianti haec fidei fuerit; quamque desiderium Romuli

apud plebem exercitumque, facta fide immortalitatis, lenitum sit.” [271]

Scarcely any incident in ancient history savours more of the (164)

marvellous than the account above delivered respecting the first Roman

king; and amidst all the solemnity with which it is related, we may

perceive that the historian was not the dupe of credulity. There is more

implied than the author thought proper to avow, in the sentence, Fuisse

credo, etc. In whatever light this anecdote be viewed, it is involved in

perplexity. That Romulus affected a despotic power, is not only highly

probable, from his aspiring disposition, but seems to be confirmed by his

recent appointment of the Celeres, as a guard to his person. He might,

therefore, naturally incur the odium of the patricians, whose importance

was diminished, and their institution rendered abortive, by the increase

of his power. But that they should choose the opportunity of a military

review, for the purpose of removing the tyrant by a violent death, seems

not very consistent with the dictates even of common prudence; and it is

the more incredible, as the circumstance which favoured the execution of

the plot is represented to have been entirely a fortuitous occurrence.

The tempest which is said to have happened, is not easily reconcilable

with our knowledge of that phenomenon. Such a cloud, or mist, as could

have enveloped Romulus from the eyes of the assembly, is not a natural

concomitant of a thunder-storm. There is some reason to suspect that

both the noise and cloud, if they actually existed, were artificial; the

former intended to divert the attention of the spectators, and the latter

to conceal the transaction. The word fragor, a noise or crash, appears

to be an unnecessary addition where thunder is expressed, though

sometimes so used by the poets, and may therefore, perhaps, imply such a

noise from some other cause. If Romulus was killed by any pointed or

sharp-edged weapon, his blood might have been discovered on the spot; or,

if by other means, still the body was equally an object for public

observation. If the people suspected the patricians to be guilty of

murder, why did they not endeavour to trace the fact by this evidence?

And if the patricians were really innocent, why did they not urge the

examination? But the body, without doubt, was secreted, to favour the

imposture. The whole narrative is strongly marked with circumstances

calculated to affect credulity with ideas of national importance; and, to

countenance the design, there is evidently a chasm in the Roman history

immediately preceding this transaction and intimately connected with it.

Livy was born at Patavium [272], and has been charged by Asinius Pollio

and others with the provincial dialect of his country. The objections to

his Pativinity, as it is called, relate chiefly to the (165) spelling of

some words; in which, however, there seems to be nothing so peculiar, as

either to occasion any obscurity or merit reprehension.

Livy and Sallust being the only two existing rivals in Roman history, it

may not be improper to draw a short comparison between them, in respect

of their principal qualities, as writers. With regard to language, there

is less apparent affectation in Livy than in Sallust. The narrative of

both is distinguished by an elevation of style: the elevation of Sallust

seems to be often supported by the dignity of assumed virtue; that of

Livy by a majestic air of historical, and sometimes national, importance.

In delineating characters, Sallust infuses more expression, and Livy more

fulness, into the features. In the speeches ascribed to particular

persons, these writers are equally elegant and animated.

So great was the fame of Livy in his own life-time, that people came from

the extremity of Spain and Gaul, for the purpose only of beholding so

celebrated a historian, who was regarded, for his abilities, as a

prodigy. This affords a strong proof, not only of the literary taste

which then prevailed over the most extensive of the Roman provinces, but

of the extraordinary pains with which so great a work must have been

propagated, when the art of printing was unknown. In the fifteenth

century, on the revival of learning in Europe, the name of this great

writer recovered its ancient veneration; and Alphonso of Arragon, with a

superstition characteristic of that age, requested of the people of

Padua, where Livy was born, and is said to have been buried, to be

favoured by them with the hand which had written so admirable a work.--

The celebrity of VIRGIL has proved the means of ascertaining his birth

with more exactness than is common in the biographical memoirs of ancient

writers. He was born at Andes, a village in the neighbourhood of Mantua,

on the 15th of October, seventy years before the Christian aera. His

parents were of moderate condition; but by their industry acquired some

territorial possessions, which descended to their son. The first seven

years of his life was spent at Cremona, whence he went to Mediolanum, now

Milan, at that time the seat of the liberal arts, denominated, as we

learn from Pliny the younger, Novae Athenae. From this place he

afterwards moved to Naples, where he applied himself with great assiduity

to Greek and Roman literature, particularly to the physical and

mathematical sciences; for which he expressed a strong predilection in

the second book of his Georgics.

Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musae,

Quarum sacra fero ingenti perculsus amore,

(166) Accipiant; coelique vias et sidera monstrent;

Defectus Solis varios, Lunaeque labores:

Unde tremor terris: qua vi maria alta tumescant

Obicibus ruptis, rursusque in seipsa residant:

Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles

Hiberni: vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet.

Geor. ii. 1. 591, etc.

But most beloved, ye Muses, at whose fane,

Led by pure zeal, I consecrate my strain,

Me first accept! And to my search unfold,

Heaven and her host in beauteous order rolled,

The eclipse that dims the golden orb of day,

And changeful labour of the lunar ray;

Whence rocks the earth, by what vast force the main

Now bursts its barriers, now subsides again;

Why wintry suns in ocean swiftly fade,

Or what delays night’s slow-descending shade. Sotheby.

When, by a proscription of the Triumvirate, the lands of Cremona and

Mantua were distributed amongst the veteran soldiers, Virgil had the good

fortune to recover his possessions, through the favour of Asinius Pollio,

the deputy of Augustus in those parts; to whom, as well as to the

emperor, he has testified his gratitude in beautiful eclogues.

The first production of Virgil was his Bucolics, consisting of ten

eclogues, written in imitation of the Idyllia or pastoral poems of

Theocritus. It may be questioned whether any language which has its

provincial dialects, but is brought to perfection, can ever be well

adapted, in that state, to the use of pastoral poetry. There is such an

apparent incongruity between the simple ideas of the rural swain and the

polished language of the courtier, that it seems impossible to reconcile

them together by the utmost art of composition. The Doric dialect of

Theocritus, therefore, abstractedly from all consideration of simplicity

of sentiment, must ever give to the Sicilian bard a pre-eminence in this

species of poetry. The greater part of the Bucolics of Virgil may be

regarded as poems of a peculiar nature, into which the author has happily

transfused, in elegant versification, the native manners and ideas,

without any mixture of the rusticity of pastoral life. With respect to

the fourth eclogue, addressed to Pollio, it is avowedly of a nature

superior to that of pastoral subjects:

Sicelides Musae, paullo majora canamus.

Sicilian Muse, be ours a loftier strain.

Virgil engaged in bucolic poetry at the request of Asinius Pollio, whom

he highly esteemed, and for one of whose sons in particular, (167) with

Cornelius Gallus, a poet likewise, he entertained the warmest affection.

He has celebrated them all in these poems, which were begun, we are told,

in the twenty-ninth year of his age, and completed in three years. They

were held in so great esteem amongst the Romans, immediately after their

publication, that it is said they were frequently recited upon the stage

for the entertainment of the audience. Cicero, upon hearing some lines

of them, perceived that they were written in no common strain of poetry,

and desired that the whole eclogue might be recited: which being done, he

exclaimed, “Magnae spes altera Romae.” Another hope of mighty Rome!

Virgil’s next work was the Georgics, the idea of which is taken from the

Erga kai Hmerai, the Works and Days of Hesiod, the poet of Ascra. But

between the productions of the two poets, there is no other similarity

than that of their common subject. The precepts of Hesiod, in respect of

agriculture, are delivered with all the simplicity of an unlettered

cultivator of the fields, intermixed with plain moral reflections,

natural and apposite; while those of Virgil, equally precise and

important, are embellished with all the dignity of sublime versification.

The work is addressed to Mecaenas, at whose request it appears to have

been undertaken. It is divided into four books. The first treats of

ploughing; the second, of planting; the third, of cattle, horses, sheep,

goats, dogs, and of things which are hurtful to cattle; the fourth is

employed on bees, their proper habitations, food, polity, the diseases to

which they are liable, and the remedies of them, with the method of

making honey, and a variety of other considerations connected with the

subject. The Georgics (168) were written at Naples, and employed the

author during a period of seven years. It is said that Virgil had

concluded the Georgics with a laboured eulogium on his poetical friend

Gallus; but the latter incurring about this time the displeasure of

Augustus, he was induced to cancel it, and substitute the charming

episode of Astaeus and Eurydice.

These beautiful poems, considered merely as didactic, have the justest

claim to utility. In what relates to agriculture in particular, the

precepts were judiciously adapted to the climate of Italy, and must have

conveyed much valuable information to those who were desirous of

cultivating that important art, which was held in great honour amongst

the Romans. The same remark may be made, with greater latitude of

application, in respect of the other subjects. But when we examine the

Georgics as poetical compositions, when we attend to the elevated style

in which they are written, the beauty of the similes, the emphatic

sentiments interspersed, the elegance of diction, the animated strain of

the whole, and the harmony of the versification, our admiration is

excited, at beholding subjects, so common in their nature, embellished

with the most magnificent decorations of poetry.

During four days which Augustus passed at Atella, to refresh himself from

fatigue, in his return to Rome, after the battle of Actium, the Georgics,

just then finished, were read to him by the author, who was occasionally

relieved in the task by his friend Mecaenas. We may easily conceive the

satisfaction enjoyed by the emperor, at finding that while he himself had

been gathering laurels in the achievements of war, another glorious

wreath was prepared by the Muses to adorn his temples; and that an

intimation was given of his being afterwards celebrated in a work more

congenial to the subject of heroic renown.

It is generally supposed that the Aeneid was written at the particular

desire of Augustus, who was ambitious of having the Julian family

represented as lineal descendants of the Trojan Aeneas. In this

celebrated poem, Virgil has happily united the characteristics of the

Iliad and Odyssey, and blended them so judiciously together, that they

mutually contribute to the general effect of the whole. By the esteem

and sympathy excited for the filial piety and misfortunes of Aeneas at

the catastrophe of Troy, the reader is strongly interested in his

subsequent adventures; and every obstacle to the establishment of the

Trojans in the promised land of Hesperia produces fresh sensations of

increased admiration and attachment. The episodes, characters, and

incidents, all concur to give beauty or grandeur to the poem. The

picture of Troy in flames can never be sufficiently (169) admired! The

incomparable portrait of Priam, in Homer, is admirably accommodated to a

different situation, in the character of Anchises, in the Aeneid. The

prophetic rage of the Cumaean Sibyl displays in the strongest colours the

enthusiasm of the poet. For sentiment, passion, and interesting

description, the episode of Dido is a master-piece in poetry. But Virgil

is not more conspicuous for strength of description than propriety of

sentiment; and wherever he takes a hint from the Grecian bard, he

prosecutes the idea with a judgment peculiar to himself. It may be

sufficient to mention one instance. In the sixth book of the Iliad,

while the Greeks are making great slaughter amongst the Trojans, Hector,

by the advice of Helenus, retires into the city, to desire that his

mother would offer up prayers to the goddess Pallas, and vow to her a

noble sacrifice, if she would drive Diomede from the walls of Troy.

Immediately before his return to the field of battle, he has his last

interview with Andromache, whom he meets with his infant son Astyanax,

carried by a nurse. There occurs, upon this occasion, one of the most

beautiful scenes in the Iliad, where Hector dandles the boy in his arms,

and pours forth a prayer, that he may one day be superior in fame to his

father. In the same manner, Aeneas, having armed himself for the

decisive combat with Turnus, addresses his son Ascanius in a beautiful

speech, which, while expressive of the strongest paternal affection,

contains, instead of a prayer, a noble and emphatic admonition, suitable

to a youth who had nearly attained the period of adult age. It is as

follows:

Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem;

Fortunam ex aliis; nunc te mea dextera bello

Defensum dabit, et magna inter praemia ducet.

Tu facito, mox cum matura adoleverit aetas,

Sis memor: et te animo repetentem exempla tuorum,

Et pater Aeneas, et avunculus excitet Hector.--Aeneid, xii.

My son! from my example learn the war

In camps to suffer, and in feuds to dare,

But happier chance than mine attend thy care!

This day my hand thy tender age shall shield,

And crown with honours of the conquered field:

Thou when thy riper years shall send thee forth

To toils of war, be mindful of my worth;

Assert thy birthright, and in arms be known,

For Hector’s nephew and Aeneas’ son.

Virgil, though born to shine by his own intrinsic powers, certainly owed

much of his excellence to the wonderful merits of Homer. His susceptible

imagination, vivid and correct, was (170) impregnated by the Odyssey, and

warmed with the fire of the Iliad. Rivalling, or rather on some

occasions surpassing his glorious predecessor in the characters of heroes

and of gods, he sustains their dignity with so uniform a lustre, that

they seem indeed more than mortal.

Whether the Iliad or the Aeneid be the more perfect composition, is a

question which has often been agitated, but perhaps will never be

determined to general satisfaction. In comparing the genius of the two

poets, however, allowance ought to be made for the difference of

circumstances under which they composed their respective works. Homer

wrote in an age when mankind had not as yet made any great progress in

the exertion of either intellect or imagination, and he was therefore

indebted for big resources to the vast capacity of his own mind. To this

we must add, that he composed both his poems in a situation of life

extremely unfavourable to the cultivation of poetry. Virgil, on the

contrary, lived at a period when literature had attained to a high state

of improvement. He had likewise not only the advantage of finding a

model in the works of Homer, but of perusing the laws of epic poetry,

which had been digested by Aristotle, and the various observations made

on the writings of the Greek bard by critics of acuteness and taste;

amongst the chief of whom was his friend Horace, who remarks that

--------quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.--De Arte Poet.

E’en sometimes the good Homer naps.

Virgil, besides, composed his poem in a state remote from indigence,

where he was roused to exertion by the example of several contemporary

poets; and what must have animated him beyond every other consideration,

he wrote both at the desire, and under the patronage of the emperor and

his minister Mecaenas. In what time Homer composed either of his poems,

we know not; but the Aeneid, we are informed, was the employment of

Virgil during eleven years. For some years, the repeated entreaties of

Augustus could not extort from him the smallest specimen of the work; but

at length, when considerably advanced in it, he condescended to recite

three books--the second, the fourth, and the sixth--in the presence of

the emperor and his sister Octavia, to gratify the latter of whom, in

particular, the recital of the last book now mentioned, was intended.

When the poet came to the words, Tu Marcellus eris, alluding to Octavia’s

son, a youth of great hopes, who had lately died, the mother fainted.

After she had recovered from this fit, by the care of her attendants, she

ordered ten sesterces to be given to Virgil for every line relating (171)

to that subject; a gratuity which amounted to about two thousand pounds

sterling.

In the composition of the Aeneid, Virgil scrupled not to introduce whole

lines of Homer, and of the Latin poet Ennius; many of whose sentences he

admired. In a few instances he has borrowed from Lucretius. He is said

to have been at extraordinary pains in polishing his numbers; and when he

was doubtful of any passage, he would read it to some of his friends,

that he might have their opinion. On such occasions, it was usual with

him to consult in particular his freedman and librarian Erotes, an old

domestic, who, it is related, supplied extempore a deficiency in two

lines, and was desired by his master to write them in the manuscript.

When this immortal work was completed, Virgil resolved on retiring into

Greece and Asia for three years, that he might devote himself entirely to

polishing it, and have leisure afterwards to pass the remainder of his

life in the cultivation of philosophy. But meeting at Athens with

Augustus, who was on his return from the East, he determined on

accompanying the emperor back to Rome. Upon a visit to Megara, a town in

the neighbourhood of Athens, he was seized with a languor, which

increased during the ensuing voyage; and he expired a few days after

landing at Brundisium, on the 22nd of September, in the fifty-second year

of his age. He desired that his body might be carried to Naples, where

he had passed many happy years; and that the following distich, written

in his last sickness, should be inscribed upon his tomb:

Mantua me genuit: Calabri rapuere: tenet nunc

Parthenope: cecini pascua, rura, duces. [274]

He was accordingly interred, by the order of Augustus, with great funeral

pomp, within two miles of Naples, near the road to Puteoli, where his

tomb still exists. Of his estate, which was very considerable by the

liberality of his friends, he left the greater part to Valerius Proculus

and his brother, a fourth to Augustus, a twelfth to Mecaenas, besides

legacies to L. Varius and Plotius Tucca, who, in consequence of his own

request, and the command of Augustus, revised and corrected the Aeneid

after his death. Their instructions from the emperor were, to expunge

whatever they thought improper, but upon no account to make any addition.

This restriction is supposed to be the cause that many lines in the

Aeneid are imperfect.

Virgil was of large stature, had a dark complexion, and his (172)

features are said to have been such as expressed no uncommon abilities.

He was subject to complaints of the stomach and throat, as well as to

head-ache, and had frequent discharges of blood upwards: but from what

part, we are not informed. He was very temperate both in food and wine.

His modesty was so great, that at Naples they commonly gave him the name

of Parthenias, “the modest man.” On the subject of his modesty; the

following anecdote is related.

Having written a distich, in which he compared Augustus to Jupiter, he

placed it in the night-time over the gate of the emperor’s palace. It

was in these words:

Nocte pluit tota, redeunt spectacula mane:

Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet.

All night it rained, with morn the sports appear,

Caesar and Jove between them rule the year.

By order of Augustus, an inquiry was made after the author; and Virgil

not declaring himself, the verses were claimed by Bathyllus, a

contemptible poet, but who was liberally rewarded on the occasion.

Virgil, provoked at the falsehood of the impostor, again wrote the verses

on some conspicuous part of the palace, and under them the following

line:

Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit alter honorem;

I wrote the verse, another filched the praise;

with the beginning of another line in these words:

Sic vos, non vobis,

Not for yourselves, you----

repeated four times. Augustus expressing a desire that the lines should

be finished, and Bathyllus proving unequal to the task, Virgil at last

filled up the blanks in this manner:

Sic vos, non vobis, nidificatis, aves;

Sic vos, non vobis, vellera fertis, oves;

Sic vos, non vobis, mellificatis, apes;

Sic vos, non vobis, fertis aratra, boves.

Not for yourselves, ye birds, your nests ye build;

Not for yourselves, ye sheep, your fleece ye yield;

Not for yourselves, ye bees, your cells ye fill;

Not for yourselves, ye beeves, ye plough and till.

The expedient immediately evinced him to be the author of the distich,

and Bathyllus became the theme of public ridicule.

When at any time Virgil came to Rome, if the people, as was commonly the

case, crowded to gaze upon him, or pointed at him with the finger in

admiration, he blushed, and stole away (173) from them; frequently taking

refuge in some shop. When he went to the theatre, the audience

universally rose up at his entrance, as they did to Augustus, and

received him with the loudest plaudits; a compliment which, however

highly honourable, he would gladly have declined. When such was the just

respect which they paid to the author of the Bucolics and Georgics, how

would they have expressed their esteem, had they beheld him in the

effulgence of epic renown! In the beautiful episode of the Elysian

fields, in the Aeneid, where he dexterously introduced a glorious display

of their country, he had touched the most elastic springs of Roman

enthusiasm. The passion would have rebounded upon himself, and they

would, in the heat of admiration, have idolized him.

HORACE was born at Venusia, on the tenth of December, in the consulship

of L. Cotta and L. Torquatus. According to his own acknowledgment, his

father was a freedman; by some it is said that he was a collector of the

revenue, and by others, a fishmonger, or a dealer in salted meat.

Whatever he was, he paid particular attention to the education of his

son, for, after receiving instruction from the best masters in Rome, he

sent him to Athens to study philosophy. From this place, Horace followed

Brutus, in the quality of a military tribune, to the battle of Philippi,

where, by his own confession, being seized with timidity, he abandoned

the profession of a soldier, and returning to Rome, applied himself to

the cultivation of poetry. In a short time he acquired the friendship of

Virgil and Valerius, whom he mentions in his Satires, in terms of the

most tender affection.

Postera lux oritur multo gratissima: namque

Plotius et Varius Sinuessae, Virgiliusque,

Occurrunt; animae, quales neque candidiores

Terra tulit, neque queis me sit devinctior alter.

O qui complexus, et gaudia quanta fuerunt!

Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.--Sat. I. 5.

Next rising morn with double joy we greet,

For Plotius, Varius, Virgil, here we meet:

Pure spirits these; the world no purer knows,

For none my heart with more affection glows:

How oft did we embrace, our joys how great!

For sure no blessing in the power of fate

Can be compared, in sanity of mind,

To friends of such companionable kind.--Francis.

By the two friends above mentioned, he was recommended to the patronage

not only of Mecaenas, but of Augustus, with whom he, as well as Virgil,

lived on a footing of the greatest intimacy. Satisfied with the luxury

which he enjoyed at the first tables in (174) Rome, he was so unambitious

of any public employment, that when the emperor offered him the place of

his secretary, he declined it. But as he lived in an elegant manner,

having, besides his house in town, a cottage on his Sabine farm, and a

villa at Tibur, near the falls of the Anio, he enjoyed, beyond all doubt.

a handsome establishment, from the liberality of Augustus. He indulged

himself in indolence and social pleasure, but was at the same time much

devoted to reading; and enjoyed a tolerable good state of health,

although often incommoded with a fluxion of rheum upon the eyes.

Horace, in the ardour of youth, and when his bosom beat high with the

raptures of fancy, had, in the pursuit of Grecian literature, drunk

largely, at the source, of the delicious springs of Castalia; and it

seems to have been ever after his chief ambition, to transplant into the

plains of Latium the palm of lyric poetry. Nor did he fail of success:

Exegi monumentum aere perennius.--Carm. iii. 30.

More durable than brass a monument I’ve raised.

In Greece, and other countries, the Ode appears to have been the most

ancient, as well as the most popular species of literary production.

Warm in expression, and short in extent, it concentrates in narrow bounds

the fire of poetical transport: on which account, it has been generally

employed to celebrate the fervours of piety, the raptures of love, the

enthusiasm of praise; and to animate warriors to glorious exertions of

valour:

Musa dedit fidibus Divos, puerosque Deorum,

Et pugilem victorem, et equum certamine primnm,

Et juvenum curas, et libera vina referre.--Hor. De Arte Poet.

The Muse to nobler subjects tunes her lyre;

Gods, and the sons of Gods, her song inspire;

Wrestler and steed, who gained the Olympic prize,

Love’s pleasing cares, and wine’s unbounded joys.--Francis.

Misenum Aeoliden, quo non praestantior alter

Aere ciere viros, Martemque accendere cnatu. [275]

Virgil, Aeneid, vi.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Sed tum forte cava dum personat aequora concha

Demens, et canto vocat in certamina Divos.--Ibid.

Misenus, son of Oeolus, renowned

The warrior trumpet in the field to sound;

With breathing brass to kindle fierce alarms,

And rouse to dare their fate in honourable arms.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

(175) Swollen with applause, and aiming still at more,

He now provokes the sea-gods from the shore.--Dryden

There arose in this department, among the Greeks, nine eminent poets,

viz. Alcaeus, Alcman, Anacreon, Bacchylides, Ibicus, Sappho, Stesichorus,

Simonides, and Pindar. The greater number of this distinguished class

are now known only by name. They seem all to have differed from one

another, no less in the kind of measure which they chiefly or solely

employed, than in the strength or softness, the beauty or grandeur, the

animated rapidity or the graceful ease of their various compositions. Of

the amorous effusions of the lyre, we yet have examples in the odes of

Anacreon, and the incomparable ode of Sappho: the lyric strains which

animated to battle, have sunk into oblivion; but the victors in the

public games of Greece have their fame perpetuated in the admirable

productions of Pindar.

Horace, by adopting, in the multiplicity of his subjects, almost all the

various measures of the different Greek poets, and frequently combining

different measures in the same composition, has compensated for the

dialects of that tongue, so happily suited to poetry, and given to a

language less distinguished for soft inflexions, all the tender and

delicate modulations of the Eastern song. While he moves in the measures

of the Greeks with an ease and gracefulness which rivals their own

acknowledged excellence, he has enriched the fund of lyric harmony with a

stanza peculiar to himself. In the artificial construction of the Ode,

he may justly be regarded as the first of lyric poets. In beautiful

imagery, he is inferior to none: in variety of sentiment and felicity of

expression, superior to every existing competitor in Greek or Roman

poetry. He is elegant without affectation; and what is more remarkable,

in the midst of gaiety he is moral. We seldom meet in his Odes with the

abrupt apostrophes of passionate excursion; but his transitions are

conducted with ease, and every subject introduced with propriety.

The Carmen Seculare was written at the express desire of Augustus, for

the celebration of the Secular Games, performed once in a hundred years,

and which continued during three days and three nights, whilst all Rome

resounded with the mingled effusions of choral addresses to gods and

goddesses, and of festive joy. An occasion which so much interested the

ambition of the poet, called into exertion the most vigorous efforts of

his genius. More concise in mythological attributes than the hymns

ascribed to Homer, this beautiful production, in variety and grandeur of

invocation, and in pomp of numbers, surpasses all that Greece, (176)

melodious but simple in the service of the altar, ever poured forth from

her vocal groves in solemn adoration. By the force of native genius, the

ancients elevated their heroes to a pitch of sublimity that excites

admiration, but to soar beyond which they could derive no aid from

mythology; and it was reserved for a bard, inspired with nobler

sentiments than the Muses could supply, to sing the praises of that Being

whose ineffable perfections transcend all human imagination. Of the

praises of gods and heroes, there is not now extant a more beautiful

composition, than the 12th Ode of the first book of Horace:

Quem virum aut heroa lyra vel acri

Tibia sumes celebrare, Clio?

Quem Deum? cujus recinet jocosa

Nomen imago,

Aut in umbrosis Heliconis oris, etc.

What man, what hero, on the tuneful lyre,

Or sharp-toned flute, will Clio choose to raise,

Deathless, to fame? What God? whose hallowed name

The sportive image of the voice

Shall in the shades of Helicon repeat, etc.

The Satires of Horace are far from being remarkable for poetical harmony,

as he himself acknowledges. Indeed, according to the plan upon which

several of them are written, it could scarcely be otherwise. They are

frequently colloquial, sometimes interrogatory, the transitions quick,

and the apostrophes abrupt. It was not his object in those compositions,

to soothe the ear with the melody of polished numbers, but to rally the

frailties of the heart, to convince the understanding by argument, and

thence to put to shame both the vices and follies of mankind. Satire is

a species of composition, of which the Greeks furnished no model; and the

preceding Roman writers of this class, though they had much improved it

from its original rudeness and licentiousness, had still not brought it

to that degree of perfection which might answer the purpose of moral

reform in a polished state of society. It received the most essential

improvement from Horace, who has dexterously combined wit and argument,

raillery and sarcasm, on the side of morality and virtue, of happiness

and truth.

The Epistles of this author may be reckoned amongst the most valuable

productions of antiquity. Except those of the second book, and one or

two in the first, they are in general of the familiar kind; abounding in

moral sentiments, and judicious observations on life and manners.

The poem De Arte Poetica comprises a system of criticism, in justness of

principle and extent of application, correspondent to the various

exertions of genius on subjects of invention and taste. (177) That in

composing this excellent production, he availed himself of the most

approved works of Grecian original, we may conclude from the advice which

he there recommends:

------------Vos exemplaria Graeca

Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.

Make the Greek authors your supreme delight;

Read them by day, and study them by night.--Francis.

In the writings of Horace there appears a fund of good sense, enlivened

with pleasantry, and refined by philosophical reflection. He had

cultivated his judgment with great application, and his taste was guided

by intuitive perception of moral beauty, aptitude, and propriety. The

few instances of indelicacy which occur in his compositions, we may

ascribe rather to the manners of the times, than to any blameable

propensity in the author. Horace died in the fifty-seventh year of his

age, surviving his beloved Mecaenas only three weeks; a circumstance

which, added to the declaration in an ode [276] to that personage,

supposed to have been written in Mecaenas’s last illness, has given rise

to a conjecture, that Horace ended his days by a violent death, to

accompany his friend. But it is more natural to conclude that he died of

excessive grief, as, had he literally adhered to the affirmation

contained in the ode, he would have followed his patron more closely.

This seems to be confirmed by a fact immediately preceding his death; for

though he declared Augustus heir to his whole estate, he was not able, on

account of weakness, to put his signature to the will; a failure which it

is probable that he would have taken care to obviate, had his death been

premeditated. He was interred, at his own desire, near the tomb of

Mecaenas.----

OVID was born of an equestrian family, at Sulmo, a town of the Peligni,

on the 21st of March, in the consulship of Hirtius and Pansa. His father

intended him for the bar; and after passing him through the usual course

of instruction at Rome, he was sent to Athens, the emporium of learning,

to complete his education. On his return to Rome, in obedience to the

desire of his father, he entered upon the offices of public life in the

forum, and declaimed with great applause. But this was the effect of

paternal authority, not of choice: for, from his earliest years, he

discovered an extreme attachment to poetry; and no sooner was his father

dead, than, renouncing the bar, he devoted himself entirely to the

cultivation of that fascinating art, his propensity to which was

invincible. His productions, all written either in heroic or pentameter

verse, are numerous, and on various subjects. It will be sufficient to

mention them briefly.

(178) The Heroides consist of twenty-one Epistles, all which, except

three, are feigned to be written from celebrated women of antiquity, to

their husbands or lovers, such as Penelope to Ulysses, Dido to Aeneas,

Sappho to Phaon, etc. These compositions are nervous, animated and

elegant: they discover a high degree of poetic enthusiasm, but blended

with that lascivious turn of thought, which pervades all the amorous

productions of this celebrated author.

The elegies on subjects of love, particularly the Ars Amandi, or Ars

Amatoria, though not all uniform in versification, possess the same

general character, of warmth of passion, and luscious description, as the

epistles.

The Fasti were divided into twelve books, of which only the first six now

remain. The design of them was to deliver an account of the Roman

festivals in every month of the year, with a description of the rites and

ceremonies, as well as the sacrifices on those occasions. It is to be

regretted, that, on a subject so interesting, this valuable work should

not have been transmitted entire: but in the part which remains, we are

furnished with a beautiful description of the ceremonial transactions in

the Roman calendar, from the first of January to the end of June. The

versification, as in all the compositions of this author, is easy and

harmonious.

The most popular production of this poet is his Metamorphoses, not less

extraordinary for the nature of the subject, than for the admirable art

with which the whole is conducted. The work is founded upon the

traditions and theogony of the ancients, which consisted of various

detached fables. Those Ovid has not only so happily arranged, that they

form a coherent series of narratives, one rising out of another; but he

describes the different changes with such an imposing plausibility, as to

give a natural appearance to the most incredible fictions. This

ingenious production, however perfect it may appear, we are told by

himself, had not received his last corrections when he was ordered into

banishment.

In the Ibis, the author imitates a poem of the same name, written by

Callimachus. It is an invective against some person who publicly

traduced his character at Rome, after his banishment. A strong

sensibility, indignation, and implacable resentment, are conspicuous

through the whole.

The Tristia were composed in his exile, in which, though his vivacity

forsook him, he still retained a genius prolific in versification. In

these poems, as well as in many epistles to different persons, he bewails

his unhappy situation, and deprecates in the strongest terms the

inexorable displeasure of Augustus.

Several other productions written by Ovid are now lost, and (179) amongst

them a tragedy called Medea, of which Quintilian expresses a high

opinion. Ovidii Medea videtur mihi ostendere quantum vir ille praestare

potuerit, si ingenio suo temperare quam indulgere maluisset [277]. Lib.

x. c. 1.

It is a peculiarity in the productions of this author, that, on whatever

he employs his pen, he exhausts the subject; not with any prolixity that

fatigues the attention, but by a quick succession of new ideas, equally

brilliant and apposite, often expressed in antitheses. Void of obscenity

in expression, but lascivious in sentiment, he may be said rather to

stimulate immorally the natural passions, than to corrupt the

imagination. No poet is more guided in versification by the nature of

his subject than Ovid. In common narrative, his ideas are expressed with

almost colloquial simplicity; but when his fancy glows with sentiment, or

is animated by objects of grandeur, his style is proportionably elevated,

and he rises to a pitch of sublimity.

No point in ancient history has excited more variety of conjectures than

the banishment of Ovid; but after all the efforts of different writers to

elucidate the subject, the cause of this extraordinary transaction

remains involved in obscurity. It may therefore not be improper, in this

place, to examine the foundation of the several conjectures which have

been formed, and if they appear to be utterly imadmissible, to attempt a

solution of the question upon principles more conformable to probability,

and countenanced by historical evidence.

The ostensible reason assigned by Augustus for banishing Ovid, was his

corrupting the Roman youth by lascivious publications; but it is evident,

from various passages in the poet’s productions after this period, that

there was, besides, some secret reason, which would not admit of being

divulged. He says in his Tristia, Lib. ii. 1--

Perdiderent cum me duo crimina, carmen et errors. [278]

It appears from another passage in the same work, that this inviolable

arcanum was something which Ovid had seen, and, as he insinuates, through

his own ignorance and mistake.

Cur aliquid vidi? cur conscia lumina feci?

Cur imprudenti cognita culpa mihi est?--Ibid.

* * * * * *

(180) Inscia quod crimen viderunt lumina, plector:

Peccatumque oculos est habuisse meum. [279] De Trist. iii. 5.

It seems, therefore, to be a fact sufficiently established, that Ovid had

seen something of a very indecent nature, in which Augustus was

concerned. What this was, is the question. Some authors, conceiving it

to have been of a kind extremely atrocious, have gone so far as to

suppose, that it must have been an act of criminality between Augustus

and his own daughter Julia, who, notwithstanding the strict attention

paid to her education by her father, became a woman of the most infamous

character; suspected of incontinence during her marriage with Agrippa,

and openly profligate after her union with her next husband, Tiberius.

This supposition, however, rests entirely upon conjecture, and is not

only discredited by its own improbability, but by a yet more forcible

argument. It is certain that Julia was at this time in banishment for

her scandalous life. She was about the same age with Tiberius, who was

now forty seven, and they had not cohabited for many years. We know not

exactly the year in which Augustus sent her into exile, but we may

conclude with confidence, that it happened soon after her separation from

Tiberius; whose own interest with the emperor, as well as that of his

mother Livia, could not fail of being exerted, if any such application

was necessary, towards removing from the capital a woman, who, by the

notoriety of her prostitution, reflected disgrace upon all with whom she

was connected, either by blood or alliance. But no application from

Tiberius or his mother could be necessary, when we are assured that

Augustus even presented to the senate a narrative respecting the infamous

behaviour of his daughter, which was read by the quaestor. He was so

much ashamed of her profligacy, that he for a long time declined all

company, and had thoughts of putting her to death. She was banished to

an island on the coast of Campania for five years; at the expiration of

which period, she was removed to the continent, and the severity of her

treatment a little mitigated; but though frequent applications were made

in her behalf by the people, Augustus never could be prevailed upon to

permit her return.

(181) Other writers have conjectured, that, instead of Julia, the

daughter of Augustus, the person seen with him by Ovid may have been

Julia his grand-daughter, who inherited the vicious disposition of her

mother, and was on that account likewise banished by Augustus. The epoch

of this lady’s banishment it is impossible to ascertain; and therefore no

argument can be drawn from that source to invalidate the present

conjecture. But Augustus had shown the same solicitude for her being

trained up in virtuous habits, as he had done in respect of her mother,

though in both cases unsuccessfully; and this consideration, joined to

the enormity of the supposed crime, and the great sensibility which

Augustus had discovered with regard to the infamy of his daughter, seems

sufficient to exonerate his memory from so odious a charge. Besides, is

it possible that he could have sent her into banishment for the infamy of

her prostitution, while (upon the supposition of incest) she was mistress

of so important a secret, as that he himself had been more criminal with

her than any other man in the empire?

Some writers, giving a wider scope to conjecture, have supposed the

transaction to be of a nature still more detestable, and have even

dragged Mecaenas, the minister, into a participation of the crime.

Fortunately, however, for the reputation of the illustrious patron of

polite learning, as well as for that of the emperor, this crude

conjecture may be refuted upon the evidence of chronology. The

commencement of Ovid’s exile happened in the ninth year of the Christian

aera, and the death of Mecaenas, eight years before that period. Between

this and other calculations, we find a difference of three or four years;

but allowing the utmost latitude of variation, there intervened, from the

death of Mecaenas to the banishment of Ovid, a period of eleven years; an

observation which fully invalidates the conjecture above-mentioned.

Having now refuted, as it is presumed, the opinions of the different

commentators on this subject, we shall proceed to offer a new conjecture,

which seems to have a greater claim to probability than any that has

hitherto been suggested.

Suetonius informs us, that Augustus, in the latter part of his life,

contracted a vicious inclination for the enjoyment of young virgins, who

were procured for him from all parts, not only with the connivance, but

by the clandestine management of his consort Livia. It was therefore

probably with one of those victims that he was discovered by Ovid.

Augustus had for many years affected a decency of behaviour, and he

would, therefore, naturally be not a little disconcerted at the

unseasonable intrusion of the poet. That Ovid knew not of Augustus’s

being in the place, is beyond all doubt: and Augustus’s consciousness

(182) of this circumstance, together with the character of Ovid, would

suggest an unfavourable suspicion of the motive which had brought the

latter thither. Abstracted from the immorality of the emperor’s own

conduct, the incident might be regarded as ludicrous, and certainly was

more fit to excite the shame than the indignation of Augustus. But the

purpose of Ovid’s visit appears, from his own acknowledgment, to have

been not entirely free from blame, though of what nature we know not:

Non equidem totam possum defendere culpam:

Sed partem nostri criminis error habet.

De Trist. Lib. iii. Eleg. 5.

I know I cannot wholly be defended,

Yet plead ‘twas chance, no ill was then intended.--Catlin.

Ovid was at this time turned of fifty, and though by a much younger man

he would not have been regarded as any object of jealousy in love, yet by

Augustus, now in his sixty-ninth year, he might be deemed a formidable

rival. This passion, therefore, concurring with that which arose from

the interruption or disappointment of gratification, inflamed the

emperor’s resentment, and he resolved on banishing to a distant country a

man whom he considered as his rival, and whose presence, from what had

happened, he never more could endure.

Augustus having determined on the banishment of Ovid, could find little

difficulty in accommodating the ostensible to the secret and real cause

of this resolution.

No argument to establish the date of publication, can be drawn from the

order in which the various productions of Ovid are placed in the

collection of his works: but reasoning from probability, we should

suppose that the Ars Amandi was written during the period of his youth;

and this seems to be confirmed by the following passage in the second

book of the Fasti:

Certe ego vos habui faciles in amore ministros;

Cum lusit numeris prima juventa suis. [280]

That many years must have elapsed since its original publication, is

evident from the subsequent lines in the second book of the Tristia:

Nos quoque jam pridem scripto peccavimus uno.

Supplicium patitur non nova culpa novum.

Carminaque edideram, cum te delicta notantem

Praeterii toties jure quietus eques.

(183) Ergo, quae juveni mihi non nocitura putavi

Scripta parum prudens, nunc nocuere seni? [281]

With what show, then, of justice, it may be asked, could Augustus now

punish a fault, which, in his solemn capacity of censor, he had so long

and repeatedly overlooked? The answer is obvious: in a production so

popular as we may be assured the Ars Amandi was amongst the Roman youth,

it must have passed through several editions in the course of some years:

and one of those coinciding with the fatal discovery, afforded the

emperor a specious pretext for the execution of his purpose. The

severity exercised on this occasion, however, when the poet was suddenly

driven into exile, unaccompanied even by the partner of his bed, who had

been his companion for many years, was an act so inconsistent with the

usual moderation of Augustus, that we cannot justly ascribe it to any

other motive than personal resentment; especially as this arbitrary

punishment of the author could answer no end of public utility, while the

obnoxious production remained to affect, if it really ever did

essentially affect, the morals of society. If the sensibility of

Augustus could not thenceforth admit of any personal intercourse with

Ovid, or even of his living within the limits of Italy, there would have

been little danger from the example, in sending into honourable exile,

with every indulgence which could alleviate so distressful a necessity, a

man of respectable rank in the state, who was charged with no actual

offence against the laws, and whose genius, with all its indiscretion,

did immortal honour to his country. It may perhaps be urged, that,

considering the predicament in which Augustus stood, he discovered a

forbearance greater than might have been expected from an absolute

prince, in sparing the life of Ovid. It will readily be granted, that

Ovid, in the same circumstances, under any one of the four subsequent

emperors, would have expiated the incident with his blood. Augustus,

upon a late occasion, had shown himself equally sanguinary, for he put to

death, by the hand of Varus, a poet of Parma, named Cassius, on account

of his having written some satirical verses against him. By that recent

example, therefore, and the power of pardoning which the emperor still

retained, there was sufficient hold of the poet’s secrecy respecting the

fatal transaction, which, if divulged (184) to the world, Augustus would

reprobate as a false and infamous libel, and punish the author

accordingly. Ovid, on his part, was sensible, that, should he dare to

violate the important but tacit injunction, the imperial vengeance would

reach him even on the shores of the Euxine. It appears, however, from a

passage in the Ibis, which can apply to no other than Augustus, that Ovid

was not sent into banishment destitute of pecuniary provision:

Di melius! quorum longe mihi maximus ille,

Qui nostras inopes noluit esse vias.

Huic igitur meritas grates, ubicumque licebit,

Pro tam mansueto pectore semper agam.

The gods defend! of whom he’s far the chief,

Who lets me not, though banished, want relief.

For this his favour therefore whilst I live,

Where’er I am, deserved thanks I’ll give.

What sum the emperor bestowed, for the support of a banishment which he

was resolved should be perpetual, it is impossible to ascertain; but he

had formerly been liberal to Ovid, as well as to other poets.

If we might hazard a conjecture respecting the scene of the intrigue

which occasioned the banishment of Ovid, we should place it in some

recess in the emperor’s gardens. His house, though called Palatium, the

palace, as being built on the Palatine hill, and inhabited by the

sovereign, was only a small mansion, which had formerly belonged to

Hortensius, the orator. Adjoining to this place Augustus had built the

temple of Apollo, which he endowed with a public library, and allotted

for the use of poets, to recite their compositions to each other. Ovid

was particularly intimate with Hyginus, one of Augustus’s freedmen, who

was librarian of the temple. He might therefore have been in the

library, and spying from the window a young female secreting herself in

the gardens, he had the curiosity to follow her.

The place of Ovid’s banishment was Tomi [282], now said to be Baba, a

town of Bulgaria, towards the mouth of the Ister, where is a lake still

called by the natives Ouvidouve Jesero, the lake of Ovid. In this

retirement, and the Euxine Pontus, he passed the remainder of his life, a

melancholy period of seven years. Notwithstanding the lascivious

writings of Ovid, it does not appear that he was in his conduct a

libertine. He was three times married: his first wife, who was of mean

extraction, and (185) whom he had married when he was very young, he

divorced; the second he dismissed on account of her immodest behaviour;

and the third appears to have survived him. He had a number of

respectable friends, and seems to have been much beloved by them.----

TIBULLUS was descended of an equestrian family, and is said, but

erroneously, as will afterwards appear, to have been born on the same day

with Ovid. His amiable accomplishments procured him the friendship of

Messala Corvinus, whom he accompanied in a military expedition to the

island of Corcyra. But an indisposition with which he was seized, and a

natural aversion to the toils of war, induced him to return to Rome,

where he seems to have resigned himself to a life of indolence and

pleasure, amidst which he devoted a part of his time to the composition

of elegies. Elegiac poetry had been cultivated by several Greek writers,

particularly Callimachus, Mimnermus, and Philetas; but, so far as we can

find, had, until the present age, been unknown to the Romans in their own

tongue. It consisted of a heroic and pentameter line alternately, and

was not, like the elegy of the moderns, usually appropriated to the

lamentation of the deceased, but employed chiefly in compositions

relative to love or friendship, and might, indeed, be used upon almost

any subject; though, from the limp in the pentameter line, it is not

suitable to sublime subjects, which require a fulness of expression, and

an expansion of sound. To this species of poetry Tibullus restricted his

application, by which he cultivated that simplicity and tenderness, and

agreeable ease of sentiment, which constitute the characteristic

perfections of the elegiac muse.

In the description of rural scenes, the peaceful occupations of the

field, the charms of domestic happiness, and the joys of reciprocal love,

scarcely any poet surpasses Tibullus. His luxuriant imagination collects

the most beautiful flowers of nature, and he displays them with all the

delicate attraction of soft and harmonious numbers. With a dexterity

peculiar to himself, in whatever subject he engages, he leads his readers

imperceptibly through devious paths of pleasure, of which, at the outset

of the poem, they could form no conception. He seems to have often

written without any previous meditation or design. Several of his

elegies may be said to have neither middle nor end: yet the transitions

are so natural, and the gradations so easy, that though we wander through

Elysian scenes of fancy, the most heterogeneous in their nature, we are

sensible of no defect in the concatenation which has joined them

together. It is, however, to be regretted that, in some instances,

Tibullus betrays that licentiousness of manners which (186) formed too

general a characteristic even of this refined age. His elegies addressed

to Messala contain a beautiful amplification of sentiments founded in

friendship and esteem, in which it is difficult to say, whether the

virtues of the patron or the genius of the poet be more conspicuous.

Valerius Messala Corvinus, whom he celebrates, was descended of a very

ancient family. In the civil wars which followed the death of Julius

Caesar he joined the republican party, and made himself master of the

camp of Octavius at Philippi; but he was afterwards reconciled to his

opponent, and lived to an advanced age in favour and esteem with

Augustus. He was distinguished not only by his military talents, but by

his eloquence, integrity, and patriotism.

From the following passage in the writings of Tibullus, commentators have

conjectured that he was deprived of his lands by the same proscription in

which those of Virgil had been involved:

Cui fuerant flavi ditantes ordine sulci

Horrea, faecundas ad deficientia messes,

Cuique pecus denso pascebant agmine colles,

Et domino satis, et nimium furique lupoque:

Nunc desiderium superest: nam cura novatur,

Cum memor anteactos semper dolor admovet annos.

Lib. iv. El. 1.

But this seems not very probable, when we consider that Horace, several

years after that period, represents him as opulent.

Dii tibi divitias dederant, artemque fruendi.

Epist. Lib. i. 4.

To thee the gods a fair estate

In bounty gave, with heart to know

How to enjoy what they bestow.--Francis.

We know not the age of Tibullus at the time of his death; but in an elegy

written by Ovid upon that occasion, he is spoken of as a young man. Were

it true, as is said by biographers, that he was born the same day with

Ovid, we must indeed assign the event to an early period: for Ovid cannot

have written the elegy after the forty-third year of his own life, and

how long before is uncertain. In the tenth elegy of the fourth book, De

Tristibus, he observes, that the fates had allowed little time for the

cultivation of his friendship with Tibullus.

Virgilium vidi tantum: nec avara Tibullo

Tempus amicitiae fata dedere meae.

Successor fuit hic tibi, Galle; Propertius illi:

Quartus ab his serie temporis ipse fui.

Utque ego majores, sic me coluere minores.

(187) Virgil I only saw, and envious fate

Did soon my friend Tibullus hence translate.

He followed Gallus, and Propertius him,

And I myself was fourth in course of time.--Catlin.

As both Ovid and Tibullus lived at Rome, were both of the equestrian

order, and of congenial dispositions, it is natural to suppose that their

acquaintance commenced at an early period; and if, after all, it was of

short duration, there would be no improbability in concluding, that

Tibullus died at the age of some years under thirty. It is evident,

however, that biographers have committed a mistake with regard to the

birth of this poet; for in the passage above cited of the Tristia, Ovid

mentions Tibullus as a writer, who, though his contemporary, was much

older than himself. From this passage we should be justified in placing

the death of Tibullus between the fortieth and fiftieth year of his age,

and rather nearer to the latter period; for, otherwise, Horace would

scarcely have mentioned him in the manner he does in one of his epistles.

Albi, nostrorum sermonum candide judex,

Quid nunc te dicam facere in regione Pedana?

Scribere quod Cassi Parmensis opuscula vincat;

An tacitum silvas inter reptare salubres,

Curantem quicquid dignam sapiente bonoque est?--Epist. i. 4.

Albius, in whom my satires find

A critic, candid, just, and kind,

Do you, while at your country seat,

Some rhyming labours meditate,

That shall in volumed bulk arise,

And e’en from Cassius bear the prize;

Or saunter through the silent wood,

Musing on what befits the good.--Francis.

This supposition is in no degree inconsistent with the authority of Ovid,

where he mentions him as a young man; for the Romans extended the period

of youth to the fiftieth year.----

PROPERTIUS was born at Mevania, a town of Umbria, seated at the

confluence of the Tina and Clitumnus. This place was famous for its

herds of white cattle, brought up there for sacrifice, and supposed to be

impregnated with that colour by the waters of the river last mentioned.

Hinc albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurus

Victima, saepe tuo perfusi fluorine sacro,

Romanos ad templa Deum duxere triumphos.--Georg. ii.

And where thy sacred streams, Clitumnus! flow,

White herds, and stateliest bulls that oft have led

Triumphant Rome, and on her altars bled.--Sotheby.

(188) His father is said by some to have been a Roman knight, and they

add, that he was one of those who, when L. Antony was starved out of

Perasia, were, by the order of Octavius, led to the altar of Julius

Caesar, and there slain. Nothing more is known with certainty, than that

Propertius lost his father at an early age, and being deprived of a great

part of his patrimony, betook himself to Rome, where his genius soon

recommended him to public notice, and he obtained the patronage of

Mecaenas. From his frequent introduction of historical and mythological

subjects into his poems, he received the appellation of “the learned.”

Of all the Latin elegiac poets, Propertius has the justest claim to

purity of thought and expression. He often draws his imagery from

reading, more than from the imagination, and abounds less in description

than sentiment. For warmth of passion he is not conspicuous, and his

tenderness is seldom marked with a great degree of sensibility; but,

without rapture, he is animated, and, like Horace, in the midst of

gaiety, he is moral. The stores with which learning supplies him

diversify as well as illustrate his subject, while delicacy every where

discovers a taste refined by the habit of reflection. His versification,

in general, is elegant, but not uniformly harmonious.

Tibullus and Propertius have each written four books of Elegies; and it

has been disputed which of them is superior in this department of poetry.

Quintilian has given his suffrage in favour of Tibullus, who, so far as

poetical merit alone is the object of consideration, seems entitled to

the preference.----

GALLUS was a Roman knight, distinguished not only for poetical, but

military talents. Of his poetry we have only six elegies, written, in

the person of an old man, on the subject of old age, but which, there is

reason to think, were composed at an earlier part of the author’s life.

Except the fifth elegy, which is tainted with immodesty, the others,

particularly the first, are highly beautiful, and may be placed in

competition with any other productions of the elegiac kind. Gallus was,

for some time, in great favour with Augustus, who appointed him governor

of Egypt. It is said, however, that he not only oppressed the province

by extortion, but entered into a conspiracy against his benefactor, for

which he was banished. Unable to sustain such a reverse of fortune, he

fell into despair, and laid violent hands on himself. This is the Gallus

in honour of whom Virgil composed his tenth eclogue.

Such are the celebrated productions of the Augustan age, which have been

happily preserved, for the delight and admiration of mankind, and will

survive to the latest posterity. Many (189) more once existed, of

various merit, and of different authors, which have left few or no

memorials behind them, but have perished promiscuously amidst the

indiscriminate ravages of time, of accidents, and of barbarians. Amongst

the principal authors whose works are lost, are Varius and Valgius; the

former of whom, besides a panegyric upon Augustus, composed some

tragedies. According to Quintilian, his Thyestes was equal to any

composition of the Greek tragic poets.

The great number of eminent writers, poets in particular, who adorned

this age, has excited general admiration, and the phenomenon is usually

ascribed to a fortuitous occurrence, which baffles all inquiry: but we

shall endeavour to develop the various causes which seem to have produced

this effect; and should the explanation appear satisfactory, it may

favour an opinion, that under similar circumstances, if ever they should

again be combined, a period of equal glory might arise in other ages and

nations.

The Romans, whether from the influence of climate, or their mode of

living, which in general was temperate, were endowed with a lively

imagination, and, as we before observed, a spirit of enterprise. Upon

the final termination of the Punic war, and the conquest of Greece, their

ardour, which had hitherto been exercised in military achievements, was

diverted into the channel of literature; and the civil commotions which

followed, having now ceased, a fresh impulse was given to activity in the

ambitious pursuit of the laurel, which was now only to be obtained by

glorious exertions of intellect. The beautiful productions of Greece,

operating strongly upon their minds, excited them to imitation;

imitation, when roused amongst a number, produced emulation; and

emulation cherished an extraordinary thirst of fame, which, in every

exertion of the human mind, is the parent of excellence. This liberal

contention was not a little promoted by the fashion introduced at Rome,

for poets to recite their compositions in public; a practice which seems

to have been carried even to a ridiculous excess.--Such was now the rage

for poetical composition in the Roman capital, that Horace describes it

in the following terms:

Mutavit mentem populus levis, et calet uno

Scribendi studio: pueri patresque severi

Fronde comas vincti coenant, et carmina dictant.--Epist. ii. 1.

* * * * * *

Now the light people bend to other aims;

A lust of scribbling every breast inflames;

Our youth, our senators, with bays are crowned,

And rhymes eternal as our feasts go round.

(190) Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim.--Hor. Epeat. ii. 1.

But every desperate blockhead dares to write,

Verse is the trade of every living wight.--Francis.

The thirst of fame above mentioned, was a powerful incentive, and is

avowed both by Virgil and Horace. The former, in the third book of his

Georgics, announces a resolution of rendering himself celebrated, if

possible.

--------tentanda via est qua me quoque possim

Tollere humo, victorque virum volitare per ora.

I, too, will strive o’er earth my flight to raise,

And wing’d by victory, catch the gale of praise.--Sotheby.

And Horace, in the conclusion of his first Ode, expresses himself in

terms which indicate a similar purpose.

Quad si me lyricis vatibis inseres,

Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.

But if you rank me with the choir,

Who tuned with art the Grecian lyre;

Swift to the noblest heights of fame,

Shall rise thy poet’s deathless name.--Francis.

Even Sallust, a historian, in his introduction to Catiline’s Conspiracy,

scruples not to insinuate the same kind of ambition. Quo mihi rectius

videtur ingenii quam virium opibus gloriam quaerere; et quoniam vita

ipsa, qua fruimur, brevis est, memoriam nostri quam maxume longam

efficere. [283]

Another circumstance of great importance, towards the production of such

poetry as might live through every age, was the extreme attention which

the great poets of this period displayed, both in the composition, and

the polishing of their works. Virgil, when employed upon the Georgics,

usually wrote in the morning, and applied much of the subsequent part of

the day to correction and improvement. He compared himself to a bear,

that licks her cub into form. If this was his regular practice in the

Georgics, we may justly suppose that it was the same in the Aeneid. Yet,

after all this labour, he intended to devote three years entirely to its

farther amendment. Horace has gone so far in recommending careful

correction, that he figuratively mentions nine years as an adequate

period for that purpose. But whatever may be the time, there is no

precept which he urges either oftener or more forcibly, than a due

attention to this important subject.

(191) Saepe stylum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint

Scripturus.--Sat. i. x.

Would you a reader’s just esteem engage?

Correct with frequent care the blotted page.--Francis.

--------Vos, O

Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite, quod non

Multa dies et multa litura coercuit, atque

Perfectum decies non castigavit ad uuguem.

De. Art. Poet.

Sons of Pompilius, with contempt receive,

Nor let the hardy poem hope to live,

Where time and full correction don’t refine

The finished work, and polish every line.--Francis.

To the several causes above enumerated, as concurring to form the great

superiority of the Augustan age, as respects the productions of

literature, one more is to be subjoined, of a nature the most essential:

the liberal and unparalleled encouragement given to distinguished talents

by the emperor and his minister. This was a principle of the most

powerful energy: it fanned the flame of genius, invigorated every

exertion; and the poets who basked in the rays of imperial favour, and

the animating patronage of Mecaenas, experienced a poetic enthusiasm

which approached to real inspiration.

Having now finished the proposed explanation, relative to the celebrity

of the Augustan age, we shall conclude with recapitulating in a few words

the causes of this extraordinary occurrence.

The models, then, which the Romans derived from Grecian poetry, were the

finest productions of human genius; their incentives to emulation were

the strongest that could actuate the heart. With ardour, therefore, and

industry in composing, and with unwearied patience in polishing their

compositions, they attained to that glorious distinction in literature,

which no succeeding age has ever rivalled.

(192)

I. The patrician family of the Claudii (for there was a plebeian family

of the same name, no way inferior to the other either in power or

dignity) came originally from Regilli, a town of the Sabines. They

removed thence to Rome soon after the building of the city, with a great

body of their dependants, under Titus Tatius, 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 Tarquins. They likewise received from the state, lands beyond the

Anio for their followers, and a burying-place for themselves near the

capitol [284]. After this period, in process of time, the family had the

honour of twenty-eight consulships, five dictatorships, seven

censorships, seven triumphs, and two ovations. Their descendants were

distinguished by various praenomina and cognomina [285], but rejected by

common consent the praenomen of (193) Lucius, 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.

II. It appears from record, 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 Caecus dissuaded the senate

from agreeing to an alliance with Pyrrhus, as prejudicial to the republic

and drove the Carthaginians out of the island [287]. 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 [288]. On the

other hand, Claudius Appius Regillanus, one of the Decemvirs, made a

violent attempt to have a free virgin, of whom he was enamoured, adjudged

a slave; which caused the people to secede a second time from the senate

Appii Forum [290], and endeavoured, by means of his dependants, to make

himself master of Italy. Claudius Pulcher, when, off the coast of Sicily

the omen threw them overboard, as if they should drink at least, if they

would not eat; and then engaging the enemy, was routed. After his

defeat, when he (194) was ordered by the senate to name a dictator,

making a sort of jest of the public disaster, he named Glycias, his

apparitor.

The women of this family, likewise, exhibited characters equally opposed

to each other. For both the Claudias belonged to it; she, who, when the

ship freighted with things sacred to the Idaean Mother of the Gods [292],

stuck fast in the shallows of the Tiber, got it off, by praying to the

Goddess with a loud voice, “Follow me, if I am chaste;” 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

thronged.” Besides, it is well known, that all the Claudii, except

Publius Claudius, who, to effect the banishment of Cicero, procured

himself to be adopted by a plebeian [293], and one younger than himself,

were always of the patrician party, as well as great sticklers for the

honour 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 condescend to put on mourning,

according to custom, or make any supplication to them for favour; 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 honour of a triumph contrary to the will

of the people, mounted the chariot with him, and attended him into the

Capitol, that it might not be lawful for any of the tribunes to interfere

and forbid it. [294]

III. From this family Tiberius Caesar is descended; indeed both by the

father and mother’s side; by the former from Tiberius Nero, and by the

latter from Appius Pulcher, who were both sons of Appius Caecus. He

likewise belonged to the family of the Livii, by the adoption of his

mother’s grandfather into it; which family, although plebeian, made a

(195) distinguished figure, having had the honour 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 Drusi. Salinator, in his censorship [295], 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 Drausus, the enemy’s

chief. He is likewise said to have recovered, when pro-praetor in the

province of Gaul, the gold which was formerly given to the Senones, at

the siege of the Capitol, and had not, as is reported, been forced from

them by Camillus. His great-great-grandson, who, for his extraordinary

services against the Gracchi, 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. [296]

IV. But the father of Tiberius Caesar, being quaestor 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 [297]; and was sent to settle some colonies in

Gaul, and amongst the rest, those of Narbonne and Arles [298]. 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 praetor [299], 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 [300], though the rest submitted, yet

he himself continued firm to the party, and escaped first to Praeneste,

and then to Naples; whence, having in vain invited the slaves to liberty,

he fled over to Sicily. But resenting (196) his not being immediately

admitted into the presence of Sextus Pompey, and being also prohibited

the use of the fasces, 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.

V. 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

decree of the senate, erected in a public place in that town. But

according to the greatest number of writers, and those too of the best

authority, he was born at Rome, in the Palatine quarter, upon the

sixteenth of the calends of December [16th Nov.], when Marcus Aemilius

Lepidus was second time consul, with Lucius Munatius Plancus [301], 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.

VI. 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 women of their burden. Being carried through

Sicily and Achaia, and entrusted for some time to the care of the

Lacedaemonians, 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 burnt. The presents which were made him (197) by Pompeia,

sister to Sextus Pompey, in Sicily, namely, a cloak, with a clasp, and

bullae of gold, are still in existence, and shewn at Baiae to this day.

After his return to the city, being adopted by Marcus Gallius, a senator,

in his will, he took possession of the estate; but soon afterwards

declined the use of his name, because Gallius 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, Octavia’s 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 Circensian, he commanded a

troop of the biggest boys.

VII. 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 amphitheatre;

some gladiators who had been honourably discharged, being induced to

engage again, by a reward of a hundred thousand sesterces. 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

grand-daughter of Caecilius Atticus, a Roman knight, the same person to

whom Cicero has addressed so many epistles. After having by her his son

Drusus, he was obliged to part with her [302], though she retained his

affection, and was again pregnant, to make way for marrying Augustus’s

daughter Julia. But this he did with extreme reluctance; for, besides

having the warmest attachment to Agrippina, he was disgusted with the

conduct of Julia, who had made indecent advances to him during the

lifetime of her former husband; and that she was a woman of loose

character, was the general opinion. At divorcing Agrippina he felt the

deepest regret; and upon meeting her afterwards, (198) 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 Julia; but a 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 [303], he never would

sleep with her more. He lost his brother Drusus in Germany, and brought

his body to Rome, travelling all the way on foot before it.

VIII. When he first applied himself to civil affairs, he defended the

several causes of king Archelaus, the Trallians, and the Thessalians,

before Augustus, who sat as judge at the trials. He addressed the senate

on behalf of the Laodiceans, the Thyatireans, and Chians, who had

suffered greatly by an earthquake, and implored relief from Rome. He

prosecuted Fannius Caepio, who had been engaged in a conspiracy with

Varro Muraena 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

suspicion of seizing and keeping confined, not only travellers, but those

whom the fear of being obliged to serve in the army had driven to seek

refuge in such places.

IX. He made his first campaign, as a military tribune, in the Cantabrian

war [305]. Afterwards he led an army into the East [306], where he

restored the kingdom of Armenia to Tigranes; and seated on a tribunal,

put a crown upon his head. He likewise recovered from the Parthians the

standards which they had taken from Crassus. He next governed, for

nearly a year, the province of Gallia Comata, which was then in great

disorder, on account of the incursions of the barbarians, and the feuds

of the chiefs. He afterwards commanded in the several wars against the

Rhaetians, Vindelicians, Pannonians, and Germans. In the Rhaetian and

Vindelician wars, he subdued the nations in the Alps; and in the

Pannonian wars the Bruci, and (199) 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 honoured with this

distinction. He filled early the principal offices of state; and passed

through the quaestorship [307], praetorship [308], and consulate [309]

almost successively. After some interval, he was chosen consul a second

time, and held the tribunitian authority during five years.

X. 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 [310]. It is uncertain whether this was the

result of disgust for his wife, whom he neither durst accuse nor divorce,

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

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 Mitylene, 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 his pretext at

this time was, that he was satiated with honours, and desirous of being

relieved from the fatigue of business; requesting therefore that he might

have leave 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 Rome, he proceeded (200)

to Ostia [311], without exchanging a word with those who attended him,

and having embraced but very few persons at parting.

XI. From Ostia, journeying along the coast of Campania, he halted awhile

on receiving intelligence of Augustus’s 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 landing therein his return from Armenia. Here contenting

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 [312], without any lictor or other attendant, and returning the

civilities of the Greeks with almost as much complaisance 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 ranged 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 tribunitian authority. Being a constant

attendant upon the schools and lecture-rooms of the professors of the

liberal arts, on occasion of a quarrel amongst the wrangling (201)

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 Julia had been condemned for her lewdness 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

thought 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

presents which he had made her, notwithstanding the little regard she

merited from him. When the period of his tribunitian authority expired

than to avoid all suspicion of rivalship with Caius and Lucius, 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.

XII. He therefore continued at Rhodes much against his will, obtaining,

with difficulty, through his mother, the title of Augustus’s lieutenant,

to cover his disgrace. He thenceforth lived, however, not only as a

private person, but as one 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 at

Rhodes. But there were fresh reasons for increased anxiety. For

crossing over to Samos, on a visit to his step-son Caius, who had been

appointed governor of the East, he found him prepossessed against him, by

the insinuations of Marcus Lollius, 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

(202) tamper with them for a revolt. This 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 every thing he either said or did.

XIII. He laid aside likewise his usual exercises of riding and arms; and

quitting the Roman habit, made use of the Pallium and Crepida [314]. In

this condition he continued almost two years, becoming daily an object of

increasing contempt and odium; insomuch that the people of Nismes pulled

down all the images and statues of him in their town; and upon mention

being made of him at table one of the company 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 that time out

of humour with Marcus Lollius, and therefore easily disposed to be

favourable to his father-in-law. Caius thus acquiescing, he was

recalled, but upon condition that he should take no concern whatever in

the administration of affairs.

XIV. He returned to Rome after an absence of nearly eight years [315],

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 an egg from a hen that was sitting, and

kept it warm with her own hands, and those of her maids, by turns, until

a fine cock-chicken, with a large comb, was hatched. Scribonius, 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 (203) making his first expedition, and leading his

army through Macedonia into Syria, the altars which had been formerly

consecrated at 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 golden tali into the fountain of

Aponus [316], for an answer to his inquiries, he did so, and the highest

numbers came up. And those very tali are still to be seen at the bottom

of the fountain. A few days before his leaving Rhodes, 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

Thrasyllus, 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 whereas

every thing 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 impostor, and one to whom he had too

hastily entrusted his secrets.

XV. 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 Mecaenas, on the Esquiline [317], and resigned himself

entirely to his ease, performing only the common offices of civility in

private life, without any preferment in the government. But Caius and

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 (204) 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 manumitted a slave; nor so

much as received any estate left him by will, nor any legacy, without

reckoning it as a part of his peculium or property held under his father.

From that day forward, nothing was omitted that might contribute to the

advancement of his grandeur, and much more, when, upon Agrippa being

discarded and banished, it was evident that the hope of succession rested

upon him alone.

XVI. The tribunitian authority was again conferred upon him for five

years [318], and a 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 Illyricum [319], he went

over to superintend the 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 fifteen 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 lest an enemy so powerful, and so near, should fall

upon the army in their retreat. This resolution was attended with good

success; for he at last reduced to complete subjection all Illyricum,

lying between Italy and the kingdom of Noricum, Thrace, Macedonia, the

river Danube, and the Adriatic gulf.

XVII. The glory he acquired by these successes received an increase from

the conjuncture in which they happened. For almost about that very time

was generally believed that the victorious Germans would have joined the

Pannonians, had not the war of Illyricum been previously concluded. A

triumph, therefore, besides many other great honours, was decreed him.

Some proposed that the surname of “Pannonicus,” others that of

“Invincible,” and others, of “O Pius,” 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 (205) 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 the

Septa, sat with Augustus between the two consuls, whilst the senate gave

their attendance standing; whence, after he had saluted the people, he

was attended by them in procession to the several temples.

XVIII. 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 thought 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 cautions than usual.

Having to pass the Rhine, he restricted the whole convoy within certain

limits, and stationing himself on the bank of the river, would not suffer

the waggons to cross the river, until he had searched them at the

water-side, to see that they carried nothing but what was allowed or

necessary. Beyond the Rhine, such was his way of living, that he took his

meals sitting on the bare ground [321], 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.

XIX. 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 with 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 (206) in all their commands. But, in the midst of victory,

he was very near being assassinated by some Bructerian, who mixing with

those about him, and being discovered by his trepidation, was put to the

torture, and confessed his intended crime.

XX. After two years, he returned from Germany to the city, and

celebrated the triumph which he had deferred, attended by his

lieutenants, for whom he had procured the honour of triumphal ornaments

chariot, and knelt before his father, who sat by, to superintend the

solemnity. Bato, the Pannonian chief, he sent to Ravenna, loaded with

rich presents, in gratitude for his having suffered him and his army to

retire from a position 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, besides thirty sesterces to each man. He likewise

dedicated the temple of Concord [323], 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.

XXI. A law having been not long after carried by the consuls [324] for

his being appointed a colleague with Augustus in the administration of

the provinces, and in taking the census, when that was finished he went

into Illyricum [325]. But being hastily recalled during his journey, he

found Augustus alive indeed, but past all hopes of recovery, and was with

him in private a whole day. I know, it is generally believed, that upon

Tiberius’s quitting the room, after their private conference, those who

were in waiting 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 jocular conversation in which he was engaged; and

that he was only prevailed upon by the (207) 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 hold to this

opinion, that a 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 preponderate; and this the rather since he swore

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 warring for me and

the Muses [326]. Farewell, my most dear, and (as I hope to prosper) most

gallant man, and accomplished general.” Again. “The disposition of your

summer quarters? In truth, my dear Tiberius, I do not think, that amidst

so many difficulties, and with an army so little disposed for action, any

one could have behaved more prudently than you have done. All those

likewise who were with you, acknowledge that this verse is applicable to

you:”

Unus homo nobis _vigilando_ restituit rem. [327]

One man by vigilance restored the state.

“Whenever,” he says, “anything happens that requires more than ordinary

consideration, or I am out of humour upon any occasion, I still, by

Hercules! long for my dear Tiberius; and those lines of Homer frequently

occur to my thoughts:”

Toutou d’ espomenoio kai ek pyros aithomenoio

Ampho nostaesuimen, epei peri oide noaesai. [328]

Bold from his prudence, I could ev’n aspire

To dare with him the burning rage of fire.

“When I hear and read that you are much impaired by the (208) continued

fatigues you undergo, may the gods confound me if my whole 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.”

XXII. 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 a doubt, whether Augustus left it 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 with the knowledge of

Tiberius or not. When the tribune came to inform him that he had

executed his command, he replied, “I commanded you no such thing, and you

must answer for it to the senate;” avoiding, as it seems, the odium of

the act for that time. And the affair was soon buried in silence.

XXIII. Having summoned the senate to meet by virtue of his tribunitian

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’s 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 owning their hand-writing without doors.

The will began thus: “Since my ill-fortune has deprived me of 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 prefacing his will in that

manner.

XXIV. Though he made no scruple to assume and exercise immediately the

imperial authority, by giving orders that he (209) 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 a crafty kind of

dissimulation; insomuch that some were out of patience, and one cried

out, during the confusion, “Either let him accept it, or decline it at

once;” and a 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 it some time or other.

The exact words he used were these: “Until the time shall come, when ye

may think it reasonable to give some rest to my old age.”

XXV. The cause of his long demur was fear of the dangers which

threatened him on all hands; insomuch that he said, “I have got a wolf

by the ears.” For a slave of Agrippa’s, Clemens by name, had drawn

together a considerable force to revenge his master’s death; Lucius

Scribonius Libo, a senator of the first distinction, was secretly

fomenting a rebellion; and the troops both in Illyricum and Germany were

mutinous. Both armies insisted upon high demands, particularly that

their pay should be made equal to that of the pretorian guards. The army

in Germany absolutely refused to acknowledge a prince who was not their

own choice; and urged, with all possible importunity, Germanicus [329],

who commanded them, to take the government on himself, though he

obstinately refused it. It was Tiberius’s 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 (210) admitted to be a colleague in the government. When the

mutinies in the armies were suppressed, he got Clemens into his hands by

stratagem. 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 mean time, with taking proper precautions for his

own security. For upon Libo’s attending a sacrifice amongst the

high-priests, instead of the usual knife, he ordered one of lead 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

pretence of leaning upon him, until the conversation was over.

XXVI. When he was delivered from his apprehensions, his behaviour at

first was unassuming, and he did not carry himself much above the level

of a private person; and of the many and great honours offered him, he

accepted but few, and such as were very moderate. His birth-day, which

happened to fall at the time of the Plebeian Circensian games, he with

difficulty suffered to be honoured with the addition of only a single

chariot, drawn by two horses. He forbad temples, flamens, or priests to

be appointed for him, as likewise the erection of any statues or effigies

for him, without his permission; and this he granted only on condition

that they should not be placed amongst 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

praenomen likewise of EMPEROR, with the cognomen of FATHER OF HIS

COUNTRY, and a 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, excepting those addressed to kings and princes. Nor

had he more than three consulships; one for a few days, another for three

months, and a third, during his absence from the city, until the ides

[fifteenth] of May.

XXVII. 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. (211) And when a man of

consular rank, in begging his pardon for some offence 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 him, either in

conversation or a set speech, he would not scruple to interrupt and

reprimand the party, and alter what he had said. Being once called

“lord,” [330] by some person, he desired that he might no more be

affronted in that manner. When another, to excite veneration, called his

occupations “sacred,” and a 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.”

XXVIII. He remained unmoved at all the aspersions, scandalous reports,

and lampoons, 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’s desiring that some notice might be taken of those offences,

and the persons charged 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 [331] for such proceedings, you will soon have

nothing else to do. All private quarrels will be brought before you

under that pretence.” 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.”

XXIX. These things were so much the 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 Haterius in the

senate-house, “Pardon me, sir,” he said, “I beseech you, if I shall, as a

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 (212) and useful

prince, whom you have invested with so great and 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 indulgent masters, and still find you so.”

XXX. 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 being once brought thither in a litter, because he was

indisposed, he dismissed his attendants at the door.

XXXI. When some decrees were made contrary to his opinion, he did not

even make any complaint. And though he thought that no magistrates after

their nomination should be allowed to absent themselves from the city,

but reside in it constantly, to receive their honours in person, a

praetor-elect obtained liberty to depart under the honorary title of a

legate at large. Again, when he proposed to the senate, that the

Trebians might have leave granted them to divert some money which had

been left them by will for the purpose of building a new theatre, to that

of making a road, he could not prevail to have the will of the testator

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 were

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.

(213) XXXII. He reprimanded some persons of consular rank in command of

armies, for not writing to the senate an 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

commended a praetor, 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 Rhodes, 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, the grammarian, who used

to hold public disquisitions, at Rhodes 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 Rome, 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, not flay, his sheep.”

XXXIII. He assumed the sovereignty [332] by slow degrees, and exercised

it for a long time with great variety of conduct, though generally with a

due regard to the public good. At first he only interposed to prevent

ill management. Accordingly, he rescinded some decrees of the senate;

and when the magistrates sat for the administration of justice, he

frequently offered his service as assessor, either taking his place

promiscuously amongst them, or seating himself in a corner of the

tribunal. If a rumour 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, (214) or the praetor’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.

XXXIV. He reduced the expense of the plays and 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 thirty thousand sesterces: upon which he proposed that a new

sumptuary law should be enacted; that the butchers and other dealers in

viands should be subject to an assize, fixed by the senate yearly; and

the aediles commissioned to restrain eating-houses and taverns, so far as

not even to permit the sale of any kind of pastry. And to encourage

frugality in the public by his own example, he would often, at his solemn

feasts, have at his tables victuals which had been served up the day

before, and were partly eaten, and half a boar, affirming, “It has all

the same good bits that the whole had.” He published an edict against

the practice of people’s kissing each other when they met; and would not

allow new-year’s gifts [333] to be presented after the calends [the

first] of January was passed. He had been in the habit of returning

these offerings four-fold, 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.

XXXV. Married women guilty of adultery, though not prosecuted publicly,

he authorised 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;

and allowed him to divorce her, upon her being caught in criminal

intercourse with her son-in-law. Women of ill-fame, divesting themselves

of the rights and dignity of matrons, had now begun a practice of

professing themselves prostitutes, to avoid (215) the punishment of the

laws; and the most profligate young men of the senatorian and equestrian

orders, to secure themselves against a decree of the senate, which

prohibited their performing on the stage, or in the amphitheatre,

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 efficacy of the law. He

stripped a senator of the broad stripes on his robe, upon information of

his having removed to his gardens before the calends [the first] of July,

in order that he might afterwards hire a house cheaper in the city. He

likewise dismissed another from the office of quaestor, for repudiating,

the day after he had been lucky in drawing his lot, a wife whom he had

married only the day before.

XXXVI. He suppressed all foreign religions, and the Egyptian [334] and

Jewish rites, obliging those who practised that kind of superstition, to

burn their vestments, and all their sacred utensils. He distributed the

Jewish youths, under the pretence 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 [335], under 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.

XXXVII. But, above all things, he was careful to keep the (216) 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 pretorian cohorts,

which, till then, had been quartered in the city. He suppressed with

great severity all tumults 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 theatre, 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 [336]. The people of Pollentia 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 Cottius [337]; who concealing the cause of their

march, entered the town by different gates, with their arms suddenly

displayed, and trumpets sounding; and having seized the greatest part of

the people, and the magistrates, they were imprisoned for life. He

abolished every where the privileges of all places of refuge. The

Cyzicenians 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

lieutenants, without ever going against them in person; nor would he even

employ his lieutenants, 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 induced to come to him by fair words and promises, he never

would permit to return home; as Maraboduus the German, Thrascypolis the

(217) Thracian, and Archelaus the Cappadocian, whose kingdom he even

reduced into the form of a province.

XXXVIII. 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 neighbouring

towns; his farthest excursion being to Antium [338], 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,

by taking up carriages, and ordering provisions for his retinue in the

municipia and colonies. At last he suffered vows to be put up for his

good journey and safe return, insomuch that he was called jocosely by the

name of Callipides, who is famous in a Greek proverb, for being in a

great hurry to go forward, but without ever advancing a cubit.

XXXIX. But after the loss of his two sons, of whom Germanicus died in

Syria, and Drusus at Rome, he withdrew into Campania [339]; 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 to Rome; and a few days after leaving it, when he was

at a villa of his called the Cave, near Terracina [340], during supper a

great many huge stones fell from above, which killed several of the

guests and attendants; but he almost hopelessly escaped.

XL. After he had gone round Campania, and dedicated the capitol at

Capua, and a temple to Augustus at Nola [341], which he made the pretext

of his journey, he retired to Capri; being (218) 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 [342], where upwards

of twenty thousand persons had been killed by the fall of the

amphitheatre, during a public spectacle of gladiators, he crossed over

again to the continent, and gave all people free access to him; so much

the more, because, at his departure from the city, he had caused it to be

proclaimed that no one should address him, and had declined admitting any

persons to his presence, on the journey.

XLI. Returning to the island, he so far abandoned all care of the

government, that he never filled up the decuriae 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 lieutenants.

He likewise suffered Armenia to be seized by the Parthians, Moesia by the

Dacians and Sarmatians, and Gaul to be ravaged by the Germans; to the

great disgrace, and no less danger, of the empire.

XLII. But having now the advantage of privacy, and being remote 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 to wine, that, for Tiberius, they called him Biberius; for

Claudius, Caldius; 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 Flaccus 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 letters-patent, to be “very pleasant

companions, and friends fit for all occasions.” He made an appointment

to sup with Sestius 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 quaestorship, before the most noble competitors, only for taking

off, in pledging him at table, an amphora of wine at a draught [343]. He

presented Asellius Sabinus with two hundred thousand sesterces, for

writing a dialogue, in the way of dispute, betwixt the truffle and the

fig-pecker, the oyster and the thrush. He likewise instituted a new

office to administer to his voluptuousness, to which he appointed Titus

Caesonius Priscus, a Roman knight.

XLIII. In his retreat at Capri [344], he also contrived an apartment

containing couches, and adapted to the secret practice of abominable

lewdness, where he entertained companies of girls and catamites, 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 languid 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 Pans and Nymphs [345]. So that

he was publicly and commonly called, by an abuse of the name of the

island, Caprineus. [346]

XLIV. But he was still more infamous, if possible, for an (220)

abomination not fit to be mentioned or heard, much less credited. [347]

------------------When a picture, painted by Parrhasius, in which the

artist had represented Atalanta in the act of submitting to Meleager’s

lust in a most unnatural way, was bequeathed to him, with this proviso,

that if the subject was offensive to him, he might receive in lieu of it

a million of sesterces, he not only chose the picture, but hung it up in

his bed-chamber. It is also reported that, during a sacrifice, he was so

captivated with the form of a youth who held a censer, 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 upbraiding one another with their

shame.

XLV. How much he was guilty of a most foul intercourse with women even

of the first quality [348], appeared very plainly by the death of one

Mallonia, 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, quitting the court, went home, and stabbed

herself; openly upbraiding the vile old lecher for his gross obscenity

the next public sports, and was received with great applause, and became

a common topic of ridicule [350]: that the old goat--------

XLVI. He was so niggardly and covetous, that he never allowed to his

attendants, in his travels and expeditions, any salary, but their diet

only. Once, indeed, he treated them liberally, at the instigation of his

step-father, when, dividing them into three classes, according to their

rank, he gave the (221) first six, the second four, and the third two,

hundred thousand sesterces, which last class he called not friends, but

Greeks.

XLVII. 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 Theatre, he left at last,

after many years, unfinished. Nor did he ever entertain the people with

public spectacles; and he was seldom present at those which were given by

others, lest any thing of that kind should be requested of him;

especially after he was obliged to give freedom to the comedian Actius.

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 Hortalus, grandson to the celebrated

orator Quintus Hortensius, who [marrying], by the persuasion of Augustus,

had brought up four children upon a very small estate.

XLVIII. He displayed only two instances of public munificence. One was

an offer to lend gratis, for three years, a hundred millions of sesterces

to those who wanted to borrow; and the other, when, some large houses

being burnt down upon Mount Caelius, he indemnified the owners. To the

former of these he was compelled by the clamours 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 degree 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 any thing, except a thousand denarii a man to the pretorian

guards, for not joining the party of Sejanus; and some presents to the

legions in Syria, because they alone had not paid reverence to the

effigies of Sejanus among their standards. He seldom gave discharges to

the veteran soldiers, calculating (222) on their deaths from advanced

age, and on what would be saved 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.

XLIX. In the course of a very short time, he turned his mind to sheer

robbery. It is certain that Cneius Lentulus, the augur, 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 Quirinus, 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 pretences, that against some of them no other

charge was preferred, than that they held large sums of ready money as

part of their property. Old immunities, the rights of mining, and of

levying tolls, were taken from several cities and private persons. And

Vonones, king of the Parthians, who had been driven out of his dominions

by his own subjects, and fled to Antioch with a vast treasure, claiming

the protection of the Roman people, his allies, was treacherously robbed

of all his money, and afterwards murdered.

L. He first manifested hatred towards his own relations in the case of

his brother Drusus, betraying him by the production of a letter to

himself, in which Drusus proposed that Augustus should be forced to

restore the public liberty. In course of time, he shewed 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

forbad her to stir out of the house, or converse with any men. 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 (223) seeing her, and all long and private conferences with her,

lest it should be thought that he was governed by her counsels, which,

notwithstanding, he sometimes sought, and was in the habit of adopting.

He was much offended at the senate, when they 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 a fire which broke

out near the Temple of Vesta [351], and encouraging the people and

soldiers to use their utmost exertions, as she had been used to do in the

time of her husband.

LI. He afterwards proceeded to an open rupture 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 on the roll, “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 sourness and insolence of Tiberius’s 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 (224)

whole years 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 putrefaction before

the interment; and he then forbad 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

acquaintance; not even sparing those to whom, on her death-bed, she had

recommended the care of her funeral, but condemning one of them, a man of

equestrian rank, to the treadmill. [352]

LII. He entertained no paternal affection either for his own son Drusus,

or his adopted son Germanicus. Offended at the vices of the former, who

was of a loose disposition and led a dissolute 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 condolence, he said to them by way of banter, as if the

affair had already faded from his memory, “And I heartily condole with

you on the loss of your renowned countryman, 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 of a great and sudden

famine at Rome. It was believed that he took care to have him dispatched

by Cneius Piso, 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.

(225) LIII. His daughter-in-law Agrippina, after the death of her

husband, complaining upon some occasion with more than ordinary freedom,

he took her by the 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 vouchsafe 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 a design to poison her; whereas the whole was a contrivance 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 [353]. 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 mouth to

be forced 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 birth-day amongst the 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 Gemonian 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 Capitolinus on the occasion.

LIV. He had by Germanicus three grandsons, Nero, Drusus, and Caius; and

by his son Drusus one, named Tiberius. Of these, after the loss of his

sons, he commended Nero and Drusus, the two eldest sons of Germanicus, to

the senate; and at their being solemnly introduced into the forum,

distributed money among the people. But when he found that on entering

upon the new year they were included in the public vows for his own

welfare, he told the senate, “that such honours 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 practising many artifices to provoke

(226) them to rail at and abuse him, that he might be furnished with a

pretence 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 Palatium. It is thought by some, that Nero was driven to a

voluntary death by the executioner’s shewing him some halters and hooks,

as if he had been sent to him by order of the senate. Drusus, it is

said, was so rabid with hunger, that he attempted to eat the chaff with

which his mattress was stuffed. The relics of both were so scattered,

that it was with difficulty they were collected.

LV. Besides his old friends and intimate acquaintance, he required the

assistance of twenty of the most eminent persons in the city, as

counsellors 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 pretence or another; and among them

Aelius Sejanus, whose fall was attended with the ruin of many others. He

had advanced this minister to the highest pitch of grandeur, not so much

from any real regard for him, as that by his base and sinister

contrivances he might ruin the children of Germanicus, and thereby secure

the succession to his own grandson by Drusus.

LVI. 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 uncouth dialect is that?” he

replied, “The Doric.” For this answer he banished him to Cinara [354],

suspecting that he taunted 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 attendants what

authors he was then studying, and so came prepared for his enquiries--he

first turned him out of his family, and then drove him to the extremity

of laying violent hands upon himself.

(227) LVII. His cruel and sullen temper appeared when he was still a

boy; which Theodorus of Gadara [355], his master in rhetoric, first

discovered, and expressed by a very apposite simile, calling him

sometimes, when he chid him, “Mud mixed with blood.” But his disposition

shewed 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 wag 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, 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 told 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.

LVIII. About the same time, when the praetor 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

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 stamped 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

honours to be decreed to him in the colony where he lived, upon the same

day on which they had formerly been decreed to Augustus.

(228) LIX. He was besides guilty of many barbarous actions, under the

pretence of strictness and reformation of manners, but more to gratify

his own savage disposition. Some verses were published, which displayed

the present calamities of his reign, and anticipated the future. [357]

Asper et immitis, breviter vis omnia dicam?

Dispeream si te mater amare potest.

Non es eques, quare? non sunt tibi millia centum?

Omnia si quaeras, et Rhodos exsilium est.

Aurea mutasti Saturni saecula, Caesar:

Incolumi nam te, ferrea semper erunt.

Fastidit vinum, quia jam sit it iste cruorem:

Tam bibit hunc avide, quam bibit ante merum.

Adspice felicem sibi, non tibi, Romule, Sullam:

Et Marium, si vis, adspice, sed reducem.

Nec non Antoni civilia bella moventis

Nec semel infectas adspice caeda manus.

Et dic, Roma perit: regnabit sanguine multo,

Ad regnum quisquis venit ab exsilio.

Obdurate wretch! too fierce, too fell to move

The least kind yearnings of a mother’s love!

No knight thou art, as having no estate;

Long suffered’st thou in Rhodes an exile’s fate,

No more the happy Golden Age we see;

The Iron’s come, and sure to last with thee.

Instead of wine he thirsted for before,

He wallows now in floods of human gore.

Reflect, ye Romans, on the dreadful times,

Made such by Marius, and by Sylla’s crimes.

Reflect how Antony’s ambitious rage

Twice scar’d with horror a distracted age,

And say, Alas! Rome’s blood in streams will flow,

When banish’d 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 approve my conduct.” [358] At length, however, his behaviour

showed that he was sensible they were too well founded.

(229) LX. 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 a large mullet, he ordered the man’s face to be scrubbed 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 that he had

not likewise offered him a large crab which he had also taken, he ordered

his face to be farther lacerated with its claws. He put to death one of

the pretorian 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 scourged almost to death.

LXI. 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 acquaintance of his mother, then those

of his grandsons, and his daughter-in-law, and lastly those of Sejanus;

after whose death he became cruel in the extreme. From this it appeared,

that he had not been so much instigated by Sejanus, 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 Sejanus, 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 Sejanus; 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 excepting 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, the 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 offences were capital, even speaking (230) a few

words, though without any ill intention. A poet was charged with abusing

Agamemnon; and a historian [359], 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 summoned to trial,

stabbed 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 wounds 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 Gemonian stairs, and

then dragged into the Tiber. In one day, twenty 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 thought

death so slight a punishment, that upon hearing that Carnulius, one of

the accused, who was under prosecution, had killed himself, he exclaimed,

“Carnulius has escaped me.” In calling over his prisoners, when one of

them requested the favour of a speedy death, he replied, “You are not yet

restored to favour.” A man of consular rank writes in his annals, that

at table, where he himself was present with a large company, he was

suddenly asked aloud by a dwarf who stood by amongst the buffoons, why

Paconius, who was under a prosecution for treason, lived so long.

Tiberius immediately reprimanded him for his pertness; but wrote to the

senate a few days after, to proceed without delay to the punishment of

Paconius.

LXII. Exasperated by information he received respecting the death of his

son Drusus, he carried his cruelty still farther. He imagined that he

had died of a disease occasioned (231) by his intemperance; but finding

that he had been poisoned by the contrivance of his wife Livilla [360]

and Sejanus, 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 enquiry. 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 Thrasyllus, designedly, as some say, prevailed with him to defer some

of his cruelties, in hopes of longer life, it is 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!”

[361]

LXIII. 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 suppress the

oracles in the neighbourhood of the city; but being terrified by the

divine authority of the (232) Praenestine Lots [362], he abandoned the

design. For though they 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.

LXIV. He never removed his daughter-in-law, or grandsons [363], 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 travellers, from

stopping to gaze at them.

LXV. After Sejanus had plotted against him, though he saw that his

birth-day was solemnly kept by the public, and divine honours paid to

golden images of him in every quarter, yet it was with 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 honour, 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 preceding consulship. Then, having

flattered him with the hope of an alliance by marriage with one of his

own kindred, and the prospect of the tribunitian authority, he suddenly,

while Sejanus 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 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 (233) watch, from the summit of a lofty cliff, for the signals which

he had ordered to be made if any thing occurred, lest the messengers

should be tardy. Even when he had quite foiled the conspiracy of

Sejanus, he was still haunted as much as ever with fears and

apprehensions, insomuch that he never once stirred out of the Villa Jovis

for nine months after.

LXVI. To the extreme anxiety of mind which he now experienced, he had

the mortification to find superadded 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-bills scattered in the

senators’ seats in the theatre. 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

subjoined a letter from Artabanus, king of the Parthians, in which he

upbraids him with his parricides, 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.

LXVII. At last, being quite weary of himself, he acknowledged his

extreme misery, in a letter to the senate, which begun 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 sinking, if

I can tell.” Some are of opinion that he had a foreknowledge 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 honours. 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 (234) any person whatever, who might by some accident or

other be induced to alter them.” And again: “If ye 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 honour to me, but be a reproach to you, for your rashness in

conferring it upon me, or inconstancy in altering your opinion of me.”

LXVIII. In person he was large and robust; of a stature somewhat above

the common size; broad in the shoulders and chest, and proportionable 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 fillip. 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 awaking 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 endeavoured 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.

LXIX. In regard 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.

(235) LXX. He applied himself with great diligence to the liberal arts,

both Greek and Latin. In his Latin style, he affected to imitate Messala

Corvinus [364], 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 abstruseness, so that he was thought to speak better

extempore, than in a premeditated discourse. He composed likewise a

lyric ode, under the title of “A Lamentation upon the death of Lucius

Caesar;” and also some Greek poems, in imitation of Euphorion, Rhianus,

and Parthenius [365]. 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 vied

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 trifling details in a ridiculous

manner; for he used to try the grammarians, a class of men which, as I

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?” And 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.

LXXI. 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,

insomuch that having occasion to employ the word monopolium (monopoly),

he first begged pardon for being obliged to adopt a foreign word. And

when, in a decree of the senate, the word emblaema (emblem) was read, he

proposed to have it changed, and that a Latin word should be substituted

in its room; or, if no proper one could be found, to express the thing by

circumlocution. A soldier (236) who was examined as a witness upon a

trial, in Greek [366], he would not allow to reply, except in Latin.

LXXII. 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 Naumachia, 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 travelled on the Appian Way [367], as far as the seventh

mile-stone 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 [368]; but recovering a

little, went on to Circeii [369]. 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 over-heating himself in the exercise, he

relapsed into a worse condition than he was before. He held out,

however, for some time; and sailing as far as Misenum [370], omitted

nothing (237) 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 Charicles, 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 lictor standing by him, while

he took leave of each of the party by name.

LXXIII. 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 cursorily 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 any thing until he found himself in a place of

security. But being detained by storms, and the increasing violence of