The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete
dedicated by Julius Caesar to Venus genitrix, from whom the Julian family
pretended to derive their descent. See JULIUS, c. lxi.; AUGUSTUS, c. ci.]
[Footnote 642: A.U.C. 821.]
[Footnote 643: The Atrium, or Aula, was the court or hall of a house, the
entrance to which was by the principal door. It appears to have been a
large oblong square, surrounded with covered or arched galleries. Three
sides of the Atrium were supported by pillars, which, in later times, were
marble. The side opposite to the gate was called Tablinum; and the other
two sides, Alae. The Tablinum contained books, and the records of what
each member of the family had done in his magistracy. In the Atrium the
nuptial couch was erected; and here the mistress of the family, with her
maid-servants, wrought at spinning and weaving, which, in the time of the
ancient Romans, was their principal employment.]
[Footnote 644: He was consul with L. Aurelius Cotta, A.U.C. 610.]
[Footnote 645: A.U.C. 604.]
[Footnote 646: A.U.C. 710.]
[Footnote 647: A.U.C 775.]
[Footnote 648: A.U.C. 608.]
[Footnote 649: Caius Sulpicius Galba, the emperor’s brother, had been
consul A.U.C. 774.]
[Footnote 650: A.U.C. 751.]
[Footnote 651: Now Fondi, which, with Terracina, still bearing its
original name, lie on the road to Naples. See TIBERIUS, cc. v. and
xxxix.]
[Footnote 652: Livia Ocellina, mentioned just before.]
[Footnote 653: A.U.C. 751.]
[Footnote 654: The widow of the emperor Augustus.]
[Footnote 655: Suetonius seems to have forgotten, that, according to his
own testimony, this legacy, as well as those left by Tiberius, was paid by
Caligula. “Legata ex testamento Tiberii; quamquam abolito, sed et Juliae
Augustae, quod Tiberius suppresserat, cum fide, ac sine calumnia
repraesentate persolvit.” CALIG. c. xvi.]
[Footnote 656: A.U.C. 786.]
[Footnote 657: Caius Caesar Caligula. He gave the command of the legions
in Germany to Galba.]
[Footnote 658: “Scuto moderatus;” another reading in the parallel passage
of Tacitus is scuto immodice oneratus, burdened with the heavy weight of a
shield.]
[Footnote 659: It would appear that Galba was to have accompanied
Claudius in his expedition to Britain; which is related before, CLAUDIUS,
c. xvii.]
[Footnote 660: It has been remarked before, that the Cantabria of the
ancients is now the province of Biscay.]
[Footnote 661: Now Carthagena.]
[Footnote 662: A.U.C. 821.]
[Footnote 663: Now Corunna.]
[Footnote 664: Tortosa, on the Ebro.]
[Footnote 665: “Simus,” literally, fiat-nosed, was a cant word, used for
a clown; Galba being jeered for his rusticity, in consequence of his long
retirement. See c. viii. Indeed, they called Spain his farm.]
[Footnote 666: The command of the pretorian guards.]
[Footnote 667: In the Forum. See AUGUSTUS, c. lvii.]
[Footnote 668: II. v. 254.]
[Footnote 669: A.U.C. 822.]
[Footnote 670: On the esplanade, where the standards, objects of
religious reverence, were planted. See note to c. vi. Criminals were
usually executed outside the Vallum, and in the presence of a centurion.]
[Footnote 671: Probably one of the two mentioned in CLAUDIUS, c. xiii.]
[Footnote 672: A.U.C. 784 or 785.]
[Footnote 673: “Distento sago impositum in sublime jactare.”]
[Footnote 674: See NERO, c. xxxv.]
[Footnote 675: The Milliare Aureum was a pillar of stone set up at the
top of the Forum, from which all the great military roads throughout Italy
started, the distances to the principal towns being marked upon it. Dio
(lib. liv.) says that it was erected by the emperor Augustus, when he was
curator of the roads.]
[Footnote 676: Haruspex, Auspex, or Augur, denoted any person who
foretold futurity, or interpreted omens. There was at Rome a body of
priests, or college, under this title, whose office it was to foretell
future events, chiefly from the flight, chirping, or feeding of birds, and
from other appearances. They were of the greatest authority in the Roman
state; for nothing of importance was done in public affairs, either at
home or abroad, in peace or war, without consulting them. The Romans
derived the practice of augury chiefly from the Tuscans; and anciently
their youth used to be instructed as carefully in this art, as afterwards
they were in the Greek literature. For this purpose, by a decree of the
senate, a certain number of the sons of the leading men at Rome was sent
to the twelve states of Etruria for instruction.]
[Footnote 677: See before, note, c. i. The Principia was a broad open
space, which separated the lower part of the Roman camp from the upper,
and extended the whole breadth of the camp. In this place was erected the
tribunal of the general, when he either administered justice or harangued
the army. Here likewise the tribunes held their courts, and punishments
were inflicted. The principal standards of the army, as it has been
already mentioned, were deposited in the Principia; and in it also stood
the altars of the gods, and the images of the Emperors, by which the
soldiers swore.]
[Footnote 678: See NERO, c. xxxi. The sum estimated as requisite for its
completion amounted to 2,187,500 pounds of our money.]
[Footnote 679: The two last words, literally translated, mean “long
trumpets;” such as were used at sacrifices. The sense is, therefore,
“What have I to do, my hands stained with blood, with performing religious
ceremonies!”]
[Footnote 680: The Ancile was a round shield, said to have fallen from
heaven in the reign of Numa, and supposed to be the shield of Mars. It
was kept with great care in the sanctuary of his temple, as a symbol of
the perpetuity of the Roman empire; and that it might not be stolen,
eleven others were made exactly similar to it.]
[Footnote 681: This ideal personage, who has been mentioned before,
AUGUSTUS, c. lxviii., was the goddess Cybele, the wife of Saturn, called
also Rhea, Ops, Vesta, Magna, Mater, etc. She was painted as a matron,
crowned with towers, sitting in a chariot drawn by lions. A statue of
her, brought from Pessinus in Phrygia to Rome, in the time of the second
Punic war, was much honoured there. Her priests, called the Galli and
Corybantes, were castrated; and worshipped her with the sound of drums,
tabors, pipes, and cymbals. The rites of this goddess were disgraced by
great indecencies.]
[Footnote 682: Otherwise called Orcus, Pluto, Jupiter Infernus, and
Stygnis. He was the brother of Jupiter, and king of the infernal regions.
His wife was Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, whom he carried off as she
was gathering flowers in the plains of Enna, in Sicily. The victims
offered to the infernal gods were black: they were killed with their faces
bent downwards; the knife was applied from below, and the blood was poured
into a ditch.]
[Footnote 683: A town between Mantua and Cremona.]
[Footnote 684: The temple of Castor. It stood about twelve miles from
Cremona. Tacitus gives some details of this action. Hist. ii. 243.]
[Footnote 685: Both Greek and Latin authors differ in the mode of
spelling the name of this place, the first syllable being written Beb,
Bet, and Bret. It is now a small village called Labino, between Cremona
and Verona.]
[Footnote 686: Lenis was a name of similar signification with that of
Tranquillus, borne by his son, the author of the present work. We find
from Tacitus, that there was, among Otho’s generals, in this battle,
another person of the name of Suetonius, whose cognomen was Paulinus; with
whom our author’s father must not be confounded. Lenis was only a tribune
of the thirteenth legion, the position of which in the battle is mentioned
by Tacitus, Hist. xi. 24, and was angusticlavius, wearing only the narrow
stripe, as not being of the senatorial order; while Paulinus was a
general, commanding a legion, at least, and a consular man; having filled
that Office A.U.C. 818. There seems no doubt that Suetonius Paulinus was
the same general who distinguished himself by his successes and cruelties
in Britain. NERO, c. xviii., and note.]
Not to extend the present note, we may shortly refer to our author’s
having already mentioned his grandfather (CALIGULA, c. xix.); besides
other sources from which he drew his information. He tells us that he
himself was then a boy. We have now arrived at the times in which his
father bore a part. Such incidental notices, dropped by historical
writers, have a certain value in enabling us to form a judgment on the
genuineness of their narratives as to contemporaneous, or recent, events.]
[Footnote 687: A.U.C. 823.]
[Footnote 688: Jupiter, to prevent the discovery of his amour with Io,
the daughter of the river Inachus, transformed her into a heifer, in which
metamorphosis she was placed by Juno under the watchful inspection of
Argus; but flying into Egypt, and her keeper being killed by Mercury, she
recovered her human shape, and was married to Osiris. Her husband
afterwards became a god of the Egyptians, and she a goddess, under the
name of Isis. She was represented with a mural crown on her head, a
cornucopia in one hand, and a sistrum (a musical instrument) in the
other.]
[Footnote 689: Faunus was supposed to be the third king who reigned over
the original inhabitants of the central parts of Italy, Saturn being the
first. Virgil makes his wife’s name Marica--
Hunc Fauna, et nympha genitum
Laurente Marica Accipimus.--Aen. vii. 47.
Her name may have been changed after her deification; but we have no other
accounts than those preserved by Suetonius, of several of the traditions
handed down from the fabulous ages respecting the Vitellian family.]
[Footnote 690: The Aequicolae were probably a tribe inhabiting the
heights in the neighbourhood of Rome. Virgil describes them, Aen. vii.
746.]
[Footnote 691: Nuceria, now Nocera, is a town near Mantua; but Livy, in
treating of the war with the Samnites, always speaks of Luceria, which
Strabo calls a town in Apulia.]
[Footnote 692: Cassius Severus is mentioned before, in AUGUSTUS, c. lvi.;
CALIGULA, c. xvi., etc.]
[Footnote 693: A.U.C. 785.]
[Footnote 694: A.U.C. 787.]
[Footnote 695: He is frequently commended by Josephus for his kindness to
the Jews. See, particularly, Antiq. VI. xviii.]
[Footnote 696: A.U.C. 796, 800.]
[Footnote 697: A.U.C. 801.]
[Footnote 698: A.U.C. 797. See CLAUDIUS, c. xvii.]
[Footnote 699: A.U.C. 801.]
[Footnote 700: A.U.C. 767; being the year after the death of the emperor
Augustus; from whence it appears that Vitellius was seventeen years older
than Otho, both being at an advanced age when they were raised to the
imperial dignity.]
[Footnote 701: He was sent to Germany by Galba.]
[Footnote 702: See TIBERIUS, c. xliii.]
[Footnote 703: Julius Caesar, also, was said to have exchanged brass for
gold in the Capitol, Junius, c. liv. The tin which we here find in use at
Rome, was probably brought from the Cassiterides, now the Scilly islands.
whence it had been an article of commerce by the Phoenicians and
Carthaginians from a very early period.]
[Footnote 704: A.U.C. 821.]
[Footnote 705: A.U.C. 822.]
[Footnote 706: Vienne was a very ancient city of the province of
Narbonne, famous in ecclesiastical history as the early seat of a
bishopric in Gaul.]
[Footnote 707: See OTHO, c. ix.]
[Footnote 708: See OTHO, c. ix.]
[Footnote 709: Agrippina, the wife of Nero and mother of Germanicus,
founded a colony on the Rhine at the place of her birth. Tacit. Annal. b.
xii. It became a flourishing city, and its origin may be traced in its
modern name, Cologne.]
[Footnote 710: A dies non fastus, an unlucky day in the Roman calendar,