The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete
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
his disorder, he died shortly afterwards, at a villa formerly belonging
to Lucullus, in the seventy-eighth year of his age [371], and the
twenty-third of his reign, upon the seventeenth of the calends of April
(16th March), in the consulship of Cneius Acerronius Proculus and Caius
Pontius Niger. Some think that a slow-consuming poison was given him by
Caius [372]. Others say that during the interval of the intermittent
fever with which he happened to be seized, upon asking for food, it was
denied him. Others report, that he was stifled by a pillow thrown upon
him [373], when, on his recovering from a swoon, he called for his ring,
which had been taken from him in the fit. Seneca writes, “That finding
himself dying, he took his signet ring off his finger, and held it a