The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete
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