The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete
information that every thing had fallen out contrary to his wish, and
that she had saved herself by swimming,--not knowing what course to take,
upon her freedman, Lucius Agerinus bringing word, with great joy, that
she was safe and well, he privately dropped a poniard by him. He then
commanded the freedman to be seized and put in chains, under pretence of
his having been employed by his mother to assassinate him; at the same
time ordering her to be put to death, and giving out, that, to avoid
punishment for her intended crime, she had laid violent hands upon
herself. Other circumstances, still more horrible, are related on good
authority; as that he went to view her corpse, and handling her limbs,
pointed out some blemishes, and commended other points; and that, growing
thirsty during the survey, he called for drink. Yet he was never
afterwards able to bear the stings of his own conscience for this
atrocious act, although encouraged by the congratulatory addresses of the
army, the senate, and people. He frequently affirmed that he was haunted
by his mother’s ghost, and persecuted with the whips (364) and burning
torches of the Furies. Nay, he attempted by magical rites to bring up
her ghost from below, and soften her rage against him. When he was in
Greece, he durst not attend the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries,
at the initiation of which, impious and wicked persons are warned by the
voice of the herald from approaching the rites [604]. Besides the murder
of his mother, he had been guilty of that of his aunt; for, being obliged
to keep her bed in consequence of a complaint in her bowels, he paid her
a visit, and she, being then advanced in years, stroking his downy chin,
in the tenderness of affection, said to him: “May I but live to see the
day when this is shaved for the first time [605], and I shall then die
contented.” He turned, however, to those about him, made a jest of it,
saying, that he would have his beard immediately taken off, and ordered
the physicians to give her more violent purgatives. He seized upon her
estate before she had expired; suppressing her will, that he might enjoy
the whole himself.
XXXV. He had, besides Octavia, two other wives: Poppaea Sabina, whose
father had borne the office of quaestor, and who had been married
before to a Roman knight: and, after her, Statilia Messalina,
great-grand-daughter of Taurus [606] who was twice consul, and received
the honour of a triumph. To obtain possession of her, he put to death her
husband, Atticus Vestinus, who was then consul. He soon became disgusted
with Octavia, and ceased from having any intercourse with her; and being
censured by his friends for it, he replied, “She ought to be satisfied
with having the rank and appendages of his wife.” Soon afterwards, he
made several attempts, but in vain, to strangle her, and then divorced her
for barrenness. But the people, disapproving of the divorce, and making
severe comments upon it, he also banished her [607]. At last he (365) put
her to death, upon a charge of adultery, so impudent and false, that, when
all those who were put to the torture positively denied their knowledge of
it, he suborned his pedagogue, Anicetus, to affirm, that he had secretly
intrigued with and debauched her. He married Poppaea twelve days after
the divorce of Octavia [608], and entertained a great affection for her;
but, nevertheless, killed her with a kick which he gave her when she was
big with child, and in bad health, only because she found fault with him
for returning late from driving his chariot. He had by her a daughter,
Claudia Augusta, who died an infant. There was no person at all connected
with him who escaped his deadly and unjust cruelty. Under pretence of her
being engaged in a plot against him, he put to death Antonia, Claudius’s
daughter, who refused to marry him after the death of Poppaea. In the
same way, he destroyed all who were allied to him either by blood or
marriage; amongst whom was young Aulus Plautinus. He first compelled him
to submit to his unnatural lust, and then ordered him to be executed,
crying out, “Let my mother bestow her kisses on my successor thus
defiled;” pretending that he had been his mothers paramour, and by her
encouraged to aspire to the empire. His step-son, Rufinus Crispinus,
Poppaea’s son, though a minor, he ordered to be drowned in the sea, while
he was fishing, by his own slaves, because he was reported to act
frequently amongst his play-fellows the part of a general or an emperor.
He banished Tuscus, his nurse’s son, for presuming, when he was procurator
of Egypt, to wash in the baths which had been constructed in expectation
of his own coming. Seneca, his preceptor, he forced to kill himself
[609], though, upon his desiring leave to retire, and offering to
surrender his estate, he solemnly swore, “that there was no foundation for
his suspicions, and that he would perish himself sooner than hurt him.”
Having promised Burrhus, the pretorian prefect, a remedy for a swelling in
his throat, he sent him poison. Some old rich freedmen of Claudius, who
had formerly not only promoted (366) his adoption, but were also
instrumental to his advancement to the empire, and had been his governors,
he took off by poison given them in their meat or drink.
XXXVI. Nor did he proceed with less cruelty against those who were not
of his family. A blazing star, which is vulgarly supposed to portend
destruction to kings and princes, appeared above the horizon several
nights successively [610]. He felt great anxiety on account of this
phenomenon, and being informed by one Babilus, an astrologer, that
princes were used to expiate such omens by the sacrifice of illustrious
persons, and so avert the danger foreboded to their own persons, by
bringing it on the heads of their chief men, he resolved on the
destruction of the principal nobility in Rome. He was the more
encouraged to this, because he had some plausible pretence for carrying
it into execution, from the discovery of two conspiracies against him;
the former and more dangerous of which was that formed by Piso [611], and
discovered at Rome; the other was that of Vinicius [612], at Beneventum.
The conspirators were brought to their trials loaded with triple fetters.
Some ingenuously confessed the charge; others avowed that they thought
the design against his life an act of favour for which he was obliged to
them, as it was impossible in any other way than by death to relieve a
person rendered infamous by crimes of the greatest enormity. The
children of those who had been condemned, were banished the city, and
afterwards either poisoned or starved to death. It is asserted that some
of them, with their tutors, and the slaves who carried their satchels,
were all poisoned together at one dinner; and others not suffered to seek
their daily bread.
XXXVII. From this period he butchered, without distinction or quarter,
all whom his caprice suggested as objects for his cruelty; and upon the
most frivolous pretences. To mention only a few: Salvidienus Orfitus was
accused of letting (367) out three taverns attached to his house in the
Forum to some cities for the use of their deputies at Rome. The charge
against Cassius Longinus, a lawyer who had lost his sight, was, that he
kept amongst the busts of his ancestors that of Caius Cassius, who was
concerned in the death of Julius Caesar. The only charge objected
against Paetus Thrasea was, that he had a melancholy cast of features,
and looked like a schoolmaster. He allowed but one hour to those whom he
obliged to kill themselves; and, to prevent delay, he sent them
physicians “to cure them immediately, if they lingered beyond that time;”
for so he called bleeding them to death. There was at that time an
Egyptian of a most voracious appetite, who would digest raw flesh, or any
thing else that was given him. It was credibly reported, that the
emperor was extremely desirous of furnishing him with living men to tear
and devour. Being elated with his great success in the perpetration of
crimes, he declared, “that no prince before himself ever knew the extent
of his power.” He threw out strong intimations that he would not even
spare the senators who survived, but would entirely extirpate that order,
and put the provinces and armies into the hands of the Roman knights and
his own freedmen. It is certain that he never gave or vouchsafed to
allow any one the customary kiss, either on entering or departing, or
even returned a salute. And at the inauguration of a work, the cut
through the Isthmus [613], he, with a loud voice, amidst the assembled
multitude, uttered a prayer, that “the undertaking might prove fortunate
for himself and the Roman people,” without taking the smallest notice of
the senate.
XXXVIII. He spared, moreover, neither the people of Rome, nor the
capital of his country. Somebody in conversation saying--
Emou thanontos gaia michthaeto pyri
When I am dead let fire devour the world--
“Nay,” said he, “let it be while I am living” [emou xontos]. And he
acted accordingly: for, pretending to be disgusted with the old
buildings, and the narrow and winding streets, he set the city on fire so
openly, that many of consular rank caught his own household servants on
their property with tow, and (368) torches in their hands, but durst not
meddle with them. There being near his Golden House some granaries, the
site of which he exceedingly coveted, they were battered as if with
machines of war, and set on fire, the walls being built of stone. During
six days and seven nights this terrible devastation continued, the people
being obliged to fly to the tombs and monuments for lodging and shelter.
Meanwhile, a vast number of stately buildings, the houses of generals
celebrated in former times, and even then still decorated with the spoils
of war, were laid in ashes; as well as the temples of the gods, which had
been vowed and dedicated by the kings of Rome, and afterwards in the
Punic and Gallic wars: in short, everything that was remarkable and
worthy to be seen which time had spared [614]. This fire he beheld from
a tower in the house of Mecaenas, and “being greatly delighted,” as he
said, “with the beautiful effects of the conflagration,” he sung a poem
on the ruin of Troy, in the tragic dress he used on the stage. To turn
this calamity to his own advantage by plunder and rapine, he promised to
remove the bodies of those who had perished in the fire, and clear the
rubbish at his own expense; suffering no one to meddle with the remains
of their property. But he not only received, but exacted contributions
on account of the loss, until he had exhausted the means both of the
provinces and private persons.
XXXIX. To these terrible and shameful calamities brought upon the people
by their prince, were added some proceeding from misfortune. Such were a
pestilence, by which, within the space of one autumn, there died no less
than thirty thousand persons, as appeared from the registers in the
temple of Libitina; a great disaster in Britain [615], where two of the
principal towns belonging to the Romans were plundered; and a (369)
dreadful havoc made both amongst our troops and allies; a shameful
discomfiture of the army of the East; where, in Armenia, the legions were
obliged to pass under the yoke, and it was with great difficulty that
Syria was retained. Amidst all these disasters, it was strange, and,
indeed, particularly remarkable, that he bore nothing more patiently than
the scurrilous language and railing abuse which was in every one’s mouth;
treating no class of persons with more gentleness, than those who
assailed him with invective and lampoons. Many things of that kind were