De Vita Caesarum--Divus Vespasianus, c. 110 C.E.
Translated by J. C. Rolfe.
[Arkenberg Introduction]. Rolfe's annotations appear in brackets with no
attribution; mine are noted. I have also replaced modern place names, as used by Rolfe,
with those in use by the Romans and Hellenes; thus, for example, Rolfe's "Italy"
is now "Italia".
I. The empire, which for a long time had been unsettled and, as it
were, drifting, through the usurpation and violent death of three emperors, was at last
taken in hand and given stability by the Flavian family. This house was, it is true,
obscure and without family portraits, yet it was one of which our country had no reason
whatever to be ashamed, even though it is the general opinion that the penalty which
Domitian paid for his avarice and cruelty was fully merited. Titus Flavius Petro, a
citizen of Reate and during the civil war a centurion or a volunteer veteran on Pompeius
Magnus' side, fled from the field of Pharsalos and went home, where after at last
obtaining pardon and an honorable discharge, he carried on the business of a collector of
moneys. His son, surnamed Sabinus (although some say that he was a centurion of the first
grade, and others that while still in command of a cohort he was retired because of ill
health) took no part in military life, but farmed the public tax of a twentieth [A tax
of five per cent on the value of every slave who was set free, paid by the slave himself
or by his master] in Asia. And there existed for some time statues erected in his
honor by the cities of Asia, inscribed "To an honest tax-gatherer." Later, he
carried on a money-lending business in Helvetia and there he died, survived by his wife,
Vespasia Polla, and by two of her children, of whom the elder, Sabinus, rose to the rank
of Prefect of Rome, and the younger, Vespasian, even to that of emperor. Polla, who was
born of an honorable family at Nursia, had for father Vespasius Pollio, thrice tribune of
the soldiers and prefect of the camp [A position held by tried and skillful officers,
especially centurions of the first grade (primipili)] while her brother became a
senator with the rank of praetor. There is, moreover, on the top of a mountain, near the
sixth milestone on the road from Nursia to Spoletium, a place called Vespasiae, where many
monuments of the Vespasii are to be seen, affording strong proof of the renown and
antiquity of the house. I ought to add that some have bandied about the report, that
Petro's father came from the region beyond the Po and was a contractor for the
day-laborers who come regularly every year from Umbria to the Sabine district, to till the
fields; but that he settled in the town of Reate and there married. Personally, I have
found no evidence whatever of this, in spite of rather careful investigation.
II. Vespasian was born in the Sabine country, in a small village
beyond Reate, called Falacrina, on the evening of the fifteenth day before the Kalends of
December, in the consulate of Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus and Gaius Poppaeus Sabinus, five
years before the death of Augustus [November 14, 9 C.E.]. He was brought up under
the care of his paternal grandmother Tertulla on her estates at Cosa. Therefore, even
after he became emperor, he used constantly to visit the home of his infancy, where the
manor house was kept in its original condition, since he did not wish to miss anything
which he was wont to see there; and he was so devoted to his grandmother's memory, that on
religious and festival days he always drank from a little silver cup that had belonged to
her. After assuming the garb of manhood, he for a long time made no attempt to win the
broad stripe of senator, though his brother had gained it, and only his mother could
finally induce him to sue for it.
She at length drove him to it, but rather by sarcasm than by entreaties or parental
authority, since she constantly taunted him with being his brother's footman [The
"anteambulo" was the client who walked before his patron on the street and
compelled people to make way for him]. He served in Thrakia as tribune of the
soldiers; as quaestor was assigned by lot to the province of Crete and Kyrene; became a
candidate for the aedileship and then for the praetorship, attaining the former only after
one defeat and then barely landing in the sixth place [38 C.E.], but the latter
on his first canvass and among the foremost [39 C.E.]. In his praetorship, to
lose no opportunity of winning the favor of Gaius [Arkenberg: i.e., Caligula],
who was at odds with the Senate [See Calig. xlviii-xlix], he asked for special
games because of the emperor's victory in Germania and recommended, as an additional
punishment of the conspirators [Lepidus and Gaetulicus; see Claud. ix.1] that
they be cast out unburied. He also thanked the emperor before that illustrious body [The
Senate] because he had deigned to honor him with an invitation to dinner.
III. Meanwhile, he took to wife Flavia Domitilla, formerly the
mistress of Statilius Capella, a Roman eques of Sabrata in Africa, a woman originally only
of Latin rank, but afterwards declared a freeborn citizen of Rome in a suit before
arbiters, brought by her father Flavius Liberalis, a native of Ferentum and merely a
quaestor's clerk. By her he had three children, Titus, Domitian, and Domitilla. He
outlived his wife and daughter; in fact lost them both before he became emperor. After the
death of his wife he resumed his relations with Caenis, freedwoman and amanuensis of
Antonia, and formerly his mistress; and even after he became emperor he treated her almost
as a lawful wife.
IV. In the reign of Claudius he was sent in command of a legion to
Germania, through the influence of Narcissus; from there he was transferred to Britannia [See
Claud. xvii], where he fought thirty battles with the enemy. He reduced to subjection
two powerful nations, more than twenty towns, and the island of Vectis [The Isle of
Wight], near Britannia, partly under the leadership of Aulus Plautius, the consular
governor, and partly under that of Claudius himself. For this he received the triumphal
regalia, and shortly after two priesthoods, besides the consulship, which he held for the
last two months of the year [51 C.E.]. The rest of the time up to his
proconsulate he spent in rest and retirement, through fear of Agrippina, who still had a
strong influence over her son and hated any friend of Narcissus, even after the latter's
death. The chance of the lot then gave him Africa [63 C.E.], which he governed
with great justice and high honor, save that in a riot at Hadrumetum he was pelted with
turnips. Certain it is that he came back none the richer, for his credit was so nearly
gone that he mortgaged all his estates to his brother, and had to resort to trading in
mules to keep up his position; whence he was commonly known as "the Muleteer."
He is also said to have been found guilty of squeezing two hundred thousand sesterces out
of a young man for whom he obtained the broad stripe against his father's wish, and to
have been severely rebuked in consequence. On the tour through Graecia, among the
companions of Nero [See Nero, xxii], he bitterly offended the emperor by either
going out often while Nero was singing, or falling asleep, if he remained. Being in
consequence banished not only from intimacy with the emperor but even from his public
receptions, he withdrew to a little out-of-the-way town, until a province and an army were
offered him while he was in hiding and in fear of his life. There had spread over all the
Orient an old and established belief, that it was fated at that time for men coming from
Judaea to rule the world. This prediction, referring to the emperor of Rome, as afterwards
appeared from the event, the people of Judaea took to themselves; accordingly they
revolted and after killing their governor, they routed the consular ruler of Syria as
well, when he came to the rescue, and took one of his eagles. Since to put down this
rebellion required a considerable army with a leader of no little enterprise, yet one to
whom so great power could be entrusted without risk, Vespasian was chosen for the task,
both as a man of tried energy and as one in no wise to be feared because of the obscurity
of his family and name. Therefore there were added to the forces in Judaea two legions
with eight divisions of cavalry and ten cohorts. He took his elder son as one of his
lieutenants and as soon as he reached his province he attracted the attention of the
neighboring provinces also; for he at once reformed the discipline of the army and fought
one or two battles with such daring, that in the storming of a fortress he was wounded in
the knee with a stone and received several arrows in his shield.
V. While Otho and Vitellius were fighting for the throne after the
death of Nero and Galba, he began to cherish the hope of imperial dignity, which he
had long since conceived because of the following portents. On the suburban estate of the
Flavii an old oak tree, which was sacred to Mars, on each of the three occasions when
Vespasia was delivered, suddenly put forth a branch from its trunk, obvious indications of
the destiny of each child. The first was slender and quickly withered, and so too the girl
that was born died within the year; the second was very strong and long and portended
great success, but the third was the image of a tree. Therefore, their father Sabinus, so
they say, being further encouraged by an inspection of victims, announced to his mother
that a grandson had been born to her who would be a Caesar. But she only laughed,
marveling that her son should already be in his dotage, while she was still of strong
mind. Later, when Vespasian was aedile, Gaius Caesar, incensed at his neglect of his
duty of cleaning the streets, ordered that he be covered with mud, which the soldiers
accordingly heaped into the bosom of his fringed toga; this some interpreted as an omen
that one day in some civil commotion his country, trampled under foot and forsaken, would
come under his protection and as it were into his embrace. Once when he was taking
breakfast, a stray dog brought in a human hand from the cross-roads and dropped it under
the table [The hand was typical of power, and "manus" is often used in the
sense of "potestas"]. Again, when he was dining, an ox that was ploughing
shook off its yoke, burst into the dining-room, and after scattering the servants, fell at
the very feet of Vespasian as he reclined at table, and bowed its neck as if suddenly
tired out. A cypress tree, also, on his grandfather's farm was torn up by the roots,
without the agency of any violent storm, and thrown down, and on the following day rose
again greener and stronger than before. He dreamed in Greece that the beginning of good
fortune for himself and his family would come as soon as Nero had a tooth extracted; and
on the next day it came to pass that a physician walked into the hall [Of Nero's
lodging], and showed him a tooth which he had just then taken out. When he consulted
the oracle of the god of Carmel in Judaea, the lots were highly encouraging, promising
that whatever he planned or wished, however great it might be, would come to pass; and one
of his highborn prisoners, Josephus by name, as he was being put in chains, declared most
confidently that he would soon be released by the same man, who would then, however, be
emperor. Omens were also reported from Rome: Nero in his latter days was admonished in a
dream to take the sacred chariot of Jupiter Optimus Maximus from its shrine to the house
of Vespasian and from there to the Circus. Not long after this, too, when Galba was on his
way to the elections which gave him his second consulship, a statue of the Deified Julius
of its own accord turned towards the East; and on the field of Betriacum, before the
battle began, two eagles fought in the sight of all, and when one was vanquished a third
came from the direction of the rising sun and drove off the victor.
VI. Yet he made no move, although his followers were quite ready and
even urgent, until he was roused to it by the accidental support of men unknown to him and
at a distance. Two thousand soldiers of the three legions that made up the army in Moesia
had been sent to help Otho. When word came to them after they had begun their march that
he had been defeated and had taken his own life, they none the less kept on as far as
Aquileia, because they did not believe the report. There, taking advantage of the lawless
state of the times, they indulged in every kind of pillage; then, fearing that if they
went back, they would have to give an account and suffer punishment, they took it into
their heads to select and appoint an emperor, saying that they were just as good as the
Army of Hispania which had appointed Galba, or the Praetorian Guard which had elected
Otho, or the Army of Germania which had chosen Vitellius. Accordingly, the names of all
the consular governors who were serving anywhere were taken up, and since objection was
made to the rest for one reason or another, while some members of the third legion, which
had been transferred from Syria to Moesia just before the death of Nero, highly commended
Vespasian, they unanimously agreed on him and forthwith inscribed his name on all their
banners. At the time, however, the movement was checked and the soldiers recalled to their
allegiance for a season. But when their action became known, Tiberius Alexander, prefect
of Egypt, was the first to compel his legions to take the oath for Vespasian on the
Kalends of July, the day which was afterwards celebrated as that of his accession; then
the army in Judaea swore allegiance to him personally on the fifth day before the Ides of
July [July 11; according to Tac. Hist. 2.79, it was the fifth day before the Nones,
July 3]. The enterprise was greatly forwarded by the circulation of a copy of a
letter of the late emperor Otho to Vespasian, whether genuine or forged, urging him with
the utmost earnestness to vengeance, and expressing the hope that he would come to the aid
of his country; further, by a rumor which spread abroad that Vitellius had planned, after
his victory, to change the winter quarters of the legions and to transfer those in
Germania to the Orient, to a safer and milder service; and finally, among the governors of
provinces, by the support of Licinius Mucianus [Governor of the neighboring province
of Syria], and among the kings, by that of Vologaesus, the Parthian. The former,
laying aside the hostility with which up to that time jealousy had obviously inspired him,
promised the Syrian army, and the latter forty thousand bowmen.
VII. Therefore beginning a civil war and sending ahead generals with
troops to Italia, he crossed meanwhile to Alexandria, to take possession of the key to
Egypt [The strategic importance of Egypt is shown by Tac. Ann. 2.59; cf. Jul. xxxv.1
(at the end); Aug. xviii.2]. There he dismissed all his attendants and entered the
Temple of Serapis alone, to consult the auspices as to the duration of his power. And when
after many propitiary offerings to the god he at length turned about, it seemed to him
that his freedman Basilides [The freedman's name, connected with the Greek
"Basileus", or "King", was an additional omen] offered him sacred
boughs, garlands and loaves, as is the custom there; and yet he knew well that no one had
let him in, and that for some time he had been hardly able to walk by reason of
rheumatism, and was besides far away. And immediately letters came with the news that
Vitellius had been routed at Cremona and the emperor himself slain at Rome. Vespasian as
yet lacked prestige and a certain divinity, so to speak, since he was an unexpected and
still new-made emperor; but these also were given him. A man of the people who was blind,
and another who was lame, came to him together as he sat on the tribunal, begging for the
help for their disorders which Serapis had promised in a dream; for the god declared that
Vespasian would restore the eyes, if he would spit upon them, and give strength to the
leg, if he would deign to touch it with his heel. Though he had hardly any faith that this
could possibly succeed, and therefore shrank even from making the attempt, he was at last
prevailed upon by his friends and tried both things in public before a large crowd; and
with success. At this same time, by the direction of certain soothsayers, some vases of
antique workmanship were dug up in a consecrated spot at Tegea in Arcadia and on them was
an image very like Vespasian.
VIII. Returning to Rome under such auspices and attended by so great
renown, after celebrating a triumph over the Jews, he added eight consulships to his
former one [70-72, 74-77, 78 C.E.]; he also assumed the censorship, and during
the whole period of his rule he considered nothing more essential than first to strengthen
the State, which was tottering and almost overthrown, and then to embellish it as well.
The soldiery, some emboldened by their victory, and some resenting their humiliating
defeat, had abandoned themselves to every form of licence and recklessness; the provinces,
too, and the free cities, as well as some of the kingdoms, were in a state of internal
dissension. Therefore, he discharged many of the soldiers of Vitellius and punished many;
but so far from showing any special indulgence to those who had shared in his victory, he
was even tardy in paying them their lawful rewards. To let slip no opportunity of
improving military discipline, when a young man reeking with perfumes came to thank him
for a commission which had been given him, Vespasian drew back his head in disgust, adding
the stern reprimand: "I would rather you had smelt of garlic"; and he revoked
the appointment. When the marines who march on foot by turns from Ostia and Puteoli to
Rome [They were stationed at Ostia and Puteoli as a fire brigade (see Claud. xxv.2),
and the various divisions were on duty now in one town, now in the other, and again in
Rome], asked that an allowance be made them under the head of shoe money, not content
with sending them away without a reply, he ordered that in future they should make the run
barefooted; and they have done so ever since. He made provinces of Achaia, Lykia, Rhodes,
Byzantium and Samos, taking away their freedom, and likewise of Trachian Cilicia and
Commagene, which up to that time had been ruled by kings. He sent additional legions to
Cappadocia because of the constant inroads of the barbarians, and gave it a consular
governor in place of a Roman eques. As the city was unsightly from fires and fallen
buildings, he allowed anyone to take possession of vacant sites and build upon them, in
case the owners failed to do so. He began the restoration of the Capitol in person, was
the first to lend a hand in clearing away the debris, and carried some of it off on his
own head. He undertook to restore the three thousand bronze tablets which were destroyed
with the temple, making a thorough search for copies: priceless and most ancient records
of the empire, containing the decrees of the Senate and the acts of the People almost from
the foundation of the city, regarding alliances, treaties, and special privileges granted
to individuals.
IX. He also undertook new works, the Temple of Peace hard by the Forum
and one to the Deified Claudius on the Caelian mount, which was begun by Agrippina, but
almost utterly destroyed by Nero; also an amphitheatre [The Colosseum, known as the
Flavian amphitheater until the Middle Ages] in the heart of the city, a plan which he
learned that Augustus had cherished. He reformed the two great orders, reduced by a series
of murders and sullied by long standing neglect, and added to their numbers, holding a
review of the Senate and the equites, expelling those who least deserved the honor and
enrolling the most distinguished of the Italians and provincials. Furthermore, to let it
be known that the two orders differed from each other not so much in their privileges as
in their rank, in the case of an altercation between a senator and a Roman eques, he
rendered this decision: "Unseemly language should not be used towards senators, but
to return their insults in kind is proper and lawful" [That is, a citizen could
return the abuse of another citizen, regardless of their respective ranks].
X. Lawsuit upon lawsuit had accumulated in all the courts to an
excessive degree, since those of longstanding were left unsettled though the interruption
of court business [During the civil wars] and new ones had arisen through the
disorder of the times. He therefore chose commissioners by lot to restore what had been
seized in time of war, and to make special decisions in the Court of the Hundred, reducing
the cases to the smallest possible number, since it was clear that the lifetime of the
litigants would not suffice for the regular proceedings
XI. Licentiousness and extravagance had flourished without restraint;
hence he induced the Senate to vote that any woman who formed a connection with the slave
of another person should herself be treated as a bond-woman; also that those who lend
money to minors [In the legal sense; "filii familiarum" were sons who were
still under the control of their fathers, regardless of their age; cf., Tib. xv.2]
should never have a legal right to enforce payment, that is to say, not even after the
death of the fathers.
XII. In other matters he was unassuming and lenient from the very
beginning of his reign until its end, never trying to conceal his former lowly condition,
but often even parading it. Indeed, when certain men tried to trace the origin of the
Flavian family to the founders of Reate and a companion of Hercules whose tomb still
stands on the Via Salaria, he laughed at them for their pains. So far was he from a desire
for pomp and show, that on the day of his triumph, exhausted by the slow and tiresome
procession, he did not hesitate to say: "It serves me right for being such a fool as
to want a triumph in my old age, as if it were due to my ancestors or had ever been among
my own ambitions." He did not even assume the tribunician power at once nor the title
of Father of his Country until late. As for the custom of searching those who came to pay
their morning calls, he gave that up before the civil war was over.
XIII. He bore the frank language of his friends, the quips of
pleaders, and the impudence of the philosophers with the greatest patience. Though
Licinius Mucianus, a man of notorious unchastity, presumed upon his services to treat
Vespasian with scant respect, he never had the heart to criticize him except privately and
then only to the extent of adding to a complaint made to a common friend, the significant
words: "I at least am a man." When Salvius Liberalis ventured to say, while
defending a rich client, "What is it to Caesar if Hipparchus has a hundred
millions," he personally commended him. When the Cynic Demetrius met him abroad after
being condemned to banishment, and without deigning to rise in his presence or to
salute him, even snarled out some insult, he merely called him "cur."
XIV. He was not inclined to remember or to avenge affronts or
enmities, but made a brilliant match for the daughter of his enemy Vitellius, and even
provided her with a dowry and a house-keeping outfit. When he was in terror at being
forbidden Nero's court, and asked what on earth he was to do or where he was to go, one of
the ushers put him out and told him to "go to Morbovia" [A made-up name from
"morbus", or "illness"; the expression is equivalent to "go to
the devil."]; but when the man later begged for forgiveness, Vespasian confined
his resentment to words, and those of about the same number and purport. Indeed, so far
was he from being led by any suspicion or fear to cause anyone's death, that when his
friends warned him that he must keep an eye on Mettius Pompusianus, since it was commonly
believed that he had an imperial horoscope, he even made him consul, guaranteeing that he
would one day be mindful of the favor.
XV. It cannot readily be shown that any innocent person was punished
save in Vespasian's absence and without his knowledge, or at any rate against his will and
by misleading him. Although Helvidius Priscus was the only one who greeted him on his
return from Syria by his private name of "Vespasian," and moreover in his
praetorship left the emperor unhonored and unmentioned in all his edicts, he did not show
anger until by the extravagance of his railing Helvidius had all but degraded him. But
even in his case, though he did banish him and later order his death, he was most anxious
for any means of saving him, and sent messengers to recall those who were to slay him; and
he would have saved him, but for a false report that Helvidius had already been done to
death. Certainly he never took pleasure in the death of anyone, but even wept and sighed
over those who suffered merited punishment.
XVI. The only thing for which he can fairly be censured was his love
of money. For not content with reviving the imposts which had been repealed under Galba,
he added new and heavy burdens, increasing the amount of tribute paid by the provinces, in
some cases actually doubling it, and quite openly carrying on traffic which would be
shameful even for a man in private life; for he would buy up certain commodities merely in
order to distribute them at a profit. He made no bones of selling offices to candidates
and acquittals to men under prosecution, whether innocent or guilty. He is even believed
to have had the habit of designedly advancing the most rapacious of his procurators to
higher posts, that they might he the richer when he later condemned them; in fact, it was
common talk that he used these men as sponges, because he, so to speak, soaked them when
they were dry and squeezed them when they were wet. Some say that he was naturally
covetous and was taunted with it by an old herdsman of his, who on being forced to pay for
the freedom for which he earnestly begged Vespasian when he became emperor cried:
"The fox changes his fur, but not his nature." Others, on the contrary, believe
that he was driven by necessity to raise money by spoliation and robbery because of the
desperate state of the treasury and the privy purse; to which he bore witness at the very
beginning of his reign by declaring that forty thousand millions were needed to set the
State upright. This latter view seems the more probable, since he made the best use of his
gains, ill gotten though they were.
XVII. He was most generous to all classes, making up the requisite
estate for senators [This had been increased to 1,200,000 sesterces by Augustus],
giving needy ex-consuls an annual stipend of five hundred thousand sesterces, restoring to
a better condition many cities throughout the empire which had suffered from earthquakes
or fires, and in particular encouraging men of talent and the arts.
XVIII. He was the first to establish a regular salary of a hundred
thousand sesterces for Latin and Greek teachers of rhetoric, paid from the privy purse. He
also presented eminent poets with princely largess and great rewards, and artists, too,
such as the restorer of the Venus of Cos [Doubtless referring to the statue of Venus
consecrated by Vespasian in his Temple of Peace, the sculptor of which, according to
Pliny, was unknown. The Venus of Cos was the work of Praxiteles], and of the Colossus
[The colossal statue of Nero; see Nero, xxxi.1]. To a mechanical engineer, who
promised to transport some heavy columns to the capitol at small expense, he gave no mean
reward for his invention, but refused to make use of it, saying: "You must let me
feed my poor commons."
XIX. At the plays with which he dedicated the new stage of the theater
of Marcellus he revived the old musical entertainments. To Apelles, the tragic actor, he
gave four hundred thousand sesterces; to Terpnus and Diodorus, the lyre-players, two
hundred thousand each; to several a hundred thousand; while those who received least were
paid forty thousands and numerous golden crowns were awarded besides. He gave constant
dinner-parties, too, usually formally and sumptuously, to help the marketmen. He gave
gifts to women on the Kalends of March [The Matronalia, or Feast of Married Women; see
Hor. Odes, 3.8, 1], as he did to the men on the Saturnalia. Yet even so he could not
be rid of his former ill-repute for covetousness. The Alexandrians persisted in calling
him Kybiosactes [Meaning, "dealer in square pieces of salt fish"], the
surname of one of their kings who was scandalously stingy. Even at his funeral, Favor, a
leading actor of mimes, who wore his mask and, according to the usual custom, imitated the
actions and words of the deceased during his lifetime, having asked the procurators in a
loud voice how much his funeral procession would cost, and hearing the reply "Ten
million sesterces," cried out: "Give me a hundred thousand and fling me into the
Tiber!"
XX. He was well built, with strong, sturdy limbs, and the expression
of one who was straining. Apropos of which a witty fellow, when Vespasian asked him to
make a joke on him also, replied rather cleverly: "I will, when you have finished
relieving yourself." He enjoyed excellent health, though he did nothing to keep it up
except to rub his throat and the other parts of his body a certain number of times in the
gymnasion, and to fast one day in every month.
XXI. This was in general his manner of life. While emperor, he always
rose very early, in fact before daylight; then after reading his letters and the reports
of all the officials, he admitted his friends, and while he was receiving their greetings,
he put on his own shoes and dressed himself. After despatching any business that came up,
he took time for a drive and then for a nap, lying with one of his concubines, of whom he
had taken several after the death of Caenis. After his nap he went to the bath and the
dining-room; and it is said that at no time was he more good-natured or indulgent, so that
the members of his household eagerly watched for these opportunities of making requests.
XXII. Not only at dinner but on all other occasions he was most
affable, and he turned off many matters with a jest; for he was very ready with sharp
sayings, albeit of a low and buffoonish kind, so that he did not even refrain from obscene
expressions. Yet many of his remarks are still remembered which are full of fine wit, and
among them the following. When an ex-consul called Mestrius Florus called his attention to
the fact that the proper pronunciation was plaustra ["Plaustra" was
the original form of the word for "wagons," but there was also a plebeian form
"plostra"; see Hor. Serm. 1.6.42, and cf., Claudius, Clodius] rather than plostra,
he greeted him next day as Flaurus. When he was importuned by a woman, who said
that she was dying with love for him, he took her to his bed and gave her four hundred
thousand sesterces for her favors. Being asked by his steward how he would have the sum
entered in his accounts, he replied: "To a passion for Vespasian."
XXIII. He also quoted Greek verses with great timeliness, saying of a
man of tall stature, and monstrous parts: "Striding along and waving a lance that
casts a long shadow," [Iliad 7.213], and of the freedman Cerylus, who was
very rich, and to cheat the privy purse of its dues at his death had begun to give himself
out as freeborn, changing his name to Laches: "O Laches, Laches, When you
are dead, you'll change your name at once to Cerylus again" [Menander, Fr. 223.2].
But he particularly resorted to witticisms about his unseemly means of gain, seeking to
diminish their odium by some jocose saying and to turn them into a jest. Having put off
one of his favorite attendants, who asked for a stewardship for a pretended brother, he
summoned the candidate himself, and after compelling him to pay him as much money as he
had agreed to give his advocate, appointed him to the position without delay. On his
attendant's taking up the matter again, he said: "Find yourself another brother; the
man that you thought was yours is mine." On a journey, suspecting that his muleteer
had got down to shoe the mules merely to make delay and give time for a man with a lawsuit
to approach the emperor, he asked how much he was paid for shoeing the mules and insisted
on a share of the money. When Titus found fault with him for contriving a tax upon public
toilets, he held a piece of money from the first payment to his son's nose, asking whether
its odor was offensive to him. When Titus said "No," he replied, "Yet it
comes from urine." On the report of a deputation that a colossal statue of great cost
had been voted him at public expense, he demanded to have it set up at once, and holding
out his open hand, said that the base was ready. He did not cease his jokes even then in
apprehension of death and in extreme danger; for when among other portents the Mausoleum [Of
Augustus] opened on a sudden and a comet appeared in the heavens, he declared that
the former applied to Junia Calvina of the family of Augustus, and the latter to the king
of the Parthians, who wore his hair long; and as death drew near, he said: "Woe's me.
Methinks I'm turning into a god."
XXIV. In his ninth consulship [79 C.E.] he had a slight
illness in Campania, and returning at once to the city, he left for Cutilae and the
country about Reate, where he spent the summer every year. There, in addition to an
increase in his illness, having contracted a bowel complaint by too free use of the cold
waters, he nevertheless continued to perform his duties as emperor, even receiving
embassies as he lay in bed. Taken on a sudden with such an attack of diarrhoea that he all
but swooned, he said: "An emperor ought to die standing," and while he was
struggling to get on his feet, he died in the arms of those who tried to help him, on the
ninth day before the Kalends of July [June 23, 79 C.E.], at the age of sixty-nine
years, one month, and seven days.
XXV. All agree that he had so much faith in his own horoscope and
those of his family, that even after constant conspiracies were made against him he had
the assurance to say to the Senate that either his sons would succeed him or he would have
no successor. It is also said that he once dreamed that he saw a balance with its beam on
a level placed in the middle of the vestibule of the Palace, in one pan of which stood
Claudius and Nero and in the other himself and his sons. And the dream came true, since
both houses reigned for the same space of time and the same term of years.
Source:
From: J. C. Rolfe, ed., Suetonius, 2 Vols., The Loeb Classical Library
(London: William Heinemann, and New York: The MacMillan Co., 1914), II.281-321.
Scanned by: J. S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton. Prof. Arkenberg
has modernized the text.
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© Paul Halsall, February 2001
