By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; To which are added, his Lives of the
Grammarians, Rhetoricians, and Poets.
Translation by Alexander Thomson, M.D.; Revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M.
Annotation of text copyright ©2007 David Trumbull, Agathon Associates. All Rights Reserved.
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Vespasian, A.D. 17-79; ruled A.D. 69-79
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T. FLAVIUS VESPASIANUS AUGUSTUS.
I. The empire, which had been long thrown into a disturbed and unsetted
state, by the rebellion and violent death of its three last rulers, was at
length restored to peace and security by the Flavian family, whose descent was
indeed obscure, and which boasted no ancestral honours; but the public had no
cause to regret its elevation; though it is acknowledged that Domitian met with
the just reward of his avarice and cruelty. Titus Flavius Petro, a townsman of
Reate, whether a centurion or an evocatus of
Pompey's party in the civil war, is uncertain, fled
out of the
battle of Pharsalia and went home; where, having at last obtained his
pardon and discharge, he became a collector of the money raised by public sales
in the way of auction. His son, surnamed Sabinus, was never engaged in the
military service, though some say he was a centurion of the first order, and
others, that whilst he held that rank, he was discharged on account of his bad
state of health: this Sabinus, I say, was a publican, and received the tax of
the fortieth penny in Asia. And there were remaining, at the time of the
advancement of the family, several statues, which had been erected to him by the
cities of that province, with this inscription: "To the honest Tax-farmer."
He afterwards turned usurer amongst the Helvetii, and
there died, leaving behind him his wife, Vespasia Pella, and two sons by her;
the elder of whom, Sabinus, came to be prefect of the city, and the younger,
Vespasian, to be emperor. Polla, descended of a good family, at Nursia,
had for her father Vespasius Pollio, thrice appointed
military tribune, and at last prefect of the camp; and her brother was a
senator of praetorian dignity. There is to this day, about six miles from
Nursia, on the road to Spoletum, a place on the summit of a hill, called
Vespasiae, where are several monuments of the Vespasii, a sufficient proof of
the splendour and antiquity of the family. I will not deny that some have
pretended to say, that Petro's father was a native of Gallia Transpadana,
whose employment was to hire workpeople who used to
emigrate every year from the country of the Umbria into that of the Sabines, to
assist them in their husbandry; but who settled at last in the town of Reate, and
there married. But of this I have not been able to discover the least proof,
upon the strictest inquiry.
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II. Vespasian was born in the country of the Sabines, beyond Reate, in a
little country-seat called Phalacrine, upon the fifth of the calends of December
[27th November], in the evening, in the consulship of Quintus Sulpicius
Camerinus and Caius Poppaeus Sabinus, five years before the death of Augustus;
and was educated under the care of Tertulla, his
grandmother by the father's side, upon an estate belonging to the family, at
Cosa. After his advancement to the empire, he used
frequently to visit the place where he had spent his infancy; and the villa was
continued in the same condition, that he might see every thing about him just as
he had been used to do. And he had so great a regard for the memory of his
grandmother, that, upon solemn occasions and festival days, he constantly drank
out of a silver cup which she had been accustomed to use. After assuming the
manly habit, he had a long time a distaste for the senatorian toga, though his
brother had obtained it; nor could he be persuaded by any one but his mother to
sue for that badge of honour. She at length drove him to it, more by taunts and
reproaches, than by her entreaties and authority, calling him now and
then, by way of reproach, his brother's footman. He served as military tribune
in Thrace. When made quaestor, the province of Crete and Cyrene fell to him by
lot. He was candidate for the aedileship, and soon after for the praetorship,
but met with a repulse in the former case; though at last, with much difficulty,
he came in sixth on the poll-books. But the office of praetor he carried upon
his first canvass, standing amongst the highest at the poll. Being incensed
against the senate, and desirous to gain, by all possible means, the good graces
of Caius [Caligula], he obtained leave to exhibit extraordinary
games for the emperor's victory in Germany, and advised
them to increase the punishment of the conspirators against his life, by
exposing their corpses unburied. He likewise gave him thanks in that august
assembly for the honour of being admitted to his table.
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III. Meanwhile, he married Flavia Domitilla, who had formerly been the
mistress of Statilius Capella, a Roman knight of Sabrata in Africa, who
[Domitilla] enjoyed Latin rights; and was soon after declared fully and freely a
citizen of Rome, on a trial before the court of Recovery, brought by her father
Flavius Liberalis, a native of Ferentum, but no more than secretary to a
quaestor. By her he had the following children: Titus, Domitian, and Domitilla.
He outlived his wife and daughter, and lost them both before he became emperor.
After the death of his wife, he renewed his union
with his former concubine Caenis, the freedwoman of
Antonia, and also her amanuensis, and treated her, even after he was emperor,
almost as if she had been his lawful wife.
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IV. In the reign of Claudius, by the interest of Narcissus, he was sent
to Germany, in command of a legion; whence being removed into Britain, he
engaged the enemy in thirty several battles. He reduced under subjection to the
Romans two very powerful tribes, and above twenty great towns, with the Isle of
Wight, which lies close to the coast of Britain; partly under the command of
Aulus Plautius, the consular lieutenant, and partly under Claudius himself.
For this success he received the triumphal ornaments,
and in a short time after two priesthoods, besides the consulship, which he held
during the two last months of the year. The interval between that and his proconsulship he
spent in leisure and retirement, for fear of Agrippina, who still held great
sway over her son, and hated all the friends of Narcissus, who was then dead.
Afterwards he got by lot the province of Africa, which he governed with great
reputation, excepting that once, in an insurrection at Adrumetum, he was pelted
with turnips. It is certain that he returned thence nothing richer; for his
credit was so low, that he was obliged to mortgage his whole property to his
brother, and was reduced to the necessity of dealing in mules, for the support
of his rank; for which reason he was commonly called "the Muleteer." He is said
likewise to have been convicted of extorting from a young man of fashion two
hundred thousand sesterces for procuring him the broad-stripe, contrary to the
wishes of his father, and was severely reprimanded for it. While in attendance
upon Nero in Achaia, he frequently withdrew from the theatre while Nero was
singing, and went to sleep if he remained, which gave so much offence,
that he was not only excluded from his society, but debarred the liberty of
saluting him in public. Upon this, he retired to a small out-of-the-way town,
where he lay skulking in constant fear of his life, until a province, with an
army, was offered him.
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A firm persuasion had long prevailed through all the East,
that it was fated for the empire of the world, at that
time, to devolve on some who should go forth from Judaea. This prediction
referred to a Roman emperor, as the event shewed; but the Jews, applying it to
themselves, broke out into rebellion, and having defeated and slain their
governor, routed the lieutenant of Syria, a man of consular rank, who was advancing to his
assistance, and took an eagle, the standard, of one of his legions. As the
suppression of this revolt appeared to require a stronger force and an active
general, who might be safely trusted in an affair of so much importance,
Vespasian was chosen in preference to all others, both for his known activity,
and on account of the obscurity of his origin and name, being a person of whom
there could be not the least jealousy. Two legions, therefore, eight
squadrons of horse, and ten cohorts, being added to the former troops in Judaea,
and, taking with him his eldest son as lieutenant, as soon as he arrived in his
province, he turned the eyes of the neighbouring provinces upon him, by
reforming immediately the discipline of the camp, and engaging the enemy once or
twice with such resolution, that, in the attack of a castle,
he had his knee hurt by the stroke of a stone, and
received several arrows in his shield.
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V. After the deaths of Nero and Galba, whilst Otho and Vitellius were
contending for the sovereignty, he entertained hopes of obtaining the empire,
with the prospect of which he had long before flattered himself, from the
following omens. Upon an estate belonging to the Flavian family, in the
neighbourhood of Rome, there was an old oak, sacred to Mars, which, at the three
several deliveries of Vespasia, put out each time a new branch; evident
intimations of the future fortune of each child. The first was but a slender
one, which quickly withered away; and accordingly, the girl that was born did
not live long. The second became vigorous, which portended great good fortune;
but the third grew like a tree. His father, Sabinus, encouraged by these omens,
which were confirmed by the augurs, told his mother, "that her grandson would be
emperor of Rome;" at which she laughed heartily, wondering, she said, "that her
son should be in his dotage whilst she continued still in full possession of her
faculties."
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Afterwards in his aedileship, when Caius [Caligula] Caesar, being enraged at his not
taking care to have the streets kept clean, ordered the soldiers to fill the
bosom of his gown with dirt, some persons at that time construed it into a sign
that the government, being trampled under foot and deserted in some civil
commotion, would fall under his protection, and as it were into his lap. Once,
while he was at dinner, a strange dog, that wandered about the streets, brought
a man's hand, and laid it under the table. And another time, while
he was at supper, a plough-ox throwing the yoke off his neck, broke into the
room, and after he had frightened away all the attendants, on a sudden, as
if he was tired, fell down at his feet, as he lay still upon his couch, and hung
down his neck. A cypress-tree likewise, in a field belonging to the family, was
torn up by the roots, and laid flat upon the ground, when there was no violent
wind; but next day it rose again fresher and stronger than before.
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He dreamt in Achaia that the good fortune of himself and his family would
begin when Nero had a tooth drawn; and it happened that the day after, a surgeon
coming into the hall, showed him a tooth which he had just extracted from Nero.
In Judaea, upon his consulting the oracle of the divinity at Carmel,
the answer was so encouraging as to assure him of
success in anything he projected, however great or important it might be. And
when Josephus /1/, one of the noble prisoners, was put in chains, he
confidently affirmed that he should be released in a very short time by the same
Vespasian, but he would be emperor first. Some omens were likewise mentioned in the news from
Rome, and among others, that Nero, towards the close of his days, was commanded
in a dream to carry Jupiter's sacred chariot out of the sanctuary where it
stood, to Vespasian's house, and conduct it thence into the circus. Also not
long afterwards, as Galba was going to the election, in which he was created
consul for the second time, a statue of the Divine Julius turned towards the east.
And in the field of Bedriacum /2/, before the battle began, two eagles engaged in the
sight of the army; and one of them being beaten, a third came from the east, and
drove away the conqueror.
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VI. He made, however, no attempt upon the sovereignty, though his
friends were very ready to support him, and even pressed him to the enterprise,
until he was encouraged to it by the fortuitous aid of persons unknown to him
and at a distance. Two thousand men, drawn out of three legions in the Moesian
army, had been sent to the assistance of Otho. While they were upon their march,
news came that he had been defeated, and had put an end to his life;
notwithstanding which they continued their march as far as Aquileia, pretending
that they gave no credit to the report. There, tempted by the opportunity which
the disorder of the times afforded them, they ravaged and plundered the country
at discretion; until at length, fearing to be called to an account on their
return, and punished for it, they resolved upon choosing and creating an
emperor. "For they were no ways inferior," they said, "to the army which made
Galba emperor, nor to the pretorian troops which had set up Otho, nor the army
in Germany, to whom Vitellius owed his elevation." The names of all the consular
lieutenants, therefore, being taken into consideration, and one objecting to
one, and another to another, for various reasons; at last some of the third
legion, which a little before Nero's death had been removed out of Syria into
Moesia, extolled Vespasian in high terms; and all the rest assenting, his name
was immediately inscribed on their standards. The design was nevertheless
quashed for a time, the troops being brought to submit to Vitellius a little
longer.
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However, the fact becoming known, Tiberius Alexander, governor of Egypt,
first obliged the legions under his command to swear obedience to Vespasian as
their emperor, on the calends [the 1st] of July, which was observed ever after
as the day of his accession to the empire; and upon the fifth of the ides of the
same month [the 28th July], the army in Judaea, where he then was, also swore
allegiance to him. What contributed greatly to forward the affair, was a copy of
a letter, whether real or counterfeit, which was circulated, and said to have
been written by Otho before his decease to Vespasian, recommending to him in the
most urgent terms to avenge his death, and entreating him to come to the aid of
the commonwealth; as well as a report which was circulated, that Vitellius,
after his success against Otho, proposed to change the winter quarters of the
legions, and remove those in Germany to a less hazardous station and a
warmer climate. Moreover, amongst the governors of provinces, Licinius Mucianus
dropping the grudge arising from a jealousy of which he had hitherto made no
secret, promised to join him with the Syrian army, and, among the allied kings,
Volugesus, king of the Parthians, offered him a reinforcement of forty thousand
archers.
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VII. Having, therefore, entered on a civil war, and sent forward his generals
and forces into Italy, he himself, in the meantime, passed over to Alexandria,
to obtain possession of the key of Egypt. Here having entered alone, without attendants, the
temple of Serapis, to take the auspices respecting the establishment of his
power, and having done his utmost to propitiate the deity, upon turning round,
[his freedman] Basilides appeared before him, and seemed to offer him the sacred
leaves, chaplets, and cakes, according to the usage of the place, although no
one had admitted him, and he had long laboured under a muscular debility, which
would hardly have allowed him to walk into the temple; besides which, it was
certain that at the very time he was far away. Immediately after this, arrived
letters with intelligence that Vitellius's troops had been defeated at Cremona,
and he himself slain at Rome. Vespasian, the new emperor, having been raised
unexpectedly from a low estate, wanted something which might clothe him with
divine majesty and authority. This, likewise, was now added. A poor man who was
blind, and another who was lame, came both together before him, when he was
seated on the tribunal, imploring him to heal them,
and saying that they were admonished in a dream
by the god Serapis to seek his aid, who assured them that he would restore sight
to the one by anointing his eyes with his spittle, and give strength to the leg
of the other, if he vouchsafed but to touch it with his heel. At first he could
scarcely believe that the thing would any how succeed, and therefore hesitated
to venture on making the experiment. At length, however, by the advice of his
friends, he made the attempt publicly, in the presence of the assembled
multitudes, and it was crowned with success in both cases.
About the same time, at Tegea in Arcadia, by the
direction of some soothsayers, several vessels of ancient workmanship were
dug out of a consecrated place, on which there was an effigy resembling
Vespasian.
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VIII. Returning now to Rome, under these auspices, and with a great
reputation, after enjoying a triumph for victories over the Jews, he added eight
consulships to his former one. He likewise assumed the censorship,
and made it his principal concern, during the whole of his government, first to
restore order in the state, which had been almost ruined, and was in a tottering
condition, and then to improve it. The soldiers, one part of them emboldened by
victory, and the other smarting with the disgrace of their defeat, had abandoned
themselves to every species of licentiousness and insolence. Nay, the provinces,
too, and free cities, and some kingdoms in alliance with Rome, were all in a
disturbed state. He, therefore, disbanded many of Vitellius's soldiers, and
punished others; and so far was he from granting any extraordinary favours to
the sharers of his success, that it was late before he paid the gratuities due
to them by law. That he might let slip no opportunity of reforming the
discipline of the army, upon a young man's coming much perfumed to return him
thanks for having appointed him to command a squadron of horse, he turned
away his head in disgust, and, giving him this sharp reprimand, "I had rather
you had smelt of garlic," revoked his commission. When the men belonging to the
fleet, who travelled by turns from Ostia and Puteoli to Rome, petitioned for an
addition to their pay, under the name of shoe-money, thinking that it would
answer little purpose to send them away without a reply, he ordered them for the
future to run barefooted; and so they have done ever since. He deprived of their
liberties, Achaia, Lycia, Rhodes, Byzantium, and Samos; and reduced them into
the form of provinces; Thrace, also, and Cilicia, as well as Comagene, which
until that time had been under the government of kings. He stationed some
legions in Cappadocia on account of the frequent inroads of the barbarians, and,
instead of a Roman knight, appointed as governor of it a man of consular rank.
The ruins of houses which had been burnt down long before, being a great desight
to the city, he gave leave to any one who would, to take possession of the void
ground and build upon it, if the proprietors should hesitate to perform the work
themselves. He resolved upon rebuilding the Capitol, and was the foremost to put
his hand to clearing the ground of the rubbish, and removed some of it upon his
own shoulder. And he undertook, likewise, to restore the three thousand tables
of brass which had been destroyed in the fire which consumed the Capitol;
searching in all quarters for copies of those curious and ancient records, in
which were contained the decrees of the senate, almost from the building of the
city, as well as the acts of the people, relative to alliances, treaties, and
privileges granted to any person.
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IX. He likewise erected several new public buildings, namely, the temple of
Peace /3/ near the Forum, that of Claudius on the Coelian
mount, which had been begun by Agrippina, but almost entirely demolished by
Nero /4/; and an amphitheatre /5/
in the middle of the city, upon finding that Augustus
had projected such a work. He purified the senatorian and equestrian orders,
which had been much reduced by the havoc made amongst them at several times, and
was fallen into disrepute by neglect. Having expelled the most unworthy, he
chose in their room the most honourable persons in Italy and the provinces. And
to let it be known that those two orders differed not so much in privileges as
in dignity, he declared publicly, when some altercation passed between a senator
and a Roman knight, "that senators ought not to be treated with scurrilous
language, unless they were the aggressors, and then it was fair and lawful to
return it."
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X. The business of the courts had prodigiously accumulated, partly from old
law-suits which, on account of the interruption that had been given to the
course of justice, still remained undecided, and partly from the accession of
new suits arising out of the disorder of the times. He, therefore, chose
commissioners by lot to provide for the restitution of what had been seized by
violence during the war, and others with extraordinary jurisdiction to decide
causes belonging to the centumviri, and reduce them to as small a number as
possible, for the dispatch of which, otherwise, the lives of the litigants could
scarcely allow sufficient time.
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XI. Lust and luxury, from the licence which had long prevailed, had also
grown to an enormous height. He, therefore, obtained a decree of the senate,
that a woman who formed an union with the slave of another person, should be
considered a bondwoman herself; and that usurers should not be allowed to
take proceedings at law for the recovery of money lent to young men whilst they
lived in their father's family, not even after their fathers were dead.
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XII. In other affairs, from the beginning to the end of his government, he
conducted himself with great moderation and clemency. He was so far from
dissembling the obscurity of his extraction, that he frequently made mention of
it himself. When some affected to trace his pedigree to the founders of Reate,
and a companion of Hercules, whose monument is still to be seen on the Salarian
road, he laughed at them for it. And he was so little fond of external and
adventitious ornaments, that, on the day of his triumph, being quite tired of the length and tediousness of the
procession, he could not forbear saying, "he was rightly served, for having in
his old age been so silly as to desire a triumph; as if it was either due to his
ancestors, or had ever been expected by himself." Nor would he for a long time
accept of the tribunitian authority, or the title of Father of his Country. And
in regard to the custom of searching those who came to salute him, he dropped it
even in the time of the civil war.
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XIII. He bore with great mildness the freedom used by his friends, the
satirical allusions of advocates, and the petulance of philosophers. Licinius
Mucianus, who had been guilty of notorious acts of lewdness, but, presuming upon
his great services, treated him very rudely, he reproved only in private; and
when complaining of his conduct to a common friend of theirs, he concluded with
these words, "However, I am a man." Salvius Liberalis, in pleading the cause of
a rich man under prosecution, presuming to say, "What is it to Caesar, if
Hipparchus possesses a hundred millions of sesterces?" he commended him for it.
Demetrius, the Cynic philosopher, who had been sentenced to banishment, meeting
him on the road, and refusing to rise up or salute him, nay, snarling at him in
scurrilous language, he only called him a cur.
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XIV. He was little disposed to keep up the memory of affronts or quarrels,
nor did he harbour any resentment on account of them. He made a very splendid
marriage for the daughter of his enemy Vitellius, and gave her, besides, a
suitable fortune and equipage. Being in a great consternation after he was
forbidden the court in the time of Nero, and asking those about him, what he
should do? or, whither he should go? one of those whose office it was to
introduce people to the emperor, thrusting him out, bid
him go to Morbonia /6/. But when this same person came afterwards to beg his
pardon, he only vented his resentment in nearly the same words. He was so far
from being influenced by suspicion or fear to seek the destruction of any one,
that, when his friends advised him to beware of Metius Pomposianus, because it
was commonly believed, on his nativity being cast, that he was destined by fate
to the empire, he made him consul, promising for him, that he would not forget
the benefit conferred.
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XV. It will scarcely be found, that so much as one innocent person suffered
in his reign, unless in his absence, and without his knowledge, or, at least,
contrary to his inclination, and when he was imposed upon. Although Helvidius
Priscus was the only man who presumed to salute him on his
return from Syria by his private name of Vespasian, and, when he came to be
praetor, omitted any mark of honour to him, or even any mention of him in his
edicts, yet he was not angry, until Helvidius proceeded to inveigh against him
with the most scurrilous language. Though he did indeed banish him, and
afterwards ordered him to be put to death, yet he would gladly have saved him
notwithstanding, and accordingly dispatched messengers to fetch back the
executioners; and he would have saved him, had he not been deceived by a false
account brought, that he had already perished. He never rejoiced at the death of
any man; nay he would shed tears, and sigh, at the just punishment of the
guilty.
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XVI. The only thing deservedly blameable in his character was his love of
money. For not satisfied with reviving the imposts which had been repealed in
the time of Galba, he imposed new and onerous taxes, augmented the tribute of
the provinces, and doubled that of some of them. He likewise openly engaged in a
traffic, which is discreditable even to a private individual, buying great quantities
of goods, for the purpose of retailing them again to advantage. Nay, he made no
scruple of selling the great offices of the state to candidates, and pardons to
persons under prosecution, whether they were innocent or guilty. It is believed,
that he advanced all the most rapacious amongst the procurators to higher
offices, with the view of squeezing them after they had acquired great wealth.
He was commonly said, "to have used them as sponges," because it was his
practice, as we may say, to wet them when dry, and squeeze them when wet. It is
said that he was naturally extremely covetous, and was upbraided with it by an
old herdsman of his, who, upon the emperor's refusing to enfranchise him gratis,
which on his advancement he humbly petitioned for, cried out, "That the fox
changed his hair, but not his nature." On the other hand, some are of opinion,
that he was urged to his rapacious proceedings by necessity, and the extreme
poverty of the treasury and exchequer, of which he took public notice in the
beginning of his reign; declaring that "no less than four hundred thousand
millions of sesterces were wanting to carry on the government." This is the more
likely to be true, because he applied to the best purposes what he procured by
bad means.
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XVII. His liberality, however, to all ranks of people, was excessive. He made
up to several senators the estate required by law to qualify them for that
dignity; relieving likewise such men of consular rank as were poor, with a
yearly allowance of five hundred thousand sesterces; and rebuilt, in a better manner than before, several
cities in different parts of the empire, which had been damaged by earthquakes
or fires.
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XVIII. He was a great encourager of learning and the liberal arts. He first
granted to the Latin and Greek professors of rhetoric the yearly stipend of a
hundred thousand sesterces each out of the exchequer. He also bought the freedom
of superior poets and artists, and gave a noble gratuity to the restorer of the Coan
of Venus, and to another artist who repaired the Colossus.
Some one offering to convey some immense columns into
the Capitol at a small expense by a mechanical contrivance, he rewarded him very
handsomely for his invention, but would not accept his service, saying, "Suffer
me to find maintenance for the poor people."
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XIX. In the games celebrated when the stage-scenery of the theatre of
Marcellus was repaired, he restored the old musical
entertainments. He gave Apollinaris, the tragedian, four hundred thousand
sesterces, and to Terpinus and Diodorus, the harpers, two hundred thousand; to
some a hundred thousand; and the least he gave to any of the performers was
forty thousand, besides many golden crowns. He entertained company constantly at
his table, and often in great state and very sumptuously, in order to promote
trade. As in the Saturnalia he made presents to the men which they were to carry
away with them, so did he to the women upon the calends of March;
notwithstanding which, he could not wipe off the
disrepute of his former stinginess. The Alexandrians called him constantly
Cybiosactes; a name which had been given to one of their kings who was sordidly
avaricious. Nay, at his funeral, Favo, the principal mimic, personating him, and
imitating, as actors do, both his manner of speaking and his gestures, asked
aloud of the procurators, "how much his funeral and the procession would cost?"
And being answered "ten millions of sesterces," he cried out, "give him but a
hundred thousand sesterces, and they might throw his body into the Tiber, if
they would."
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XX. He was broad-set, strong-limbed, and his features gave the idea of a man
in the act of straining himself. In consequence, one of the city wits, upon the
emperor's desiring him "to say something droll respecting himself," facetiously
answered, "I will, when you have done relieving your bowels."
He enjoyed a good state of health, though he used no
other means to preserve it, than repeated friction, as much as he could
bear, on his neck and other parts of his body, in the tennis-court attached to
the baths, besides fasting one day in every month.
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XXI. His method of life was commonly this. After he became emperor, he used
to rise very early, often before daybreak. Having read over his letters, and the
briefs of all the departments of the government offices; he admitted his
friends; and while they were paying him their compliments, he would put on his
own shoes, and dress himself with his own hands. Then, after the dispatch of
such business as was brought before him, he rode out, and afterwards retired to
repose, lying on his couch with one of his mistresses, of whom he kept several
after the death of Caenis. Coming out of his private apartments, he passed to the
bath, and then entered the supper-room. They say that he was never more
good-humoured and indulgent than at that time: and therefore his attendants
always seized that opportunity, when they had any favour to ask.
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XXII. At supper, and, indeed, at other times, he was extremely free and
jocose. For he had humour, but of a low kind, and he would sometimes use
indecent language, such as is addressed to young girls about to be married. Yet
there are some things related of him not void of ingenious pleasantry; amongst
which are the following. Being once reminded by Mestrius Florus, that plaustra
was a more proper expression than plostra, he the next day saluted him by the
name of Flaurus. A certain lady pretending to be desperately enamoured
of him, he was prevailed upon to admit her to his bed; and after he had
gratified her desires, he gave her four hundred thousand sesterces. When his steward
desired to know how he would have the sum entered in his accounts, he replied,
"For Vespasian's being seduced."
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XXIII. He used Greek verses very wittily; speaking of a tall man, who had
enormous parts:
Makxi bibas, kradon dolichoskion enchos;
Still shaking, as he strode, his vast long spear.
And of Cerylus, a freedman, who being very rich, had begun to pass himself
off as free-born, to elude the exchequer at his decease, and assumed the name of
Laches, he said:
——O Lachaes, Lachaes,
Epan apothanaes, authis ex archaes esae Kaerylos.
Ah, Laches, Laches! when thou art no more,
Thou'lt Cerylus be called, just as before.
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He chiefly affected wit upon his own shameful means of raising money, in
order to wipe off the odium by some joke, and turn it into ridicule. One of his
ministers, who was much in his favour, requesting of him a stewardship for some
person, under pretence of his being his brother, he deferred granting him his
petition, and in the meantime sent for the candidate, and having squeezed out of
him as much money as he had agreed to give to his friend at court, he appointed
him immediately to the office. The minister soon after renewing his application,
"You must," said he, "find another brother; for the one you adopted is in truth
mine."
Suspecting once, during a journey, that his mule-driver had alighted to shoe
his mules, only in order to have an opportunity for allowing a person they met,
who was engaged in a law-suit, to speak to him, he asked him, "how much he got
for shoeing his mules?" and insisted on having a share of the profit. When his
son Titus blamed him for even laying a tax upon urine, he applied to his nose a
piece of the money he received in the first instalment, and asked him, "if it
stunk?" And he replying no, "And yet," said he, "it is derived from urine."
Some deputies having come to acquaint him that a large statue, which would
cost a vast sum, was ordered to be erected for him at the public expense, he
told them to pay it down immediately, holding out the hollow of his hand,
and saying, "there was a base ready for the statue." Not even when he was under
the immediate apprehension and peril of death, could he forbear jesting. For
when, among other prodigies, the mausoleum of the Caesars suddenly flew open,
and a blazing star appeared in the heavens; one of the prodigies, he said,
concerned Julia Calvina, who was of the family of Augustus;
and the other, the king of the Parthians, who wore his
hair long. And when his distemper first seized him, "I suppose," said he, "I
shall soon be a god."
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XXIV. In his ninth consulship, being seized, while in Campania, with a slight
indisposition, and immediately returning to the city, he soon afterwards went
thence to Cutiliae, and his estates in the country about Reate, where he
used constantly to spend the summer. Here, though his disorder much increased,
and he injured his bowels by too free use of the cold waters, he nevertheless
attended to the dispatch of business, and even gave audience to ambassadors in
bed. At last, being taken ill of a diarrhoea, to such a degree that he was ready
to faint, he cried out, "An emperor ought to die standing upright." In
endeavouring to rise, he died in the hands of those who were helping him up,
upon the eighth of the calends of July [24th June],
being sixty-nine years, one month, and seven days old.
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XXV. All are agreed that he had such confidence in the calculations on his
own nativity and that of his sons, that, after several conspiracies against him,
he told the senate, that either his sons would succeed him, or nobody. It is
said likewise, that he once saw in a dream a balance in the middle of the porch
of the Palatine house exactly poised; in one scale of which stood Claudius
and Nero, in the other, himself and his sons. The event corresponded to the
symbol; for the reigns of the two parties were precisely of the same duration.
Here Ends the Life of Vespasian, from The Twelve Caesars
by Suetonius
NOTES.
/1/
Josephus, the celebrated Jewish historian, who was engaged in these wars, having
been taken prisoner, was confined in the dungeon at Jotapata, the castle
referred to in the preceding chapter, before which Vespasian was wounded.—De
Bell. cxi. 14.
/2/
The battle at Bedriacum secured the Empire for Vitellius.
See Suetonius, Otho, 9 and
Vitellius, 10
/3/
The temple of Peace, erected A.D. 71, on the conclusion of the wars with the
Germans and the Jews, was the largest temple in Rome. Vespasian and Titus
deposited in it the sacred vessels and other spoils which were carried in their
triumph after the conquest of Jerusalem. They were consumed, and the temple much
damaged, if not destroyed, by fire, towards the end of the reign of Commodus, in
the year 191. It stood in the Forum.
/4/
This temple, converted into a Christian church by pope Simplicius, who
flourished, A.D. 464-483, preserves much of its ancient character. It is now,
called San Stefano in Rotondo, from its circular form; the thirty-four pillars,
with arches springing from one to the other and intended to support the cupola,
still remaining to prove its former magnificence.
/5/
This amphitheatre is the famous Colosseum begun by Vespasian, and finished by
Titus. It is needless to go into details respecting a building the gigantic
ruins of which are so well known.
/6/
There being no such place as Morbonia, and the supposed name being derived from
morbus, disease, some critics have supposed that Anticyra, the asylum of the
incurables, (see Suetonius, Caligula, 29)
is meant.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES.
Dr. Alexander Thomson,
Essay appended to Suetonius's Vespasian.
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