The Life of Augustus

65. But at the height of his happiness and his confidence in his family and its training,
Fortune proved fickle. He found the two Julias, his daughter and granddaughter, guilty of
every form of vice, and banished them. He lost Gaius and Lucius within the span of
eighteen months, for the former died in Lycia and the latter at Massilia. He then publicly
adopted his third grandson Agrippa and at the same time his stepson Tiberius by a bill
passed in the assembly of the curiae; but he soon disowned Agrippa because of his low
tastes and violent temper, and sent him off to Surrentum.

He bore the death of his kin with far more resignation than their misconduct. For he was
not greatly broken by the fate of Gaius and Lucius, but he informed the senate of his
daughter's fall through a letter read in his absence by a quaestor, and for very shame
would meet no one for a long time, and even thought of putting her to death. At all
events, when one of her confidantes, a freedwoman called Phoebe, hanged herself at
about that same time, he said: "I would rather have been Phoebe's father." After Julia was
banished, he denied her the use of wine and every form of luxury, and would not allow
any man, bond or free, to come near her without his permission, and then not without
being informed of his stature, complexion, and even of any marks or scars upon his body.
It was not until five years later that he moved her from the island to the mainland and
treated her with somewhat less rigor. But he could not by any means be prevailed on to
recall her altogether, and when the Roman people several times interceded for her and
urgently pressed their suit, he in open assembly called upon the gods to curse them with
like daughters and like wives. He would not allow the child born to his granddaughter
Julia after her sentence to be recognized or reared. As Agrippa grew no more
manageable, but on the contrary became madder from day to day, he transferred him to
an island and set a guard of soldiers over him besides. He also provided by a decree of
the senate that he should be confined there for all time, and at every mention of him and
of the Julias he would sigh deeply and even cry out:

"Would that I ne'er had wedded and would I had died without offspring"1

1
Iliad 3.40, where the line is addressed by Hector to Paris, with the verbs in the second
person.
 The Life of Tiberius

62. He increased his cruelty and carried it to greater lengths, exasperated by what he
learned about the death of his son Drusus. At first supposing that he had died of disease,
due to his bad habits, on finally learning that he had been poisoned by the treachery of his
wife Livilla and Sejanus, there was no one whom Tiberius spared from torment and
death. Indeed, he gave himself up so utterly for whole days to this investigation and was
so wrapped up in it, that when he was told of the arrival of a host of his from Rhodes,
whom he had invited to Rome in a friendly letter, he had him put to the torture at once,
supposing that someone had come whose testimony was important for the case. On
discovering his mistake, he even had the man put to death, to keep him from giving
publicity to the wrong done him.

At Capreae they still point out the scene of his executions, from which he used to order
that those who had been condemned after long and exquisite tortures be cast headlong
into the sea before his eyes, while a band of marines waited below for the bodies and
broke their bones with boathooks and oars, to prevent any breath of life from remaining
in them. Among various forms of torture he had devised this one: he would trick men into
loading themselves with copious draughts of wine, and then on a sudden tying up their
private parts, would torment them at the same time by the torture of the cords and of the
stoppage of their water. And had not death prevented him, and Thrasyllus, purposely it is
said, induced him to put off some things through hope of a longer life, it is believed that
still more would have perished, and that he would not even have spared the rest of his
grandsons; for he had his suspicions of Gaius and detested Tiberius2 as the fruit of
adultery. And this is highly probable, for he used at all times to call Priam happy, because
he had outlived all his kindred.

2
This is Tiberius grandson, Tiberius Gemellus.
 The Life of Caligula

9. His surname Caligula he derived from a joke of the troops, because he was brought up
in their midst in the dress of a common soldier. To what extent besides he won their love
and devotion by being reared in fellowship with them is especially evident from the fact
that when they threatened mutiny after the death of Augustus and were ready for any act
of madness, the mere sight of Gaius unquestionably calmed them. For they did not
become quiet until they saw that he was being spirited away because of the danger from
their outbreak and taken for protection to the nearest town. Then at last they became
contrite, and laying hold of the carriage and stopping it, begged to be spared the disgrace
which was being put upon them.

10. He attended his father also on his expedition to Syria. On his return from there he first
lived with his mother and after her banishment, with his great-grandmother Livia; and
when Livia died, though he was not yet of age, he spoke her eulogy from the rostra. Then
he fell to the care of his grandmother Antonia and in the nineteenth year of his age he was
called to Capreae by Tiberius, on the same day assuming the gown of manhood and
shaving his first beard, but without any such ceremony as had attended the coming of age
of his brothers. Although at Capreae every kind of wile was resorted to by those who
tried to lure him or force him to utter complaints, he never gave them any satisfaction,
ignoring the ruin of his kindred as if nothing at all had happened, passing over his own
ill-treatment with an incredible pretence of indifference, and so obsequious towards his
grandfather and his household, that it was well said of him that no one had ever been a
better slave or a worse master.

11. Yet even at that time he could not control his natural cruelty and viciousness, but he
was a most eager witness of the tortures and executions of those who suffered
punishment, reveling at night in gluttony and adultery, disguised in a wig and a long robe,
passionately devoted besides to the theatrical arts of dancing and singing, in which
Tiberius very willingly indulged him, in the hope that through these his savage nature
might be softened. This last was so clearly evident to the shrewd old man, that he used to
say now and then that to allow Gaius to live would prove the ruin of himself and of all
men, and that he was rearing a viper for the Roman people and a Phaethon for the world.3

3
Phaethon was a mythical son of Apollo who begged his father to ride his chariot. Apollo
indulged him, but Phaethon was unable to control the chariot. Phathons course was so
reckless that he split the Nile and almost destroyed the whole world. Zeus stopped the
mayhem by killing Phaethon with his lightning bolt.
 The Life of Claudius

43. Towards the end of his life he had shown some plain signs of repentance for his
marriage with Agrippina and his adoption of Nero; for when his freedmen expressed their
approval of a trial in which he had the day before condemned a woman for adultery, he
declared that it had been his destiny also to have wives who were all unchaste, but not
unpunished; and shortly afterwards meeting Britannicus, he hugged him close and urged
him to grow up and receive from his father an account of all that he had done, adding in
Greek, "He who dealt the wound will heal it."4 When he expressed his intention of giving
Britannicus the gown of manhood, since his stature justified it though he was still young
and immature, he added: "That the Roman people may at last have a genuine Caesar."

44. Not long afterwards he also made his will and sealed it with the seals of all the
magistrates. But before he could go any farther, he was cut short by Agrippina, who was
being accused besides of many other crimes both by her own conscience and by
informers. That Claudius was poisoned is the general belief, but when it was done and by
whom is disputed. Some say that it was his taster, the eunuch Halotus, as he was
banqueting on the Citadel with the priests; others that at a family dinner Agrippina served
the drug to him with her own hand in mushrooms, a dish of which he was extravagantly
fond. Reports also differ as to what followed. Many say that as soon as he swallowed the
poison he became speechless, and after suffering excruciating pain all night, died just
before dawn. Some say that he first fell into a stupor, then vomited up the whole contents
of his overloaded stomach, and was given a second dose, perhaps in a gruel, under
pretence that he must be refreshed with food after his exhaustion, or administered in a
syringe, as if he were suffering from a surfeit and required relief by that form of
evacuation as well.

4
A proverbial expression, derived from the story of Telephus, who when wounded by
Achilles was told by the oracle that he could be cured only by the one who dealt the
blow. Achilles cured him by applying rust from his spear to the wound.
 The Life of Nero

38. But he showed no greater mercy to the people or the walls of his capital. When
someone in a general conversation said:

"When I am dead, be earth consumed by fire,"5

he rejoined "Nay, rather while I live," and his action was wholly in accord. For under
cover of displeasure at the ugliness of the old buildings and the narrow, crooked streets,
he set fire to the city so openly that several ex-consuls did not venture to lay hands on his
chamberlains although they caught them on their estates with tow and fire-brands, while
some granaries near the Golden House, whose room he particularly desired, were
demolished by engines of war and then set on fire, because their walls were of stone. For
six days and seven nights destruction raged, while the people were driven for shelter to
monuments and tombs. At that time, besides an immense number of dwellings, the
houses of leaders of old were burned, still adorned with trophies of victory, and the
temples of the gods vowed and dedicated by the kings and later in the Punic and Gallic
wars, and whatever else interesting and noteworthy had survived from antiquity. Viewing
the conflagration from the tower of Maecenas and exulting, as he said, in "the beauty of
the flames," he sang the whole of the "Sack of Ilium,"6 in his regular stage costume.
Furthermore, to gain from this calamity too all the spoil and booty possible, while
promising the removal of the debris and dead bodies free of cost he allowed no one to
approach the ruins of his own property; and from the contributions which he not only
received, but even demanded, he nearly bankrupted the provinces and exhausted the
resources of individuals.

39. To all the disasters and abuses thus caused by the prince there were added certain
accidents of fortune; a plague which in a single autumn entered thirty thousand deaths in
the accounts of Libitina; a disaster in Britain, where two important towns were sacked
and great numbers of citizens and allies were butchered; a shameful defeat in the Orient,
in consequence of which the legions in Armenia were sent under the yoke and Syria was
all but lost. It is surprising and of special note that all this time he bore nothing with more
patience than the curses and abuse of the people, and was particularly lenient towards
those who assailed him with gibes and lampoons. Of these many were posted or
circulated both in Greek and Latin, for example the following:

"Nero, Orestes, Alcmeon their mothers slew."

"Who can deny the descent from Aeneas' great line of our Nero?

One his mother took off, the other one took off his sire."

5
A line put by Dio, 58.23, into the mouth of Tiberius. It is believed to be from the
Bellerophon, a lost play of Euripides.
6
Probably a composition of his own; cf. Juv. 8.221 and Vitell. xi.2.