The Twelve Caesars

by Suetonius

In vain would history be ransacked for a parallel to this emperor, who united the most shameful vices to the most extravagant vanity, the most abject meanness to the strongest but most preposterous ambition; and the whole of whose life was one continued scene of lewdness, sensuality, rapine, cruelty, and folly.

Among the excesses of Nero's reign, are to be mentioned the horrible cruelties exercised against the Christians in various parts of the empire,

he satiated his fury against them by such outrages as are unexampled in history.

They were covered with the skins of wild beasts, and torn by dogs; were crucified, and set on fire, that they might serve for lights in the night-time. Nero offered his gardens for this spectacle, and exhibited the games of the Circus by this dreadful illumination. Sometimes they were covered with wax and other combustible materials, after which a sharp stake was put under their chin, to make them stand upright, and they were burnt alive, to give light to the spectators.

but the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero (for we except Claudius from part of the censure),

Repeated experience now clearly refuted the opinion of Augustus, that he had introduced amongst the Romans the best form of government:

The manners of the people were become too dissolute to be restrained by the authority of elective and temporary magistrates;

Every source of national happiness and prosperity was by this means destroyed.

The possession of property became precarious; industry, in all its branches, was effectually discouraged, and the amor patriae, which had formerly been the animating principle of the nation, was almost universally extinguished.

sustain the shocks of fortune, and the violence of tyranny?

The veins of both were opened at the same time; but Nero's command extending only to Seneca, the life of Paulina was preserved;

he was removed into a stove, and suffocated by the steam.

by which the author vindicates the goodness and wisdom of the Almighty, in a strain of sentiment corresponding to the most approved suggestions of natural religion. The

the complaint of the shortness of life is not founded in truth: that it is men who make life short, either by passing it in indolence, or otherwise improperly. He inveighs against indolence, luxury, and every unprofitable avocation; observing, that the best use of time is to apply it to the study of wisdom, by which life may be rendered sufficiently long.

He maintained that a life can only be rendered happy by its conformity to the dictates of virtue, but that such a life is perfectly compatible with the possession of riches, where they happen to accrue.

Seneca has been charged with depreciating former writers, to render himself more conspicuous;

gave the entire reins to his passions, which afterwards plunged him in ruin.

he caused his veins to be opened, but he closed them again, for a little time, that he might enjoy the conversation of his friends, who came to see him in his last moments. He desired them, it is said, to entertain him, not with discourses on the immortality of the soul, or the consolation of philosophy, but with agreeable tales and poetic gallantries.

The inimitable character of Trimalchio, which exhibits a person sunk in the most debauched effeminacy, was drawn for Nero;

a little before the death of each prince, the tree which had been set by him died away. But in the last year of Nero, the whole plantation of laurels perished to the very roots, and the hens all died. About the same time, the temple of the Caesars 641 being struck with lightning, the heads of all the statues in it fell off at once; and Augustus's sceptre was dashed from his hands.

Upon this, the soothsayers said, that the family would come to be masters of the empire, but not until many years had elapsed: at which he, smiling, said, "Ay, when a mule comes to bear a foal." When Galba first declared against Nero, nothing gave him so much confidence of success, as a mule's happening at that time to have a foal. And

A soldier upon some expedition being charged with selling, in a great scarcity of corn, a bushel of wheat, which was all he had left, for a hundred denarii, he forbad him to be relieved by any body, when he came to be in want himself; and accordingly he died of famine.

After his arrival in the province, whilst he was sacrificing in a temple, a boy who attended with a censer, became all on a sudden grey-headed. This incident was regarded by some as a token of an approaching revolution in the government, and that an old man would succeed a young one: that is, that he would succeed Nero.

And not long after, a thunderbolt falling into a lake in Cantabria 660, twelve axes were found in it; a manifest sign of the supreme power.

For, a money-dealer having committed some fraud in the way of his business, he cut off his hands, and nailed them to his counter.

Another, who had poisoned an orphan, to whom he was guardian, and next heir to the estate, he crucified.

had put to death the governors and procurators with their wives and children:

By this conduct, he incurred the hatred of all orders of the people, but especially of the soldiery.

They, in consideration of his late kindness in showing them particular attention during a sickness which prevailed in the camp, flew to his aid, but came too late; for, being not well acquainted with the town, they had taken a circuitous route. He

There being upon it no hair, by which he might hold it, he hid it in the bosom of his dress; but afterwards thrusting his thumb into the mouth, he carried it in that manner to Otho,

and his hands and feet were so distorted with the gout, that he could neither wear a shoe, nor turn over the leaves of a book, or so much as hold it.

In his lust, he was more inclined to the male sex, and such of them too as were old.

he not only kissed him lovingly before company, but begged of him to remove all impediments, and then took him aside into a private apartment.

he was called Nero by the mob, and manifested no intention of declining that cognomen. Nay, some authors relate, that he used it in his official acts, and the first letters he sent to the (421) governors of provinces.

Immediately upon this he determined to put an end to his life, more, as many think, and not without reason, out of shame, at persisting in a struggle for the empire to the hazard of the public interest and so many lives, than from despair, or distrust of his troops.

He likewise sent another to Messalina, Nero's widow, whom he had intended to marry, committing to her the care of his relics and memory.

in the thirty-eighth year of his age, and ninety-fifth day of his reign.

He used to shave every day, and rub his face with soaked bread;

Many of the soldiers who were present, kissing and bedewing with their tears his hands and feet as he lay dead, and celebrating him as "a most gallant man, and an incomparable emperor," immediately put an end to their own lives upon the spot, not far from his funeral pile. (426)

To conclude: the generality of mankind, though they hated him whilst living, yet highly extolled him after his death; insomuch that it was the common talk and opinion, "that Galba had been driven to destruction by his rival, not so much for the sake of reigning himself, as of restoring Rome to its ancient liberty."

It was observed of him, for many years after his death, that "none ever died like Otho."

His mother, upon his being sent to the legions 701, and also upon his being proclaimed emperor, immediately lamented him as utterly ruined.

and was supposed to have been the occasion of his father's advancement, by consenting to gratify the emperor's unnatural lust.

Before a month, therefore, had passed, without regard to the day or season, he was hurried by the soldiers out of his bed-chamber, although it was evening, and he in an undress, and unanimously saluted by the title of EMPEROR

Acting more and more in open violation of all laws, both divine and human, he assumed the office of Pontifex Maximus,

and made himself consul for life. To put it out of all doubt what model he intended to follow in his government of the empire, he made his offerings to the shade of Nero in the midst of the Campus Martius, and with a full assembly of the public priests attending him.

He was chiefly addicted to the vices of luxury and cruelty.

and a drunken revel after all. This load of victuals he could well enough bear, from a custom to which he had enured himself, of frequently vomiting.

dish which had been made for him, and which, for its extraordinary size, he called "The Shield of Minerva." In this dish there were tossed up together the livers of char-fish, the brains of pheasants and peacocks, with the tongues of flamingos, and the entrails of lampreys, which

so that, at a sacrifice, he would snatch from the fire flesh and cakes, and eat them upon the spot.