The Twelve Caesars

by Suetonius

Several noblemen, his school-fellows and companions, invited by him to court, he treated with such flattering caresses, as seemed to indicate an affection short only of admitting them to share the honours of the imperial dignity; yet he put them all to death by some base means or other.

"I have a mind to feed my eyes."

Two sons who interceded for their father, he ordered to be executed with him.

He put to death some of the common people for cursing aloud the blue party in the Circensian games;

as did likewise, of the armies beyond sea, those in Judaea and Syria,

They also upbraided him with the defects of his person, for he was monstrously tall, and had a face usually very red with hard-drinking, a large belly, and one thigh weak, occasioned by a chariot running against him, as he was attending upon Caius 716, while he was driving.

The pusillanimity discovered by this emperor at his death, forms a striking contrast to the heroic behaviour of Otho.

though it is acknowledged that Domitian met with the just reward of his avarice and cruelty.

A firm persuasion had long prevailed through all the East 735, 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 736, routed the lieutenant of Syria 737, a man of consular rank, who was advancing to his assistance, and took an eagle, the standard, of one of his legions.

and saying that they were admonished (450) 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 748

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

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.

He never rejoiced at the death of any man; nay he would shed tears, and sigh, at the just punishment of the guilty.

because he applied to the best purposes what he procured by bad means.

fasting one day in every month.

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.

but he left the siege of Jerusalem to be conducted by his son Titus, who displayed great valour and military talents in the prosecution of the enterprise.

After an obstinate defence by the Jews, that city, so much celebrated in the sacred writings, was finally demolished, and the glorious temple itself, the admiration of the world, reduced to ashes; contrary, however, to the will of Titus, who exerted his utmost efforts to extinguish the flames.

and, to the honour of Vespasian, he discovered great zeal in his endeavours to effect a national reformation.

But if we give credit to the whimsical imposition of a tax upon urine,

Besides his cruelty, he lay under the suspicion of giving (469) way to habits of luxury, as he often prolonged his revels till midnight with the most riotous of his acquaintance.

Nor was he unsuspected of lewdness, on account of the swarms of catamites and eunuchs about him, and his well-known attachment to queen Berenice 786, who received from him, as it is reported, a promise of marriage.

In short, people publicly expressed an unfavourable opinion of him,

"My friends, I have lost a day."

He swore "that he would perish himself, rather than prove the destruction of any man."

Though his brother was continually plotting against him, almost openly stirring up the armies to rebellion, and contriving to get away, yet he could not endure to put him to death, or to banish him from his presence; nor did he treat him with less respect than before.

TITUS FLAVIUS VESPASIAN, the younger, was the first prince who succeeded to the empire by hereditary right; and having constantly acted, after his return from Judaea, as colleague with his father in the administration, he seemed to be as well qualified by experience as he was by abilities, for conducting the affairs of the empire.

But, with a degree of virtuous resolution unexampled in history, he had no sooner taken into his hands the entire reins of government, than he renounced every vicious attachment.

Amongst those to whom this dreadful eruption proved fatal, was Pliny, the celebrated naturalist, whose curiosity to examine the phenomenon led him so far within the verge of danger, that he could not afterwards escape.

He considered every moment as lost which was not employed in literary pursuits.

In respect to the world, or rather the universe, the author's opinion is the same with that of several ancient philosophers, that it is a Deity, uncreated, infinite, and eternal.

It deserves to be remarked, that, though a future state of rewards and punishments was maintained by the most eminent among the ancient philosophers, the resurrection of the body was a doctrine with which they were wholly unacquainted.

the nineteenth, of the nature of lint, hemp, and similar productions;

in which Domitian made an assignation with him for the foulest purposes. Some, likewise, have said, that he prostituted himself to Nerva,

after he had made free with the wives of many men of distinction, he took Domitia Longina from her husband, Aelias Lamia, and married her;

this he did only with the view of equalling his brother in military achievements and glory.

From that time forward, he was constantly engaged in plots against his brother, both publicly and privately;

Nor did men only fight in these spectacles, but women also.

making a vast lake near the Tiber 801, and building seats round it. And he witnessed them himself during a very heavy rain.

He forbad the castration of males; and reduced the price of the eunuchs who were still left in the hands of the dealers in slaves.

He struck out of the list of judges a Roman knight for taking again his wife whom he had divorced and prosecuted for adultery.

But Cornelia, the president of the Vestals, who had formerly been acquitted upon a charge of incontinence, being a long time after again prosecuted and condemned, he ordered to be buried alive;

and her gallants to be whipped to death with rods in the Comitium;

and also Flavius Sabinus, one of his cousins, because, upon his being chosen at the consular election to that office, the public crier had, by a blunder, proclaimed him to the people not consul, but emperor.

many of them he racked with a new-invented torture, inserting fire through their private parts; and from some he cut off their hands.

Contemptuously abusing the patience of men, he never pronounced a severe sentence without prefacing it (489) with words which gave hopes of mercy; so that, at last, there was not a more certain token of a fatal conclusion, than a mild commencement.

Besides the exactions from others, the poll-tax on the Jews was levied with extreme rigour, both on those who lived after the manner of Jews in the city, without publicly professing themselves to be such 822, and on those who, by (490) concealing their origin, avoided paying the tribute imposed upon that people.

an old man, ninety years of age, had his person exposed to view in a very crowded court, in order that, on inspection, the procurator might satisfy himself whether he was circumcised.

With equal arrogance, when he dictated the form of a letter to be used by his procurators, he began it thus: "Our lord and god commands so and so;" whence it became a rule that no one should (491) style him otherwise either in writing or speaking.

Becoming by these means universally feared and odious, he was at last taken off by a conspiracy of his friends and favourite freedmen, in concert with his wife 829