The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - C. Suetonius Tranquillus
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THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS
By C. Suetonius Tranquillus;
To which are added,
HIS LIVES OF THE GRAMMARIANS, RHETORICIANS, AND POETS.
The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D.
Revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M.
PREFACE
C. Suetonius Tranquillus was the son of a Roman knight who commanded a
legion, on the side of Otho, at the battle which decided the fate of the
empire in favour of Vitellius. From incidental notices in the following
History, we learn that he was born towards the close of the reign of
Vespasian, who died in the year 79 of the Christian era. He lived till
the time of Hadrian, under whose administration he filled the office of
secretary; until, with several others, he was dismissed for presuming on
familiarities with the empress Sabina, of which we have no further
account than that they were unbecoming his position in the imperial
court. How long he survived this disgrace, which appears to have
befallen him in the year 121, we are not informed; but we find that the
leisure afforded him by his retirement, was employed in the composition
of numerous works, of which the only portions now extant are collected in
the present volume.
Several of the younger Pliny's letters are addressed to Suetonius, with
whom he lived in the closest friendship. They afford some brief, but
generally pleasant, glimpses of his habits and career; and in a letter,
in which Pliny makes application on behalf of his friend to the emperor
Trajan, for a mark of favour, he speaks of him as "a most excellent,
honourable, and learned man, whom he had the pleasure of entertaining
under his own roof, and with whom the nearer he was brought into
communion, the more he loved him." [1]
The plan adopted by Suetonius in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars, led him
to be more diffuse on their personal conduct and habits than on public
events. He writes Memoirs rather than History. He neither dwells on the
civil wars which sealed the fall of the Republic, nor on the military
expeditions which extended the frontiers of the empire; nor does he
attempt to develop the causes of the great political changes which marked
the period of which he treats.
When we stop to gaze in a museum or gallery on the antique busts of the
Caesars, we perhaps endeavour to trace in their sculptured physiognomy
the characteristics of those princes, who, for good or evil, were in
their times masters of the destinies of a large portion of the human
race. The pages of Suetonius will amply gratify this natural curiosity.
In them we find a series of individual portraits sketched to the life,
with perfect truth and rigorous impartiality. La Harpe remarks of
Suetonius, "He is scrupulously exact, and strictly methodical. He omits
nothing which concerns the person whose life he is writing; he relates
everything, but paints nothing. His work is, in some sense, a collection
of anecdotes, but it is very curious to read and consult." [2]
Combining as it does amusement and information, Suetonius's "Lives of the
Caesars" was held in such estimation, that, so soon after the invention
of printing as the year 1500, no fewer than eighteen editions had been
published, and nearly one hundred have since been added to the number.
Critics of the highest rank have devoted themselves to the task of
correcting and commenting on the text, and the work has been translated
into most European languages. Of the English translations, that of Dr.
Alexander Thomson, published in 1796, has been made the basis of the
present. He informs us in his Preface, that a version of Suetonius was
with him only a secondary object, his principal design being to form a
just estimate of Roman literature, and to elucidate the state of
government, and the manners of the times; for which the work of Suetonius
seemed a fitting vehicle. Dr. Thomson's remarks appended to each
successive reign, are reprinted nearly verbatim in the present edition.
His translation, however, was very diffuse, and retained most of the
inaccuracies of that of Clarke, on which it was founded; considerable
care therefore has been bestowed in correcting it, with the view of
producing, as far as possible, a literal and faithful version.
To render the works of Suetonius, as far as they are extant, complete,
his Lives of eminent Grammarians, Rhetoricians, and Poets, of which a
translation has not before appeared in English, are added. These Lives
abound with anecdote and curious information connected with learning and
literary men during the period of which the author treats.
T. F.
CONTENTS
I. LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS
1. Julius Caesar
2. Augustus
3. Tiberius
4. Caligula
5. Claudius
6. Nero
7. Galba
8. Otho
9. Vitellius
10. Vespasian
11. Titus
12. Domitian
II. LIVES OF THE GRAMMARIANS AND THE HISTORIANS
III. LIVES OF THE POETS
Terence
Juvenal
Persius
Horace
Lucan
Pliny
FOOTNOTES
INDEX
(1)
THE TWELVE CAESARS.
CAIUS JULIUS CASAR.
I. Julius Caesar, the Divine [3], lost his father [4] when he was in the
sixteenth year of his age [5]; and the year following, being nominated to
the office of high-priest of Jupiter [6], he repudiated Cossutia, who was
very wealthy, although her family belonged only to the equestrian order,
and to whom he had been contracted when he was a mere boy. He then
married (2) Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, who was four times consul;
and had by her, shortly afterwards, a daughter named Julia. Resisting
all the efforts of the dictator Sylla to induce him to divorce Cornelia,
he suffered the penalty of being stripped of his sacerdotal office, his
wife's dowry, and his own patrimonial estates; and, being identified with
the adverse faction [7], was compelled to withdraw from Rome. After
changing his place of concealment nearly every night [8], although he was
suffering from a quartan ague, and having effected his release by bribing
the officers who had tracked his footsteps, he at length obtained a
pardon through the intercession of the vestal virgins, and of Mamercus
Aemilius and Aurelius Cotta, his near relatives. We are assured that
when Sylla, having withstood for a while the entreaties of his own best
friends, persons of distinguished rank, at last yielded to their
importunity, he exclaimed--either by a divine impulse, or from a shrewd
conjecture: "Your suit is granted, and you may take him among you; but
know," he added, "that this man, for whose safety you are so extremely
anxious, will, some day or other, be the ruin of the party of the nobles,
in defence of which you are leagued with me; for in this one Caesar, you
will find many a Marius."
II. His first campaign was served in Asia, on the staff of the praetor,
M. Thermus; and being dispatched into Bithynia [9], to bring thence a
fleet, he loitered so long at the court of Nicomedes, as to give occasion
to reports of a criminal intercourse between him and that prince; which
received additional credit from his hasty return to Bithynia, under the
pretext of recovering a debt due to a freed-man, his client. The rest of
his service was more favourable to his reputation; and (3) when Mitylene
[10] was taken by storm, he was presented by Thermus with the civic
crown. [11]
III. He served also in Cilicia [12], under Servilius Isauricus, but only
for a short time; as upon receiving intelligence of Sylla's death, he
returned with all speed to Rome, in expectation of what might follow from
a fresh agitation set on foot by Marcus Lepidus. Distrusting, however,
the abilities of this leader, and finding the times less favourable for
the execution of this project than he had at first imagined, he abandoned
all thoughts of joining Lepidus, although he received the most tempting
offers.
IV. Soon after this civil discord was composed, he preferred a charge of
extortion against Cornelius Dolabella, a man of consular dignity, who had
obtained the honour of a triumph. On the acquittal of the accused, he
resolved to retire to Rhodes [13], with the view not only of avoiding the
public odium (4) which he had incurred, but of prosecuting his studies
with leisure and tranquillity, under Apollonius, the son of Molon, at
that time the most celebrated master of rhetoric. While on his voyage
thither, in the winter season, he was taken by pirates near the island of
Pharmacusa [14], and detained by them, burning with indignation, for
nearly forty days; his only attendants being a physician and two
chamberlains. For he had instantly dispatched his other servants and the
friends who accompanied him, to raise money for his ransom [15]. Fifty
talents having been paid down, he was landed on the coast, when, having
collected some ships [16], he lost no time in putting to sea in pursuit
of the pirates, and having captured them, inflicted upon them the
punishment with which he had often threatened them in jest. At that time
Mithridates was ravaging the neighbouring districts, and on Caesar's
arrival at Rhodes, that he might not appear to lie idle while danger
threatened the allies of Rome, he passed over into Asia, and having
collected some auxiliary forces, and driven the king's governor out of
the province, retained in their allegiance the cities which were
wavering, and ready to revolt.
V. Having been elected military tribune, the first honour he received
from the suffrages of the people after his return to Rome, he zealously
assisted those who took measures for restoring the tribunitian authority,
which had been greatly diminished during the usurpation of Sylla. He
likewise, by an act, which Plotius at his suggestion propounded to the
people, obtained the recall of Lucius Cinna, his wife's brother, and
others with him, who having been the adherents of Lepidus in the civil
disturbances, had after that consul's death fled to Sertorius [17]; which
law he supported by a speech.
VI. During his quaestorship he pronounced funeral orations from the
rostra, according to custom, in praise of his aunt (5) Julia, and his
wife Cornelia. In the panegyric on his aunt, he gives the following
account of her own and his father's genealogy, on both sides: "My aunt
Julia derived her descent, by the mother, from a race of kings, and by
her father, from the Immortal Gods. For the Marcii Reges [18], her
mother's family, deduce their pedigree from Ancus Marcius, and the Julii,
her father's, from Venus; of which stock we are a branch. We therefore
unite in our descent the sacred majesty of kings, the chiefest among men,
and the divine majesty of Gods, to whom kings themselves are subject."
To supply the place of Cornelia, he married Pompeia, the daughter of
Quintus Pompeius, and grand-daughter of Lucius Sylla; but he afterwards
divorced her, upon suspicion of her having been debauched by Publius
Clodius. For so current was the report, that Clodius had found access to
her disguised as a woman, during the celebration of a religious solemnity
[19], that the senate instituted an enquiry respecting the profanation of
the sacred rites.
VII. Farther-Spain [20] fell to his lot as quaestor; when there, as he
was going the circuit of the province, by commission from the praetor,
for the administration of justice, and had reached Gades, seeing a statue
of Alexander the Great in the temple of Hercules, he sighed deeply, as if
weary of his sluggish life, for having performed no memorable actions at
an age [21] at which Alexander had already conquered the world. He,
therefore, immediately sued for his discharge, with the view of embracing
the first opportunity, which might present itself in The City, of
entering upon a more exalted career. In the stillness of the night
following, he dreamt that he lay with his own mother; but his confusion
was relieved, and his hopes were raised to the highest pitch, by the
interpreters of his dream, who expounded it as an omen that he should
possess universal empire; for (6) that the mother who in his sleep he had
found submissive to his embraces, was no other than the earth, the common
parent of all mankind.
VIII. Quitting therefore the province before the expiration of the usual
term, he betook himself to the Latin colonies, which were then eagerly
agitating the design of obtaining the freedom of Rome; and he would have
stirred them up to some bold attempt, had not the consuls, to prevent any
commotion, detained for some time the legions which had been raised for
service in Cilicia. But this did not deter him from making, soon
afterwards, a still greater effort within the precincts of the city
itself.
IX. For, only a few days before he entered upon the aedileship, he
incurred a suspicion of having engaged in a conspiracy with Marcus
Crassus, a man of consular rank; to whom were joined Publius Sylla and
Lucius Autronius, who, after they had been chosen consuls, were convicted
of bribery. The plan of the conspirators was to fall upon the senate at
the opening of the new year, and murder as many of them as should be
thought necessary; upon which, Crassus was to assume the office of
dictator, and appoint Caesar his master of the horse [22]. When the
commonwealth had been thus ordered according to their pleasure, the
consulship was to have been restored to Sylla and Autronius. Mention is
made of this plot by Tanusius Geminus [23] in his history, by Marcus
Bibulus in his edicts [24], and by Curio, the father, in his orations
[25]. Cicero likewise seems to hint at this in a letter to Axius, where
he says, that Caesar (7) had in his consulship secured to himself that
arbitrary power [26] to which he had aspired when he was edile. Tanusius
adds, that Crassus, from remorse or fear, did not appear upon the day
appointed for the massacre of the senate; for which reason Caesar omitted
to give the signal, which, according to the plan concerted between them,
he was to have made. The agreement, Curio says, was that he should shake
off the toga from his shoulder. We have the authority of the same Curio,
and of M. Actorius Naso, for his having been likewise concerned in
another conspiracy with young Cneius Piso; to whom, upon a suspicion of
some mischief being meditated in the city, the province of Spain was
decreed out of the regular course [27]. It is said to have been agreed
between them, that Piso should head a revolt in the provinces, whilst the
other should attempt to stir up an insurrection at Rome, using as their
instruments the Lambrani, and the tribes beyond the Po. But the
execution of this design was frustrated in both quarters by the death of
Piso.
X. In his aedileship, he not only embellished the Comitium, and the rest
of the Forum [28], with the adjoining halls [29], but adorned the Capitol
also, with temporary piazzas, constructed for the purpose of displaying
some part of the superabundant collections (8) he had made for the
amusement of the people [30]. He entertained them with the hunting of
wild beasts, and with games, both alone and in conjunction with his
colleague. On this account, he obtained the whole credit of the expense
to which they had jointly contributed; insomuch that his colleague,
Marcus Bibulus, could not forbear remarking, that he was served in the
manner of Pollux. For as the temple [31] erected in the Forum to the two
brothers, went by the name of Castor alone, so his and Caesar's joint
munificence was imputed to the latter only. To the other public
spectacles exhibited to the people, Caesar added a fight of gladiators,
but with fewer pairs of combatants than he had intended. For he had
collected from all parts so great a company of them, that his enemies
became alarmed; and a decree was made, restricting the number of
gladiators which any one was allowed to retain at Rome.
XI. Having thus conciliated popular favour, he endeavoured, through his
interest with some of the tribunes, to get Egypt assigned to him as a
province, by an act of the people. The pretext alleged for the creation
of this extraordinary government, was, that the Alexandrians had
violently expelled their king [32], whom the senate had complimented with
the title of an ally and friend of the Roman people. This was generally
resented; but, notwithstanding, there was so much opposition from the
faction of the nobles, that he could not carry his point. In order,
therefore, to diminish their influence by every means in his power, he
restored the trophies erected in honour of Caius Marius, on account of
his victories over Jugurtha, the Cimbri, and the Teutoni, which had been
demolished by Sylla; and when sitting in judgment upon murderers, he
treated those as assassins, who, in the late proscription, had received
money from the treasury, for bringing in the heads of Roman citizens,
although they were expressly excepted in the Cornelian laws.
XII. He likewise suborned some one to prefer an impeachment (9) for
treason against Caius Rabirius, by whose especial assistance the senate
had, a few years before, put down Lucius Saturninus, the seditious
tribune; and being drawn by lot a judge on the trial, he condemned him
with so much animosity, that upon his appealing to the people, no
circumstance availed him so much as the extraordinary bitterness of his
judge.
XIII. Having renounced all hope of obtaining Egypt for his province, he
stood candidate for the office of chief pontiff, to secure which, he had
recourse to the most profuse bribery. Calculating, on this occasion, the
enormous amount of the debts he had contracted, he is reported to have
said to his mother, when she kissed him at his going out in the morning
to the assembly of the people, "I will never return home unless I am
elected pontiff." In effect, he left so far behind him two most powerful
competitors, who were much his superiors both in age and rank, that he
had more votes in their own tribes, than they both had in all the tribes
together.
XIV. After he was chosen praetor, the conspiracy of Catiline was
discovered; and while every other member of the senate voted for
inflicting capital punishment on the accomplices in that crime [33], he
alone proposed that the delinquents should be distributed for safe
custody among the towns of Italy, their property being confiscated. He
even struck such terror into those who were advocates for greater
severity, by representing to them what universal odium would be attached
to their memories by the Roman people, that Decius Silanus, consul elect,
did not hesitate to qualify his proposal, it not being very honourable to
change it, by a lenient interpretation; as if it had been understood in a
harsher sense than he intended, and Caesar would certainly have carried
his point, having brought over to his side a great number of the
senators, among whom was Cicero, the consul's brother, had not a speech
by Marcus Cato infused new vigour into the resolutions of the senate. He
persisted, however, in obstructing the measure, until a body of the Roman
knights, who stood under arms as a guard, threatened him with instant
death, if he continued his determined opposition. They even thrust at
him with their drawn swords, so that those who sat next him moved away;
(10) and a few friends, with no small difficulty, protected him, by
throwing their arms round him, and covering him with their togas. At
last, deterred by this violence, he not only gave way, but absented
himself from the senate-house during the remainder of that year.
XV. Upon the first day of his praetorship, he summoned Quintus Catulus
to render an account to the people respecting the repairs of the Capitol
[34]; proposing a decree for transferring the office of curator to
another person [35]. But being unable to withstand the strong opposition
made by the aristocratical party, whom he perceived quitting, in great
numbers, their attendance upon the new consuls [36], and fully resolved
to resist his proposal, he dropped the design.
XVI. He afterwards approved himself a most resolute supporter of
Caecilius Metullus, tribune of the people, who, in spite of all
opposition from his colleagues, had proposed some laws of a violent
tendency [37], until they were both dismissed from office by a vote of
the senate. He ventured, notwithstanding, to retain his post and
continue in the administration of justice; but finding that preparations
were made to obstruct him by force of arms, he dismissed the lictors,
threw off his gown, and betook himself privately to his own house, with
the resolution of being quiet, in a time so unfavourable to his
interests. He likewise pacified the mob, which two days afterwards
flocked about him, and in a riotous manner made a voluntary tender of
their assistance in the vindication of his (11) honour. This happening
contrary to expectation, the senate, who met in haste, on account of the
tumult, gave him their thanks by some of the leading members of the
house, and sending for him, after high commendation of his conduct,
cancelled their former vote, and restored him to his office.
XVII. But he soon got into fresh trouble, being named amongst the
accomplices of Catiline, both before Novius Niger the quaestor, by Lucius
Vettius the informer, and in the senate by Quintus Curius; to whom a
reward had been voted, for having first discovered the designs of the
conspirators. Curius affirmed that he had received his information from
Catiline. Vettius even engaged to produce in evidence against him his
own hand-writing, given to Catiline. Caesar, feeling that this treatment
was not to be borne, appealed to Cicero himself, whether he had not
voluntarily made a discovery to him of some particulars of the
conspiracy; and so baulked Curius of his expected reward. He, therefore,
obliged Vettius to give pledges for his behaviour, seized his goods, and
after heavily fining him, and seeing him almost torn in pieces before the
rostra, threw him into prison; to which he likewise sent Novius the
quaestor, for having presumed to take an information against a magistrate
of superior authority.
XVIII. At the expiration of his praetorship he obtained by lot the
Farther-Spain [38], and pacified his creditors, who were for detaining
him, by finding sureties for his debts [39]. Contrary, however, to both
law and custom, he took his departure before the usual equipage and
outfit were prepared. It is uncertain whether this precipitancy arose
from the apprehension of an impeachment, with which he was threatened on
the expiration of his former office, or from his anxiety to lose no time
in relieving the allies, who implored him to come to their aid. He had
no (12) sooner established tranquillity in the province, than, without
waiting for the arrival of his successor, he returned to Rome, with equal
haste, to sue for a triumph [40], and the consulship. The day of
election, however, being already fixed by proclamation, he could not
legally be admitted a candidate, unless he entered the city as a private
person [41]. On this emergency he solicited a suspension of the laws in
his favour; but such an indulgence being strongly opposed, he found
himself under the necessity of abandoning all thoughts of a triumph, lest
he should be disappointed of the consulship.
XIX. Of the two other competitors for the consulship, Lucius Luceius and
Marcus Bibulus, he joined with the former, upon condition that Luceius,
being a man of less interest but greater affluence, should promise money
to the electors, in their joint names. Upon which the party of the
nobles, dreading how far he might carry matters in that high office, with
a colleague disposed to concur in and second his measures, advised
Bibulus to promise the voters as much as the other; and most of them
contributed towards the expense, Cato himself admitting that bribery;
under such circumstances, was for the public good [42]. He was
accordingly elected consul jointly with Bibulus. Actuated still by the
same motives, the prevailing party took care to assign provinces of small
importance to the new consuls, such as the care of the woods and roads.
Caesar, incensed at this indignity, endeavoured by the most assiduous and
flattering attentions to gain to his side Cneius Pompey, at that time
dissatisfied with the senate for the backwardness they shewed to confirm
his acts, after his victories over Mithridates. He likewise brought
about a reconciliation between Pompey and Marcus Crassus, who had been at
variance from (13) the time of their joint consulship, in which office
they were continually clashing; and he entered into an agreement with
both, that nothing should be transacted in the government, which was
displeasing to any of the three.
XX. Having entered upon his office [43], he introduced a new regulation,
that the daily acts both of the senate and people should be committed to
writing, and published [44]. He also revived an old custom, that an
officer [45] should precede him, and his lictors follow him, on the
alternate months when the fasces were not carried before him. Upon
preferring a bill to the people for the division of some public lands, he
was opposed by his colleague, whom he violently drove out of the forum.
Next day the insulted consul made a complaint in the senate of this
treatment; but such was the consternation, that no one having the courage
to bring the matter forward or move a censure, which had been often done
under outrages of less importance, he was so much dispirited, that until
the expiration of his office he never stirred from home, and did nothing
but issue edicts to obstruct his colleague's proceedings. From that
time, therefore, Caesar had the sole management of public affairs;
insomuch that some wags, when they signed any instrument as witnesses,
did not add "in the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus," but, "of Julius
and Caesar;" putting the same person down twice, under his name and
surname. The following verses likewise were currently repeated on this
occasion: