The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - C. Suetonius Tranquillus
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XX. He conducted in person only two foreign wars; the Dalmatian, whilst
he was yet but a youth; and, after Antony's final defeat, the Cantabrian.
He was wounded in the former of these wars; in one battle he received a
contusion in the right knee from a stone--and in another, he was much
hurt in (84) one leg and both arms, by the fall of a fridge [135]. His
other wars he carried on by his lieutenants; but occasionally visited the
army, in some of the wars of Pannonia and Germany, or remained at no
great distance, proceeding from Rome as far as Ravenna, Milan, or
Aquileia.
XXI. He conquered, however, partly in person, and partly by his
lieutenants, Cantabria [136], Aquitania and Pannonia [137], Dalmatia,
with all Illyricum and Rhaetia [138], besides the two Alpine nations, the
Vindelici and the Salassii [139]. He also checked the incursions of the
Dacians, by cutting off three of their generals with vast armies, and
drove the Germans beyond the river Elbe; removing two other tribes who
submitted, the Ubii and Sicambri, into Gaul, and settling them in the
country bordering on the Rhine. Other nations also, which broke into
revolt, he reduced to submission. But he never made war upon any nation
without just and necessary cause; and was so far from being ambitious
either to extend the empire, or advance his own military glory, that he
obliged the chiefs of some barbarous tribes to swear in the temple of
Mars the Avenger [140], that they would faithfully observe their
engagements, and not violate the peace which they had implored. Of some
he demanded a new description of hostages, their women, having found from
experience that they cared little for their men when given as hostages;
but he always afforded them the means of getting back their hostages
whenever they wished it. Even those who engaged most frequently and with
the greatest perfidy in their rebellion, he never punished more severely
than by selling their captives, on the terms (85) of their not serving in
any neighbouring country, nor being released from their slavery before
the expiration of thirty years. By the character which he thus acquired,
for virtue and moderation, he induced even the Indians and Scythians,
nations before known to the Romans by report only, to solicit his
friendship, and that of the Roman people, by ambassadors. The Parthians
readily allowed his claim to Armenia; restoring at his demand, the
standards which they had taken from Marcus Crassus and Mark Antony, and
offering him hostages besides. Afterwards, when a contest arose between
several pretenders to the crown of that kingdom, they refused to
acknowledge any one who was not chosen by him.
XXII. The temple of Janus Quirinus, which had been shut twice only, from
the era of the building of the city to his own time, he closed thrice in
a much shorter period, having established universal peace both by sea and
land. He twice entered the city with the honours of an Ovation [141],
namely, after the war of Philippi, and again after that of Sicily. He
had also three curule triumphs [142] for his several victories in (86)
Dalmatia, at Actium, and Alexandria; each of which lasted three days.
XXIII. In all his wars, he never received any signal or ignominious
defeat, except twice in Germany, under his lieutenants Lollius and Varus.
The former indeed had in it more of dishonour than disaster; but that of
Varus threatened the security of the empire itself; three legions, with
the commander, his lieutenants, and all the auxiliaries, being cut off.
Upon receiving intelligence of this disaster, he gave orders for keeping
a strict watch over the city, to prevent any public disturbance, and
prolonged the appointments of the prefects in the provinces, that the
allies might be kept in order by experience of persons to whom they were
used. He made a vow to celebrate the great games in honour of Jupiter,
Optimus, Maximus, "if he would be pleased to restore the state to more
prosperous circumstances." This had formerly been resorted to in the
Cimbrian and Marsian wars. In short, we are informed that he was in such
consternation at this event, that he let the hair of his head and beard
grow for several months, and sometimes knocked his head against the
door-posts, crying out, "O, Quintilius Varus! Give me back my legions!"
And (87) ever after, he observed the anniversary of this calamity, as a
day of sorrow and mourning.
XXIV. In military affairs he made many alterations, introducing some
practices entirely new, and reviving others, which had become obsolete.
He maintained the strictest discipline among the troops; and would not
allow even his lieutenants the liberty to visit their wives, except
reluctantly, and in the winter season only. A Roman knight having cut
off the thumbs of his two young sons, to render them incapable of serving
in the wars, he exposed both him and his estate to public sale. But upon
observing the farmers of the revenue very greedy for the purchase, he
assigned him to a freedman of his own, that he might send him into the
country, and suffer him to retain his freedom. The tenth legion becoming
mutinous, he disbanded it with ignominy; and did the same by some others
which petulantly demanded their discharge; withholding from them the
rewards usually bestowed on those who had served their stated time in the
wars. The cohorts which yielded their ground in time of action, he
decimated, and fed with barley. Centurions, as well as common sentinels,
who deserted their posts when on guard, he punished with death. For
other misdemeanors he inflicted upon them various kinds of disgrace; such
as obliging them to stand all day before the praetorium, sometimes in
their tunics only, and without their belts, sometimes to carry poles ten
feet long, or sods of turf.
XXV. After the conclusion of the civil wars, he never, in any of his
military harangues, or proclamations, addressed them by the title of
"Fellow-soldiers," but as "Soldiers" only. Nor would he suffer them to
be otherwise called by his sons or step-sons, when they were in command;
judging the former epithet to convey the idea of a degree of
condescension inconsistent with military discipline, the maintenance of
order, and his own majesty, and that of his house. Unless at Rome, in
case of incendiary fires, or under the apprehension of public
disturbances during a scarcity of provisions, he never employed in his
army slaves who had been made freedmen, except upon two occasions; on
one, for the security of the colonies bordering upon Illyricum, and on
the other, to guard (88) the banks of the river Rhine. Although he
obliged persons of fortune, both male and female, to give up their
slaves, and they received their manumission at once, yet he kept them
together under their own standard, unmixed with soldiers who were better
born, and armed likewise after different fashion. Military rewards, such
as trappings, collars, and other decorations of gold and silver, he
distributed more readily than camp or mural crowns, which were reckoned
more honourable than the former. These he bestowed sparingly, without
partiality, and frequently even on common soldiers. He presented M.
Agrippa, after the naval engagement in the Sicilian war, with a sea-green
banner. Those who shared in the honours of a triumph, although they had
attended him in his expeditions, and taken part in his victories, he
judged it improper to distinguish by the usual rewards for service,
because they had a right themselves to grant such rewards to whom they
pleased. He thought nothing more derogatory to the character of an
accomplished general than precipitancy and rashness; on which account he
had frequently in his mouth those proverbs:
Speude bradeos,
Hasten slowly,
And
'Asphalaes gar est' ameinon, hae erasus strataelataes.
The cautious captain's better than the bold.
And "That is done fast enough, which is done well enough."
He was wont to say also, that "a battle or a war ought never to be
undertaken, unless the prospect of gain overbalanced the fear of loss.
For," said he, "men who pursue small advantages with no small hazard,
resemble those who fish with a golden hook, the loss of which, if the
line should happen to break, could never be compensated by all the fish
they might take."
XXVI. He was advanced to public offices before the age at which he was
legally qualified for them; and to some, also, of a new kind, and for
life. He seized the consulship in the twentieth year of his age,
quartering his legions in a threatening manner near the city, and sending
deputies to demand it for him in the name of the army. When the senate
demurred, (89) a centurion, named Cornelius, who was at the head of the
chief deputation, throwing back his cloak, and shewing the hilt of his
sword, had the presumption to say in the senate-house, "This will make
him consul, if ye will not." His second consulship he filled nine years
afterwards; his third, after the interval of only one year, and held the
same office every year successively until the eleventh. From this
period, although the consulship was frequently offered him, he always
declined it, until, after a long interval, not less than seventeen years,
he voluntarily stood for the twelfth, and two years after that, for a
thirteenth; that he might successively introduce into the forum, on their
entering public life, his two sons, Caius and Lucius, while he was
invested with the highest office in the state. In his five consulships
from the sixth to the eleventh, he continued in office throughout the
year; but in the rest, during only nine, six, four, or three months, and
in his second no more than a few hours. For having sat for a short time
in the morning, upon the calends of January [1st January], in his curule
chair [143], before the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, he abdicated the
office, and substituted another in his room. Nor did he enter upon them
all at Rome, but upon the fourth in Asia, the fifth in the Isle of Samos,
and the eighth and ninth at Tarragona. [144]
XXVII. During ten years he acted as one of the triumvirate for settling
the commonwealth, in which office he for some time opposed his colleagues
in their design of a proscription; but after it was begun, he prosecuted
it with more determined rigour than either of them. For whilst they were
often prevailed upon, by the interest and intercession of friends, to
shew mercy, he alone strongly insisted that no one should be spared, and
even proscribed Caius Toranius [145], his guardian; who had (90) been
formerly the colleague of his father Octavius in the aedileship. Junius
Saturnius adds this farther account of him: that when, after the
proscription was over, Marcus Lepidus made an apology in the senate for
their past proceedings, and gave them hopes of a more mild administration
for the future, because they had now sufficiently crushed their enemies;
he, on the other hand, declared that the only limit he had fixed to the
proscription was, that he should be free to act as he pleased.
Afterwards, however, repenting of his severity, he advanced T. Vinius
Philopoemen to the equestrian rank, for having concealed his patron at
the time he was proscribed. In this same office he incurred great odium
upon many accounts. For as he was one day making an harangue, observing
among the soldiers Pinarius, a Roman knight, admit some private citizens,
and engaged in taking notes, he ordered him to be stabbed before his
eyes, as a busy-body and a spy upon him. He so terrified with his
menaces Tedius Afer, the consul elect [146], for having reflected upon
some action of his, that he threw himself from a great height, and died
on the spot. And when Quintus Gallius, the praetor, came to compliment
him with a double tablet under his cloak, suspecting that it was a sword
he had concealed, and yet not venturing to make a search, lest it should
be found to be something else, he caused him to be dragged from his
tribunal by centurions and soldiers, and tortured like a slave: and
although he made no confession, ordered him to be put to death, after he
had, with his own hands, plucked out his eyes. His own account of the
matter, however, is, that Quintus Gallius sought a private conference
with him, for the purpose of assassinating him; that he therefore put him
in prison, but afterwards released him, and banished him the city; when
he perished either in a storm at sea, or by falling into the hands of
robbers.
He accepted of the tribunitian power for life, but more than once chose a
colleague in that office for two lustra [147] successively. He also had
the supervision of morality and observance of the laws, for life, but
without the title of censor; yet he thrice (91) took a census of the
people, the first and third time with a colleague, but the second by
himself.
XXVIII. He twice entertained thoughts of restoring the republic [148];
first, immediately after he had crushed Antony, remembering that he had
often charged him with being the obstacle to its restoration. The second
time was in consequence of a long illness, when he sent for the
magistrates and the senate to his own house, and delivered them a
particular account of the state of the empire. But reflecting at the
same time that it would be both hazardous to himself to return to the
condition of a private person, and might be dangerous to the public to
have the government placed again under the control of the people, he
resolved to keep it in his own hands, whether with the better event or
intention, is hard to say. His good intentions he often affirmed in
private discourse, and also published an edict, in which it was declared
in the following terms: "May it be permitted me to have the happiness of
establishing the commonwealth on a safe and sound basis, and thus enjoy
the reward of which I am ambitious, that of being celebrated for moulding
it into the form best adapted to present circumstances; so that, on my
leaving the world, I may carry with me the hope that the foundations
which I have laid for its future government, will stand firm and stable."
XXIX. The city, which was not built in a manner suitable to the grandeur
of the empire, and was liable to inundations of the Tiber [149], as well
as to fires, was so much improved under his administration, that he
boasted, not without reason, that he "found it of brick, but left it of
marble." [150] He also rendered (92) it secure for the time to come
against such disasters, as far as could be effected by human foresight.
A great number of public buildings were erected by him, the most
considerable of which were a forum [151], containing the temple of Mars
the Avenger, the temple of Apollo on the Palatine hill, and the temple of
Jupiter Tonans in the Capitol. The reason of his building a new forum
was the vast increase in the population, and the number of causes to be
tried in the courts, for which, the two already existing not affording
sufficient space, it was thought necessary to have a third. It was
therefore opened for public use before the temple of Mars was completely
finished; and a law was passed, that causes should be tried, and judges
chosen by lot, in that place. The temple of Mars was built in fulfilment
of a vow made during the war of Philippi, undertaken by him to avenge his
father's murder. He ordained that the senate should always assemble
there when they met to deliberate respecting wars and triumphs; that
thence should be despatched all those who were sent into the provinces in
the command of armies; and that in it those who returned victorious from
the wars, should lodge the trophies of their triumphs. He erected the
temple of Apollo [152] in that part of his house on the Palatine hill
which had been struck with lightning, and which, on that account, the
soothsayers declared the God to have chosen. He added porticos to it,
with a library of Latin and Greek authors [153]; and when advanced in
years, (93) used frequently there to hold the senate, and examine the
rolls of the judges.
He dedicated the temple to Apollo Tonans [154], in acknowledgment of his
escape from a great danger in his Cantabrian expedition; when, as he was
travelling in the night, his litter was struck by lightning, which killed
the slave who carried a torch before him. He likewise constructed some
public buildings in the name of others; for instance, his grandsons, his
wife, and sister. Thus he built the portico and basilica of Lucius and
Caius, and the porticos of Livia and Octavia [155], and the theatre of
Marcellus [156]. He also often exhorted other persons of rank to
embellish the city by new buildings, or repairing and improving the old,
according to their means. In consequence of this recommendation, many
were raised; such as the temple of Hercules and the Muses, by Marcius
Philippus; a temple of Diana by Lucius Cornificius; the Court of Freedom
by Asinius Pollio; a temple of Saturn by Munatius Plancus; a theatre by
Cornelius Balbus [157]; an amphitheatre by Statilius Taurus; and several
other noble edifices by Marcus Agrippa. [158]
(94) XXX. He divided the city into regions and districts, ordaining that
the annual magistrates should take by lot the charge of the former; and
that the latter should be superintended by wardens chosen out of the
people of each neighbourhood. He appointed a nightly watch to be on
their guard against accidents from fire; and, to prevent the frequent
inundations, he widened and cleansed the bed of the Tiber, which had in
the course of years been almost dammed up with rubbish, and the channel
narrowed by the ruins of houses [159]. To render the approaches to the
city more commodious, he took upon himself the charge of repairing the
Flaminian way as far as Ariminum [160], and distributed the repairs of
the other roads amongst several persons who had obtained the honour of a
triumph; to be defrayed out of the money arising from the spoils of war.
Temples decayed by time, or destroyed by fire, he either repaired or
rebuilt; and enriched them, as well as many others, with splendid
offerings. On a single occasion, he deposited in the cell of the temple
of Jupiter Capitolinus, sixteen thousand pounds of gold, with jewels and
pearls to the amount of fifty millions of sesterces.
XXXI. The office of Pontifex Maximus, of which he could (95) not
decently deprive Lepidus as long as he lived [161], he assumed as soon as
he was dead. He then caused all prophetical books, both in Latin and
Greek, the authors of which were either unknown, or of no great
authority, to be brought in; and the whole collection, amounting to
upwards of two thousand volumes, he committed to the flames, preserving
only the Sibylline oracles; but not even those without a strict
examination, to ascertain which were genuine. This being done, he
deposited them in two gilt coffers, under the pedestal of the statue of
the Palatine Apollo. He restored the calendar, which had been corrected
by Julius Caesar, but through negligence was again fallen into confusion
[162], to its former regularity; and upon that occasion, called the month
Sextilis [163], by his own name, August, rather than September, in which
he was born; because in it he had obtained his first consulship, and all
his most considerable victories [164]. He increased the number, dignity,
and revenues of the priests, and especially those of the Vestal Virgins.
And when, upon the death of one of them, a new one was to be taken [165],
and many persons made interest that their daughters' names might be
omitted in the lists for election, he replied with an oath, "If either of
my own grand-daughters were old enough, I would have proposed her."
He likewise revived some old religious customs, which had become
obsolete; as the augury of public health [166], the office of (96) high
priest of Jupiter, the religious solemnity of the Lupercalia, with the
Secular, and Compitalian games. He prohibited young boys from running in
the Lupercalia; and in respect of the Secular games, issued an order,
that no young persons of either sex should appear at any public
diversions in the night-time, unless in the company of some elderly
relation. He ordered the household gods to be decked twice a year with
spring and summer flowers [167], in the Compitalian festival.
Next to the immortal gods, he paid the highest honours to the memory of
those generals who had raised the Roman state from its low origin to the
highest pitch of grandeur. He accordingly repaired or rebuilt the public
edifices erected by them; preserving the former inscriptions, and placing
statues of them all, with triumphal emblems, in both the porticos of his
forum, issuing an edict on the occasion, in which he made the following
declaration: "My design in so doing is, that the Roman people may require
from me, and all succeeding princes, a conformity to those illustrious
examples." He likewise removed the statue of Pompey from the
senate-house, in which Caius Caesar had been killed, and placed it under
a marble arch, fronting the palace attached to Pompey's theatre.
XXXII. He corrected many ill practices, which, to the detriment of the
public, had either survived the licentious habits of the late civil wars,
or else originated in the long peace. Bands of robbers showed themselves
openly, completely armed, under colour of self-defence; and in different
parts of the country, travellers, freemen and slaves without distinction,
were forcibly carried off, and kept to work in the houses of correction
[168]. Several associations were formed under the specious (97) name of
a new college, which banded together for the perpetration of all kinds of
villany. The banditti he quelled by establishing posts of soldiers in
suitable stations for the purpose; the houses of correction were
subjected to a strict superintendence; all associations, those only
excepted which were of ancient standing, and recognised by the laws, were
dissolved. He burnt all the notes of those who had been a long time in
arrear with the treasury, as being the principal source of vexatious
suits and prosecutions. Places in the city claimed by the public, where
the right was doubtful, he adjudged to the actual possessors. He struck
out of the list of criminals the names of those over whom prosecutions
had been long impending, where nothing further was intended by the
informers than to gratify their own malice, by seeing their enemies
humiliated; laying it down as a rule, that if any one chose to renew a
prosecution, he should incur the risk of the punishment which he sought
to inflict. And that crimes might not escape punishment, nor business be
neglected by delay, he ordered the courts to sit during the thirty days
which were spent in celebrating honorary games. To the three classes of
judges then existing, he added a fourth, consisting of persons of
inferior order, who were called Ducenarii, and decided all litigations
about trifling sums. He chose judges from the age of thirty years and
upwards; that is five years younger than had been usual before. And a
great many declining the office, he was with much difficulty prevailed
upon to allow each class of judges a twelve-month's vacation in turn; and
the courts to be shut during the months of November and December. [169]
XXXIII. He was himself assiduous in his functions as a judge, and would
sometimes prolong his sittings even into the night [170]: if he were
indisposed, his litter was placed before (98) the tribunal, or he
administered justice reclining on his couch at home; displaying always
not only the greatest attention, but extreme lenity. To save a culprit,
who evidently appeared guilty of parricide, from the extreme penalty of
being sewn up in a sack, because none were punished in that manner but
such as confessed the fact, he is said to have interrogated him thus:
"Surely you did not kill your father, did you?" And when, in a trial of
a cause about a forged will, all those who had signed it were liable to
the penalty of the Cornelian law, he ordered that his colleagues on the
tribunal should not only be furnished with the two tablets by which they
decided, "guilty or not guilty," but with a third likewise, ignoring the
offence of those who should appear to have given their signatures through
any deception or mistake. All appeals in causes between inhabitants of
Rome, he assigned every year to the praetor of the city; and where
provincials were concerned, to men of consular rank, to one of whom the
business of each province was referred.
XXXIV. Some laws he abrogated, and he made some new ones; such as the
sumptuary law, that relating to adultery and the violation of chastity,
the law against bribery in elections, and likewise that for the
encouragement of marriage. Having been more severe in his reform of this
law than the rest, he found the people utterly averse to submit to it,
unless the penalties were abolished or mitigated, besides allowing an
interval of three years after a wife's death, and increasing the premiums
on marriage. The equestrian order clamoured loudly, at a spectacle in
the theatre, for its total repeal; whereupon he sent for the children of
Germanicus, and shewed them partly sitting upon his own lap, and partly
on their father's; intimating by his looks and gestures, that they ought
not to think it a grievance to follow the example of that young man. But
finding that the force of the law was eluded, by marrying girls under the
age of puberty, and by frequent change of wives, he limited the time for
consummation after espousals, and imposed restrictions on divorce.