Book Seventy-seven

DIO'S ROMAN HISTORY 61

Nero seizes the sovereignty (chapters 1, 2).

At the beginning he is accustomed to yield to the influence of his mother, whom Seneca and Burrus thrust aside from control of affairs (chapter 3).

Nero's exhibitions of wantonness and his extravagance: the death of Silanus (chapters 4-6).

Love for Acte: Britannicus slain: discord with Agrippina (chapters 7, 8).

How Nero's mind began to give way (chapter 9).

About the faults and immoralities of the philosopher Seneca (chapter 10).

Sabina an object of love: Agrippina murdered (chapters 11-16).

Domitia put to death: festivities: Nero sings to the accompaniment of his lyre (chapters 17-21).

DURATION OF TIME.

M. Asinius Marcellus, Manius Acilius Aviola. (A.D. 54 = a.u. 807 = First of Nero, from Oct. 13th).

Nero Caesar Aug., L. Antistius Vetus. (A.D. 55 = a.u. 808 = Second of Nero).

Q. Volusius Saturninus, P. Cornelius Scipio. (A.D. 56 = a.u. 809 = Third of Nero).

Nero Caesar Aug. (II), L. Calpurnius Piso. (A.D. 57 = a.u. 810 = Fourth of Nero).

Nero Caesar Aug. (III), M. Valerius Messala. (A.D. 58 = a.u. 811 = Fifth of Nero).

C. Vipsanius Apronianus, L. Fonteius Capito. (A.D. 59 = a.u. 812 = Sixth of Nero).

Nero Caesar Aug. (IV), Cornelius Lentulus Cossus. (A.D. 60 = a.u. 813 = Seventh of Nero).

[Sidenote: A.D. 54 (a.u. 807)] [Sidenote:--1--] At the death of Claudius the leadership on most just principles belonged to Britannicus, who had been born a legitimate son of Claudius and in physical development was beyond what would have been expected of his years. Yet by law the power passed to Nero on account of his adoption. No claim, indeed, is stronger than that of arms. Every one who possesses superior force has always the appearance of both saying and doing what is more just. So Nero, having first disposed of Claudius's will and having succeeded him as master of the whole empire, put Britannicus and his sisters out of the way. Why, then, should one stop to lament the misfortunes of other victims?

[Sidenote:--2--] The following signs of dominion had been observed in his career. At his birth just before dawn rays not cast by any beam of sunlight yet visible surrounded his form. And a certain astrologer from this and from the motion of the stars at that time and their relation to one another divined two things in regard to him,--that he would rule and that he would murder his mother. Agrippina on hearing this became for the moment so beside herself as actually to cry out: "Let him kill me, if only he shall rule." Later she was destined to repent bitterly of her prayer. Some people become so steeped in folly that if they expect to obtain some blessing mingled with evil, they at once through their anxiety for the advantage pay no heed to the detriment. When the time for the latter also comes, they are cast down and would choose not to have secured even the greatest good thing. Yet Domitius, the father of Nero, had a sufficient previous intimation of his son's coming baseness and licentiousness, not by any oracle but through the nature of his own and Agrippina's characters. And he declared: "It is impossible for any good man to be born from me and from her." As time went on, the finding of a serpent skin around Nero's neck when he was but a boy caused the seers to say: "He shall acquire great power from the aged man." Serpents are thought to slough off their old age with their old skin, and so get power.

[Sidenote:--3--] Nero was seventeen years of age when he began to rule. He first entered the camp, and, after reading to the soldiers all that Seneca had written, he promised them as much as Claudius had been accustomed to give. Before the senate he read such a considerable document,--this, too, written by Seneca,--that it was voted the statements should be inscribed on a silver tablet and should be read every time the new consuls took up the duties of their office. Consequently those who heard him made themselves ready to enjoy a good reign according to the letter of the compilation. At first Agrippina [in company with Pallas, a vulgar and tiresome man,] managed all affairs pertaining to the empire, and she and her son went about together, often reclining in the same litter; usually, however, she would be carried and he would follow alongside. It was she who transacted business with embassies and sent letters to peoples and governors and kings. When this had gone on for a considerable time, it aroused the displeasure of Seneca and Burrus, who were both the most sensible and the most influential of the advisers of Nero. The one was his teacher and the other was prefect of the Pretorians. They took the following occasion to stop this method of procedure. An embassy of Armenians had arrived and Agrippina wished to ascend the platform from which Nero was talking with them. The two men, seeing her approach, persuaded the young man to go down before she could reach there and meet his mother, pretending some form of greeting. After that was done they did not return again, making some excuse to prevent the foreigners from seeing the flaw in the empire. Subsequently they labored to keep any public business from being again committed to her hands.

[Sidenote:--4--] When they had accomplished this, they themselves took charge of the entire empire and gave it the very best and fairest management that they could. Nero was not in general fond of affairs and was glad to live at leisure. [The reason, indeed, that he had previously distrusted his mother and now was fond of her lay in the fact that now he was free to enjoy himself, and the government was being carried on no less well. And his advisers after consultation made many changes in existing customs, abolishing some things altogether and passing a number of new laws.] They let Nero sow his wild oats with the intention of bringing about in him through the satisfaction of all his desires a changed attitude of mind, while in the meantime no great damage should be done to public interests. Surely they must have known that a young and self-willed spirit, when reared in unreproved license and in absolute authority, so far from becoming satiated by the indulgence of its passions is ruined more and more by these very agencies. Indeed, Nero at first gave but simple dinners; his revels, his drunkenness, his amours were moderate. Afterward, as no one reproved him for them and public business was carried forward none the worse for all of it, he began to believe that what he did was right and that he could carry his practices to even greater lengths. [Consequently he began to indulge in each of these pursuits in a more open and precipitate fashion. And in case his guardians gave him any warning or his mother any rebuke, he would appear abashed while they were present and promise to reform; but as soon as they were gone, he would again become the slave of his desire and yield to those who were dragging him in the other direction,--a straight course down hill.] Next he came to despise instruction, inasmuch as he was always hearing from his associates, "Do _you_ submit to this?" or "Do _you_ fear these people?", "Don't you know that you are Caesar?", "Have not you the authority over them rather than they over you?" He was also animated by obstinacy, not wishing to acknowledge his mother as superior and himself as inferior, nor to admit the greater good sense of Seneca and Burrus.

[Sidenote:--5--] Finally he passed the possibility of being shamed, dashed to the ground and trampled under foot all their suggestions, and began to follow in the steps of Gaius. When he had once felt a desire to emulate him, he quite outdid him, for he believed that the imperial power must manifest itself among other ways by allowing no one to surpass it even in the vilest deeds. [As he was praised for this by the crowds, and received many pleasant compliments from them, he gave himself no rest. His doings were at first confined to his home and associates, but were later on carried abroad. Thus he attached a mighty disgrace to the whole Roman race and committed many outrages upon the individuals composing it. Innumerable acts of violence and insult, of rape and murder, were committed both by the emperor himself and by those who at one time or another had influence with him. And, as certainly and inevitably follows in all such practices], great sums of money naturally were spent, great sums unjustly procured, and great sums seized by force. For under no circumstances was Nero niggardly. Here is an illustration. He had ordered no less than two hundred and fifty myriads at one time to be given to Doryphorus, who attended to the state documents of his empire. Agrippina had it all piled in a heap, hoping by showing him the money all together to make him change his mind. Instead, he asked how much the mass before him amounted to, and when he was informed he doubled it, saying: "I was not aware that I had allowed him so little." It can clearly be seen, then, that as a result of the magnitude of his expenditures he would quickly exhaust the treasures in the royal vaults and quickly need new revenues. Hence unusual taxes were imposed and the property of the well-to-do was not left intact. Some lost their possessions to spite him and others destroyed themselves with their livelihoods. Similarly he hated and made away with some others who had no considerable wealth; for, if they possessed any excellent trait or were of a good family, he became suspicious that they disliked him.

[Sidenote:--6--] Such were the general characteristics of Nero. I shall now proceed to details.

In the matter of horse-races Nero grew so enthusiastic that he adorned famous race-horses that had passed their prime with the regular street costume for men and honored them with money for their fodder. The horsebreeders and charioteers, elated at this enthusiasm of his, proceeded to abuse unjustifiably even the praetors and consuls. But Aulus Fabricius, when praetor, finding that they refused to hold contests on fair terms, dispensed with them entirely. He trained dogs to draw chariots and introduced them in place of horses. When this was done, the wearers of the white and of the red immediately entered their chariots: but, as the Greens and the Blues would not even then participate, Nero at his own cost gave the prizes to the horses, and the regular program of the circus was carried out.

Agrippina showed readiness to attack the greatest undertakings, as is evidenced by her causing the death of Marcus Julius Silanus, to whom she sent some of the poison with which she had treacherously murdered her husband.

Silanus was governor of Asia, and was in no respect inferior to the general character of his family. It was for this, more than for anything else, she said, that she killed him, not wishing to have him preferred before Nero, by reason of the latter's manner of life. Moreover, she turned everything into trade and gathered money from the most insignificant and basest sources.

Laelianus, who was despatched to Armenia in place of Pollio, had been assigned to the command of the night watch. And he was no better than Pollio, for, while surpassing him in reputation, he was all the more insatiable in respect to gain.

[Sidenote: A.D. 55 (a.u. 808)] [Sidenote:--7--] Agrippina found a grievance in the fact that she was no longer supreme in affairs of the palace. It was chiefly because of Acte. Acte had been brought as a slave from Asia. She caught the fancy of Nero, was adopted into the family of Attalus, and was cherished much more carefully than was Nero's wife Octavia. Agrippina, indignant at this and at other matters, first attempted to rebuke him, and set herself to humiliating his associates, some by beatings and by getting rid of others. But when she accomplished nothing, she took it greatly to heart and remarked to him: "It was I who made you emperor," just as if she had the power to take away the authority from him again. She did not comprehend that every form of independent power given to any one by a private citizen immediately ceases to be the property of the giver and belongs to the one who receives it to use against his benefactor.

Britannicus Nero murdered treacherously by poison, and then, as the skin was turned livid by the action of the drug, he smeared the body with gypsum. But as it was being carried through the Forum a heavy rain falling while the gypsum was still damp washed it all away, so that the horror was exposed not only to comment but to view. [After Britannicus was dead Seneca and Burrus ceased to give careful attention to public interests and were satisfied if they might manage them conservatively and still preserve their lives. Consequently Nero now made himself conspicuous by giving free rein to all his desires without fear of retribution. His behavior began to be absolutely insensate, as is shown, for instance, by his punishing a certain knight, Antonius, as a seller of poisons and by further burning the poisons publicly. He took great credit for this action as well as for prosecuting some persons who had tampered with wills; but other people only laughed to see him punishing his own acts in the persons of others.]

[Sidenote:--8--] His secret acts of licentiousness were many, both at home and throughout the City, by night and by day. He used to frequent the taverns and wandered about everywhere like a private person. Any number of beatings and insults took place in this connection and the evil spread to the theatres, so that those who worked as dancers and who had charge of the horses paid no attention either to praetors or to consuls. They were disorderly themselves and led others to be the same, while Nero not only did not restrain them even by words, but stirred them up all the more. He delighted in their actions and used to be secretly conveyed in a litter into the theatres, where unseen by the rest he watched the proceedings. Indeed, he forbade the soldiers who had usually been in attendance at all public gatherings to appear there any longer. The reason he assigned was that they ought not to superintend anything but strictly military affairs, but his true purpose was to afford those who wished to raise a disturbance the amplest scope. He made use of the same excuse in reference to his not allowing any soldier to attend his mother, saying that no one except the emperor ought to be guarded by them. In this way he displayed his enmity toward the masses, and as for his mother he was already openly at variance with her. Everything that they said to each other, or that the imperial pair did each day, was reported outside the palace, yet it did not all reach the public and hence conjectures were made to supply missing details and different versions arose. What was conceivable as happening, in view of the baseness and lewdness of the pair, was noised abroad as having already taken place, and reports possessing some credibility were believed as true. The populace, seeing Agrippina now for the first time without Pretorians, took care not to fall in with her even by accident; and if any one did chance to meet her he would hastily get out of the way without saying a word.

[Sidenote:--9--] At one spectacle men on horseback overcame bulls while riding along beside them, and the knights who served as Nero's personal guard brought down with their javelins four hundred bears and three hundred lions. On the same occasion thirty knights belonging to the military fought in the arena. The emperor sanctioned such proceedings openly. Secretly, however, he carried on nocturnal revels throughout the length and breadth of the city, insulting the women, practicing lewdness on boys, stripping those whom he encountered, striking, wounding, murdering. He had an idea that his incognito was impenetrable, for he used all sorts of different costumes and false hair at different times: but he would be recognized by his retinue and by his deeds. No one else would have dared to commit so many and such gross outrages so recklessly. [Sidenote: A.D. 56 (a.u. 809)] It was becoming unsafe even for a person to stay at home, since he would break into shops and houses. It came about that a certain Julius Montanus, [Footnote: _C. Iulius Montanus C.F._ (Cp. Suetonius, Life of Nero, chapter 60).] a senator, enraged on his wife's account, fell upon this reveler and inflicted many blows upon him, so that he had to remain several days in concealment by reason of the black eyes he had received. Montanus did not suffer for it, since Nero thought the violence had been all an accident and was for showing no anger at the occurrence, had not the other sent him a letter begging his pardon. Nero on reading the epistle remarked: "So he knew that he was striking Nero." The suicide of Montanus followed hard after.

[Sidenote: A.D. 57 (a.u. 810)] In the course of producing a spectacle at one of the theatres, he suddenly filled the place with sea-water so that the fishes and sea-monsters [Footnote: [Greek: ktaenae] of the MSS. was changed to [Greek: kaetae] on the conjecture of Sylburgius, who was followed by Bekker, Dindorf, and Boissevain. (Compare also Suetonius, Life of Nero, chapter 12).] swam in it, and had a naval battle between "Persians" and "Athenians." At the close of it he suddenly withdrew the water, dried the subsoil, and continued land contests, not only between two men at a time but with crowds pitted against other crowds.

[Sidenote: A.D. 58 (a.u. 811)] [Sidenote:--10--] Subsequent to this, oratorical contests took place, and as a result even of these numbers were exiled and put to death.--Seneca also was held to account, one of the charges against him being that he was intimate with Agrippina. [It had not been enough for him to debauch Julia, nor had he become better as a result of exile, but he went on to make advances to such a woman as Agrippina, with such a son.] Not only in this instance but in others he was convicted of doing precisely the opposite of what he taught in his philosophical doctrines. He brought accusations against tyranny, yet he made himself a teacher of tyrants: he denounced such of his associates as were powerful, yet he did not hold aloof from the palace himself: he had nothing good to say of flatterers, yet he had so fawned upon Messalina and Claudius's freedmen [that he had sent them from the island a book containing eulogies upon them; this latter caused him such mortification that he erased the passage.] While finding fault with the rich, he himself possessed a property of seven thousand five hundred myriads; and though he censured the extravagances of others, he kept five hundred three-legged tables of cedar wood, every one of them with identical ivory feet, and he gave banquets on them. In mentioning these details I have at least given a hint of their inevitable adjuncts,--the licentiousness in which he indulged at the very time that he made a most brilliant marriage, and the delight that he took in boys past their prime (a practice which he also taught Nero to follow). Nevertheless, his austerity of life had earlier been so severe that he had asked his pupil neither to kiss him nor to eat at the same table with him. [For the latter request he had a good reason, namely, that Nero's absence would enable him to conduct his philosophical studies at leisure without being hindered by the young man's dinners. But as for the kiss, I can not conceive how that tradition came about. The only explanation which one could imagine, namely, his unwillingness to kiss that sort of mouth, is proved to be false by the facts concerning his favorites. For this and for his adultery some complaints were lodged against him, but at this time he was himself released without formal accusations and succeeded in begging off Pallas and Burrus. Later on he did not come out so well.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 59 (a.u. 811)] [Sidenote:--11--] There was a certain Marcus Salvius Otho, who through similarity of character and sharing in wrongdoing had become so intimate with Nero that he was not even punished for saying one day to the latter: "Then I hope you may see me Caesar." All that came of it was the response: "I sha'n't see you even consul." It was to him that the emperor gave Sabina, of patrician family, after separating her from her husband, and they both enjoyed her together. Agrippina, therefore, fearing that Nero would marry the woman (for he was now beginning to entertain a mad passion for her), ventured upon a most unholy course. As if it were not enough for her story that she had attracted her uncle Claudius into love for her by her blandishments and uncontrolled looks and kisses, she undertook to enslave Nero also in similar fashion. However, I am not sure whether this actually occurred, or whether it was invented to fit their characters: but I state here what is admitted by all, that Nero had a mistress resembling Agrippina of whom he was especially fond because of this very resemblance. And when he toyed with the girl herself or threw out hints about it to others, he would say that he was having intercourse with his mother.

[Sidenote: A.D. 59 (a.u. 812)] Sabina on hearing about this began to persuade Nero to get rid of his mother in order to forestall her alleged plots against him. He was likewise incited,--so many trustworthy men have stated,--by Seneca, whether it was to obscure the complaint against his own name that the latter was anxious or to lead Nero on to a career of unholy bloodguiltiness that should bring about most speedily his destruction by gods and men. But they shrank from doing the deed openly and were not able to put her out of the way secretly by means of poison, for she took extreme precautions against all such things. One day they saw in the theatre a ship that automatically separated in two, let out some beasts, and came together again so as to be once more seaworthy; and they at once had another one built like it. By the time the ship was finished Agrippina had been quite won over by Nero's attentions, for he exhibited devotion to her in every way to make sure that she should suspect nothing and be off her guard. He dared, however, do nothing in Rome for fear the crime should become widely known. Hence he went some distance into Campania accompanied by his mother, and took a sail on the fatal ship itself, which was adorned in the most brilliant fashion to the end that she might feel a desire to use the vessel continually.

[Sidenote:--13--] When they reached Bauli, he gave for several days most costly dinners at which he showed great solicitude in entertaining his mother. If she were absent he feigned to miss her sorely, and if she were present he was lavish of caresses. He bade her ask whatever she desired and bestowed many gifts without her asking. When he had shaped the situation to this extent [Footnote: Adopting Reiske's conjecture, _nv_.], then rising from dinner about midnight he embraced her, and straining her to his breast kissed her eyes and hands, exclaiming: "Mother, farewell, and happiness attend you! For you I live and because of you I rule." He then gave her in charge of Anicetus, a freedman, supposedly to convey her home on the ship that he had prepared.

But the sea would not endure the tragedy about to be enacted on it nor would it submit to assume responsibility for the deception wrought by the monstrous contrivance: therefore, though the ship parted asunder and Agrippina fell into the water, she did not perish. In spite of the fact that it was dark and she was full of strong drink and that the sailors used their oar blades on her, so much so that they killed Acerronia Polla, her fellow voyager, she nevertheless saved her life and reached home. Thereupon she affected not to realize that it was a plot and let not a word of it be known, but sent speedily to her son an account of the occurrence with the implication that it had happened by accident, and conveyed to him the good news (as she assumed it to be) that she was safe. Nero hearing this could not endure the unexpected outcome but punished the messenger as savagely as if he had come to assassinate him, and at once despatched Anicetus with the sailors to make an end of his mother. He would not entrust the killing of her to the Pretorians. When she saw them, she knew for what they had come, and leaping from her bed tore open her clothing; exposing her abdomen, and cried out: "Strike here, Anicetus, strike here, for this bore Nero!"

[Sidenote:--14--] Thus was Agrippina, daughter of Germanicus, grandchild of Agrippa, descendant of Augustus, slain by the very son to whom she had given the sovereignty and for whose sake she had killed her uncle and others. Nero when informed that she was dead would not believe it, for the monstrousness of his bold deed plunged him in doubts; therefore he desired to behold the victim with his own eyes. So he laid bare her body, looked her all over and inspected her wounds, finally uttering a remark far more abominable even than the crime. What he said was: "I did not know I had so beautiful a mother."

To the Pretorians he gave money evidently to secure their prayers for many such occurrences, and he sent to the senate a message in which he enumerated the offences of which he knew she was guilty, stating also that she had plotted against him and on being detected had committed suicide. Yet for all this calm explanation to the governing body he was frequently subject to agitation at night, so that he would even leap suddenly from his bed. And by day terror seized him at the sound of trumpets that seemed to blare forth some horrid din of war from the spot where lay Agrippina's bones. Therefore he went elsewhere. And when in his new abode he had again the same experience, he distractedly transferred his residence to some other place.

Nero, not having a word of truth from any one and seeing that all approved what he had been doing, thought that either his actions had escaped notice or that he had conducted himself correctly. Hence he became much worse also in other respects. He came to think that all that it was in his power to do was right and gave heed to those whose speech was prompted by fear or flattery as if they told absolute truth. For a time he was subject to fears and questionings, but, after the ambassadors had made him a number of pleasing speeches, he regained courage.

[Sidenote:--15--] The population of Rome, on hearing the report, though horrified were nevertheless joyful, because they thought that now he would surely come to ruin. Nearly all of the senators pretended to rejoice at what had taken place, participated in Nero's pleasure, and voted many measures of which they thought he would be glad. Publius Thrasea Paetus had also come to the senate-house and listened to the letter. When, however, the reading was done, he at once rose without making any comment and went out. Thus what he would have said he could not, and what he could have said he would not. He behaved in the same way under all other conditions. For he used to say: "If it were a matter of Nero's putting only me to death, I could easily pardon the rest who load him with flatteries. But since among those even who praise him so excessively he has gotten rid of some and will yet destroy others, why should one stoop to indecent behavior and perish like a slave, when like a freeman one may pay the debt to nature? There shall be talk of me hereafter, but of these men not a word save for the single fact that they were killed." Such was the kind of man Thrasea showed himself, and he would always encourage himself by saying: "Nero can kill me, but he can not harm me."

[Sidenote:--16--] When Nero after his mother's murder reentered Rome, people paid him reverence in public, but in private so long as any one could speak frankly with safety they tore his character to very tatters. And first they hung by night a piece of hide on one of his statues to signify that he himself ought to have a hiding. Second, they threw down in the Forum a baby to which was fastened a board, saying: "I will not take you up for fear you may slay your mother."

At Nero's entrance into Rome they took down the statues of Agrippina. But there was one which they did not cut loose soon enough, and so they threw over it a cloth which gave it the appearance of being veiled. Thereupon somebody at once affixed to the statue the following inscription: "I am abashed and thou art unashamed."

In many quarters at once, also, might be read the inscription:

"Nero, Orestes, Alemeon, matricides."

Persons could actually be heard saying in so many words: "Nero put his mother out of the way." Not a few lodged information that certain persons had spoken in this way, their object being not so much to destroy those whom they accused as to bring reproach, on Nero. Hence he would admit no suit of that kind, either not wishing that the rumor should become more widespread by such means, or out of utter contempt for what was said. However, in the midst of the sacrifices offered in memory of Agrippina according to decree, the sun suffered a total eclipse and the stars could be seen. Also, the elephants drawing the chariot of Augustus entered the hippodrome and went as far as the senators' seats, but at that point they stopped and refused to proceed farther. And the event which one might most readily conjecture to have taken place through divine means was that a thunderbolt descended upon his dinner and consumed it all as it was being brought to him, like some tremendous harpy snatching away his food.

[Sidenote:--17--] [In spite of this he killed by poison also his aunt Domitia, whom likewise he used to say he revered like a mother. He would not even wait a few days for her to die a natural death of old age, but was eager to destroy her also. His haste to do this was inspired by her possessions at Baiae and Ravenna, which included magnificent amusement pavilions that she had erected and] are in fine condition even now. In honor of his mother he celebrated a very great and costly festival, events taking place for several days in five or six theatres at once. It was then that an elephant was led to the very top of the vault of the theatre and walked down from that point on ropes, carrying a rider. There was another exhibition at once most disgraceful and shocking. Men and women not only of equestrian but even of senatorial rank appeared in the orchestra, the hippodrome, and even the hunting-theatre, like the veriest outcasts. Some of them played the flute and danced or acted tragedies and comedies or sang to the lyre. They drove horses, killed beasts, fought as gladiators, some willingly, others with a very bad grace. Men of that day beheld the great families,--the Furii, the Horatii, the Fabii, Poreii, Valerii, and all the rest whose trophies, whose temples were to be seen,--standing down below the level of the spectators and doing some things to which no common citizen even would stoop. So they would point them out to one another and make remarks, Macedonians saying: "That is the descendant of Paulus"; Greeks, "Yonder the offspring of Mummius"; Sicilians, "Look at Claudius"; the Epirots, "Look at Appius"; Asiatics, "There's Lucius"; Iberians, "There's Publius"; Carthaginians, "There's Africanus"; Romans, "There they all are". Such was the expiation that the emperor chose to offer for his own indecency.

[Sidenote:--18--] All who had sense, likewise, bewailed the multitude of expenditures. Every costliest viand that men eat, everything else, indeed, of the highest value,--horses, slaves, teams, gold, silver, raiment of varied hues,--was given away by tickets. Nero would throw tiny balls, each one appropriately inscribed, among the populace and that article represented by the token received would be presented to the person who had seized it. The sensible, I say, reflected that, when he spent so much to prevent molestation in his disgraceful course, he would not be restrained from any most outrageous proceedings through mere hope of profit.

Some portents had taken place about this time, which the seers declared imported destruction to him, and they advised him to divert the danger upon others. So he would have immediately put numbers of men out of the way, had not Seneca said to him: "No matter how many you may slay, you can not kill your successor."

It was now that he celebrated a corresponding number of "Preservation Sacrifices," as he called them, and dedicated the forum for the sale of dainties, called _Macellum_. [Sidenote:--19--] Somewhat later he instituted a different kind of feast (called Juvenalia, a word that showed it belonged in some way to "youth"). The occasion was the shaving of his beard for the first time. The hairs he cast into a small golden globe and offered to Jupiter Capitolinus. To furnish amusement members of the noblest families as well as others did not fail to give exhibitions. For instance, Aelia Catella danced: he was first of all a man prominent for family and wealth and also advanced in years,--he was eighty years of age. Others who on account of old age or disease could not do anything on their own account sang as chorus. All devoted themselves to practicing as much as and by whatever way they were able. Regularly appointed "schools" were frequented by the most distinguished men, women, girls, lads, old women, old men. In case any one was unable to appear in any other fashion, he would enter the choruses. And whereas some of them out of shame had put on masks to avoid being recognized, Nero at the request of the populace had them taken off and showed these people to those by whom they had once been ruled. Now most of all it was that these amateur performers and others deemed the dead happy; for many of the foremost men this year had been slain. Some of them, charged with conspiracy against Nero, were surrounded by the soldiers and stoned to death.

[Sidenote:--20--] And, as there needed to be a fitting climax to these deeds, Nero himself appeared as an actor and Gallio [Footnote: _L. Iunius Gallio_.] proclaimed him by name. There stood Caesar on the stage wearing the garb of a singing zither-player. Spoke the emperor: "My lords, of your kindness give me ear." Then did the Augustus sing to the zither a thing called "Attis or the Bacchantes," [Footnote: The title of one of Nero's poems.] whilst many soldiers stood by and all the people that the seats would hold sat watching. Yet had he (according to the tradition) but a slight voice and an indistinct, so that he moved all present to laughter and tears at once. Beside him stood Burrus and Seneca like teachers prompting a pupil: they would wave their hands and togas at every utterance and draw others on to do the same. Indeed, Nero had ready a peculiar corps of about five thousand soldiers, called Augustans; these would begin the applause, and all the rest, however loath, were obliged to shout aloud with them,--except Thrasea. He would never stoop to such conduct. But the rest, and especially the prominent men, gathered with alacrity even when in grief and joined as if glad in all the shouts of the Augustans. One could hear them saying: "Excellent Caesar! Apollo! Augustus! One like unto the Pythian! By thine own self, O Caesar, no one can surpass thee!" After this performance he entertained the people at a feast on boats on the site of the naval battle given by Augustus: thence at midnight he sailed through a canal into the Tiber.

[Sidenote: A.D. 60 (a.u. 813)] [Sidenote:--21--] This, then, he did to celebrate the shaving of his chin. In behalf of his preservation and the continuance of his authority,--thus he gave notice,--he instituted quinquennial games, naming them Neronia. In honor of the event he also constructed the gymnasium at the dedication of which he made a free distribution of olive oil to the senators and knights. The crown for singing to the zither, moreover, he took without a contest, for all others were debarred on the assumption that they were unworthy of victory. [And immediately in their garb he was enrolled on the very lists of the gymnasium.] Thenceforward all other crowns for zither playing at all the contests were sent to him as the only person competent to win victories of that sort.

DIO'S ROMAN HISTORY 62

About the disaster to the Romans in Britain, brought upon them by Buduica (chapters 1-7).

Paulinus, returning from subduing the island of Mona, conquers in battle (chapters 8-12).

Octavia Augusta and Burrus, likewise Plautus and Pallas, are put to death by Nero (chapters 13, 14).

Most swinish reveling at the games of Tigillinus (chapter 15).

How Nero set the city on fire (chapters 16-18).

The uprightness of Corbulo: proceedings against Vologaesus and Tiridates (chapters 19, 20).

Misfortune attends the endeavors of Paetus: Vologaesus forms a compact with Corbulo (chapters 21-23).

Seneca, Soranus, Thrasea, Sabina are put to death: Musonius and Cornutus are banished (chapters 24-29).

DURATION OF TIME.

Nero Aug. (IV), Cornelius Cossus Cossi F. Lentulus. (A.D. 60 = a.u. 813 = Seventh of Nero, from Oct. 13th).

Caesonius Paetus, P. Petronius Turpilianus. (A.D. 61 = a.u. 814 = Eighth of Nero).

P. Marius Celsus, L. Asinius Gallus. (A.D. 62 = a.u. 815 = Ninth of Nero).

C. Memmius Regulus, L. Verginius Rufus. (A.D. 63 = a.u. 816 = Tenth of Nero).

C. Lecanius Bassus, M. Licinius Crassus Frugi. (A.D. 64 = a.u. 817 = Eleventh of Nero).

A. Licinius Nerva Silanus, M. Vestinus Atticus. (A.D. 65 = a.u. 818 = Twelfth of Nero).

[Sidenote: A.D. 61 (a.u. 814)] [Sidenote:--1--] While this sport was going on at Rome, a terrible disaster had taken place in Britain. Two cities had been sacked, eight myriads of Romans and of their allies had perished, and the island had been lost. Moreover, all this ruin was brought upon them by a woman, a fact which in itself caused them the greatest shame. Heaven evidently gave them in advance an indication of the catastrophe. At night there was heard to issue from the senate-house foreign jargon mingled with laughter and from the theatre outcries with wailing: yet no mortal man had uttered the speeches or the groans. Houses under water came to view in the river Thames, [Footnote: Compare Tacitus, Annals, XIV, 32 ("visamque speciem in aestuario Tamesae subversae Coloniae").] and the ocean between the island and Gaul sometimes grew bloody at flood-tide.

[Sidenote:--2--] The _casus belli_ lay in the confiscation of the money which Claudius had given to the foremost Britons,--Decianus Catus, governor of the island, announcing that this must now be sent back. This was one reason [Lacuna] [Footnote: It would seem natural to supply "for the uprising," as does Reiske.] and another was that Seneca had lent them on excellent terms as regards interest a thousand myriads that they did not want, [Footnote: The meaning of this phrase ( [Greek: achousin]) is not wholly clear. Naber purposes to substitute [Greek: aitousin] ("that they were asking for").] and had afterward called in this loan all at once and levied on them for it with severity. But the person who most stirred their spirits and persuaded them to fight the Romans, who was deemed worthy to stand at their head and to have the conduct of the entire war, was a British woman, Buduica, [Footnote: Known commonly as Boadicea.] of the royal family and possessed of greater judgment than often belongs to women. It was she who gathered the army to the number of nearly twelve myriads and ascended a tribunal of marshy soil made after the Roman fashion. In person she was very tall, with a most sturdy figure and a piercing glance; her voice was harsh; a great mass of yellow hair fell below her waist and a large golden necklace clasped her throat; wound about her was a tunic of every conceivable color and over it a thick chlamys had been fastened with a brooch. This was her constant attire. She now grasped a spear to aid her in terrifying all beholders and spoke as follows:--

[Sidenote:--3--] "You have had actual experience of the difference between freedom and slavery. Hence, though some of you previously through ignorance of which was better may have been deceived by the alluring announcements of the Romans, yet now that you have tried both you have learned how great a mistake you made by preferring a self-imposed despotism to your ancestral mode of life. You have come to recognize how far superior is the poverty of independence to wealth in servitude. What treatment have we met with that is not most outrageous, that is not most grievous, ever since these men insinuated themselves into Britain? Have we not been deprived of our most numerous and our greatest possessions entire, while for what remains we must pay taxes? Besides pasturing and tilling all the various regions for them do we not contribute a yearly sum for our very bodies? How much better it would have been to be sold to masters once and for all than to ransom ourselves annually and possess empty names of freedom! How much better to have been slain and perish rather than go about with subservient heads! Yet what have I said? Even dying is not free from expense among them, and you know what fees we deposit on behalf of the dead. Throughout the rest of mankind death frees even those who are in slavery; only in the case of the Romans do the very dead live for their profit. Why is it that though none of us has any money,--and how or whence should we get it?,--we are stripped and despoiled like a murderer's victims? How should the Romans grow milder in process of time, when they have conducted themselves so toward us at the very start,--a period when all men show consideration for even newly captured beasts?

[Sidenote:--4--] "But, to tell the truth, it is we who have made ourselves responsible for all these evils in allowing them so much as to set foot on the island in the first place instead of expelling them at once as we did their famous Julius Caesar,--yes, in not making the idea of attempting the voyage formidable to them, while they were as yet far off, as it was to Augustus and to Gaius Caligula. So great an island, or rather in one sense a continent encircled by water, do we inhabit, a veritable world of our own, and so far are we separated by the ocean from all the rest of mankind that we have been believed to dwell on a different earth and under a different sky and some of their wisest men were not previously sure of even our exact name. Yet for all this we have been scorned and trampled under foot by men who know naught else than how to secure gain. Still, let us even at this late day, if not before, fellow-citizens, friends and relatives,--for I deem you all relatives, in that you inhabit a single island and are called by [Footnote: Reading [Greek: chechlaemenous](van Herwerden).] one common name,--let us do our duty while the memory of freedom still abides within us, that we may leave both the name and the fact of it to our children. For if we utterly lose sight of the happy conditions amid which we were born and bred, what pray will they do, reared in bondage?

[Sidenote:--5--] "This I say not to inspire you with a hatred of present circumstances,--that hatred is already apparent,--nor with a fear of the future,--that fear you already have,--but to commend you because of your own accord you choose to do just what you ought, and to thank you for cooperating so readily with me and your own selves at once. Be nowise afraid of the Romans. They are not more numerous than are we nor yet braver. And the proof is that they have protected themselves with helmets and breastplates and greaves and furthermore have equipped their camps with palisades and walls and ditches to make sure that they shall suffer no harm by any hostile assault. [Footnote: Corruptions in the text emended by Reiske.] Their fears impel them to choose this method rather than engage in any active work like us. We enjoy such a superabundance of bravery that we regard tents as safer than walls and our shields as affording greater protection than their whole suits of mail. As a consequence, we when victorious can capture them and when overcome by force can elude them. And should we ever choose to retreat, we can conceal ourselves in swamps and mountains so inaccessible that we can be neither found nor taken. The enemy, however, can neither pursue any one by reason of their heavy armor nor yet flee. And if they ever should slip away from us, taking refuge in certain designated spots, there, too, they are sure to be enclosed as in a trap. These are some of the respects in which they are vastly inferior to us, and others are their inability to bear up under hunger, thirst, cold, or heat, as we can; for they require shade and protection, they require kneaded bread and wine and oil, and if the supply of any of these things fails them they simply perish. For us, on the other hand, any root or grass serves as bread, any plant juice as olive oil, any water as wine, any tree as a house. Indeed, this very region is to us an acquaintance and ally, but to them unknown and hostile. As for the rivers, we swim them naked, but they even with boats can not cross easily. Let us therefore go against them trusting boldly to good fortune. Let us show them that they are hares and foxes trying to rule dogs and wolves."

[Sidenote:--6--] At these words, employing a species of divination, she let a hare escape from her bosom, and as it ran in what they considered a lucky direction, the whole multitude shouted with pleasure, and Buduica raising her hand to heaven, spoke: "I thank thee, Andraste, [Footnote: Not much information is preserved regarding this indigenous goddess of Britain. Reimar asserts that she is practically identical with Boccharte, Astarte, or Venus.] and call upon thee, who are a woman, being myself also a woman that rules not burden-bearing Egyptians like Nitocris, nor merchant Assyrians like Semiramis (of these things we have heard from the Romans), nor even the Romans themselves, as did Messalina first and later Agrippina;--at present their chief is Nero, in name a man, in fact a woman, as is shown by his singing, his playing the cithara, his adorning himself:--but ruling as I do men of Britain that know not how to till the soil or ply a trade yet are thoroughly versed in the arts of war and hold all things common, even children and wives; wherefore the latter possess the same valor as the males: being therefore queen of such men and such women I supplicate and pray thee for victory and salvation and liberty against men insolent, unjust, insatiable, impious,--if, indeed we ought to term those creatures men who wash in warm water, eat artificial dainties, drink unmixed wine, anoint themselves with myrrh, sleep on soft couches with boys for bedfellows (and past their prime at that), are slaves to a zither-player, yes, an inferior zither-player. Wherefore may this Domitia-Nero _woman_ reign no more over you or over me: let the wench sing and play the despot over the Romans. They surely deserve to be in slavery to such a being whose tyranny they have patiently borne already this long time. But may we, mistress, ever look to thee alone as our head."

[Sidenote:--7--] After an harangue of this general nature Buduica led her army against the Romans. The latter chanced to be without a leader for the reason that Paulinus their commander had gone on an expedition to Mona, an island near Britain. This enabled her to sack and plunder two Roman cities, and, as I said, she wrought indescribable slaughter. Persons captured by the Britons underwent every form of most frightful treatment. The conquerors committed the most atrocious and bestial outrages. For instance, they hung up naked the noblest and most distinguished women, cut off their breasts and sewed them to their mouths, to make the victims appear to be eating them. After that they impaled them on sharp skewers run perpendicularly the whole length of the body. All this they did to the accompaniment of sacrifices, banquets, and exhibitions of insolence in all of their sacred places, but chiefly in the grove of Andate,--that being the name of their personification of Victory, to whom they paid the most excessive reverence.

[Sidenote:--8--] It happened that Paulinus had already brought Mona to terms; hence on learning of the disaster in Britain he at once set sail thither from Mona. He was unwilling to risk a conflict with the barbarians immediately, for he feared their numbers and their frenzy; therefore he was for postponing the battle to a more convenient season. But as he grew short of food and the barbarians did not desist from pressing him hard, he was compelled, though contrary to his plan, to enter into an engagement with them. Buduica herself, heading an army of about twenty-three myriads of men, rode on a chariot and assigned the rest to their several stations. Now Paulinus could not extend his phalanx the width of her whole line, for, even if the men had been drawn up only one deep, they would not have stretched far enough, so inferior were they in numbers: nor did he dare to join battle with one compact force, for fear he should be surrounded and cut down. Accordingly, he separated his army into three divisions in order to fight at several points at once, and he made each of the divisions so strong that it could not easily be broken through. While ordering and arranging his men he likewise exhorted them, saying:

[Sidenote:--9--] "Up, fellow-soldiers! Up, men of Rome! Show these pests how much even in misfortune we surpass them. It is a shame for you now to lose ingloriously what but a short while ago you gained by your valor. Often have we ourselves and also our fathers with far fewer numbers than we have at the present conquered far more numerous antagonists. Fear not the host of them or their rebellion: their boldness rests on nothing better than headlong rashness unaided by arms and exercise. Fear not because they have set on fire a few cities: they took these not by force nor after a battle, but one was betrayed and the other abandoned. Do you now exact from them the proper penalty for these deeds, that so they may learn by actual experience what they undertook when they wronged such men as us."

[Sidenote:--10--] After speaking these words to some he came to a second group and said: "Now is the occasion, now, fellow-soldiers, for zeal, for daring. If to-day you prove yourselves brave men, you will recover what has slipped from your grasp. If you overcome this enemy, no one else will any longer withstand us. By one such battle you will both make sure of your present possessions and subdue whatever is left. All soldiers stationed anywhere else will emulate you and foes will be terror-stricken. Therefore, since it is in your own hands either to rule fearlessly all mankind, both the nations that your fathers left under your control and those which you yourselves have gained in addition, or else to be bereft of them utterly, choose rather to be free, to rule, to live in wealth, to enjoy prosperity, than through indolence to suffer the reverse of these conditions."

[Sidenote:--11--] After making an address of this sort to the group in question, he came up to the third division and said also to them: "You have heard what sort of acts these wretches have committed against us, nay more, you have even seen some of them. Therefore choose either yourselves to suffer the same treatment as previous victims and furthermore to be driven entirely out of Britain, or else through victory to avenge those that perished and also to give to the rest of mankind an example of mild clemency toward the obedient, of necessary severity toward the rebellious. I entertain the highest hopes of victory for our side, counting on the following factors: first, the assistance of the gods; they usually cooperate with the party that has been wronged: second, our inherited bravery; we are Romans and have shown ourselves superior to all mankind in various instances of valor: next, our experience; we have defeated and subdued these very men that are now arrayed against us: last, our good name; it is not worthy opponents but our slaves with whom we are coming in conflict, persons who enjoyed freedom and self-government only so far as we allowed it. Yet even should the outcome prove contrary to our hope,--and I will not shrink from mentioning even this contingency,--it is better for us to fall fighting bravely than to be captured and impaled, to see our own entrails cut out, to be spitted on red hot skewers, to perish dissolved in boiling water, when we have fallen into the power of creatures that are very beasts, savage, lawless, godless. Let us therefore either beat them or die on the spot. Britain shall be a noble memorial to us, even though all subsequent Romans should be driven from it; for in any case our bodies shall forever possess the land."

[Sidenote:--12--] At the conclusion of exhortations of this sort and others like them he raised the signal for battle. Thereupon they approached each other, the barbarians making a great outcry intermingled with menacing incantations, but the Romans silently and in order until they came within a javelin's throw of the enemy. Then, while the foe were advancing against them at a walk, the Romans started at a given word and charged them at full speed, and when the clash came easily broke through the opposing ranks; but, as they were surrounded by the great numbers, they had to be fighting everywhere at once. Their struggle took many forms. In the first place, light-armed troops might be in conflict with light-armed, heavy-armed be arrayed against heavy-armed, cavalry join issue with cavalry; and against the chariots of the barbarians the Roman archers would be contending. Again, the barbarians would assail the Romans with a rush of their chariots, knocking them helter-skelter, but, since they fought without breastplates, would be themselves repulsed by the arrows. Horseman would upset foot-soldier, and foot-soldier strike down horseman; some, forming in close order, would go to meet the chariots, and others would be scattered by them; some would come to close quarters with the archers and rout them, whereas others were content to dodge their shafts at a distance: and all these things went on not at one spot, but in the three divisions at once. They contended for a long time, both parties being animated by the same zeal and daring. Finally, though late in the day, the Romans prevailed, having slain numbers in the battle, beside the wagons, or in the wood: they also captured many alive. Still, not a few made their escape and went on to prepare to fight a second time. Meanwhile, however, Buduica fell sick and died. The Britons mourned her deeply and gave her a costly burial; but, as they themselves were this time really defeated, they scattered to their homes.--So far the history of affairs in Britain.

[Sidenote: A.D. 62 (a.u. 815)] [Sidenote:--13--] In Rome Nero had before this sent away Octavia Augusta, on account of his concubine Sabina, and subsequently he put her to death. This he did in spite of the opposition of Burrus, who tried to prevent his sending her away, and once said to him: "Well, then, give her back her dowry" (by which he meant the sovereignty). Indeed, Burrus used such unmitigated frankness that on one occasion, when he was asked by the emperor a second time for an opinion on matters regarding which he had already made clear his attitude, he answered bluntly: "When I have once had my say about anything, don't ask me again." So Nero disposed of him by poison. He also appointed to command the Pretorians a certain Ofonius Tigillinus, who outstripped all his contemporaries in licentiousness and bloodiness. [It was he who won Nero away from them and made light of his colleague Rufus.] [Footnote: _Foenius Rufus._] To him the famous sentence of Pythias is said to have been directed. She had proved the only exception when all the other attendants of Octavia had joined Sabina in attacking their mistress, despising the one because she was in misfortune and toadying to the other because her influence was strong. Pythias alone had refused though cruelly tortured to utter lies against Octavia, and finally, as Tigillinus continued to urge her, she spat in his face, saying:

"My mistress's privy parts are cleaner, Tigillinus, than your mouth."

[Sidenote:--14--] The troubles of his relatives Nero turned into laughter and jest. For instance, after killing Plautus [Footnote: _Rubellirs Plautus_.] he took a look at his head when it was brought to him and remarked: "I didn't know he had such a big nose," as much as to say that he would have spared him, had he been aware of this fact beforehand. And though he spent practically his whole existence in tavern life, he forbade others to sell in taverns anything boiled save vegetables and pea-soup. He put Pallas out of the way because the latter had accumulated great wealth that could be counted by the ten thousand myriads. Likewise he was very liable to peevishness that showed in his behavior, and at such times he would not speak a word to his servants or freedmen but write on tablets whatever he wanted as well as any orders that he had to give them.

[Sidenote: A.D. 63 (a.u. 816)] [Sidenote:--15--] Indeed, when many of those who had gathered at Antium perished, Nero made that, too, an occasion for a festival.

A certain Thrasea gave his opinion to the effect that for a senator the extreme penalty should be exile.

[Sidenote: A.D. 64 (a.u. 817)] To such lengths did Nero's self-indulgence go that he actually drove chariots in public. Again, one time after the slaughter of beasts he straightway brought water into the theatre by means of pipes and produced a sea-fight: then he let the water out again and arranged a gladiatorial combat. Last of all he flooded the place once more and gave a costly public banquet. The person who had been appointed director of the banquet was Tigillinus, and a large and complete equipment had been furnished. The arrangements made were as follows. In the center and resting on the water were placed the great wooden wine vessels, over which boards had been fastened. Round about it had been built taverns and booths. Thus Nero and Tigillinus and their fellow-banqueters, being in the center, held their feast on purple carpets and soft mattresses, while all the other people caroused in the taverns. These also entered the brothels, where unrestrictedly they might enjoy absolutely any woman to be found there. Now the latter were some of the most beautiful and distinguished in the city, both slaves and free, some hetaerae, some virgins, some wives,--not merely, that is to say, public wenches, but both girls and women of the very noblest families. Every man was given authority to have whichever one he wished, for the women were not allowed to refuse any one. Consequently, the multitude being a regular rabble, they drank greedily and reveled in wanton conduct. So a slave debauched his mistress in the presence of his master and a gladiator ravished a girl of noble family while her father looked on. The shoving and striking and uproar that went on, first on the part of those who were going in and second on the part of those who stood around outside, was disgraceful. Many men met their death in these encounters, and of the women some were strangled and some were seized and carried off.

[Sidenote:--16--] After this Nero had the wish (or rather it had always been a fixed purpose of his) to make an end of the whole city and sovereignty during his lifetime. Priam he deemed wonderfully happy in that he had seen his country perish at the same moment as his authority. Accordingly he sent in different directions men feigning to be drunk or engaged in some indifferent species of rascality and at first had one or two or more blazes quietly kindled in different quarters: people, of course, fell into the utmost confusion, not being able to find any beginning of the trouble nor to put any end to it, and meanwhile they became aware of many strange sights and sounds. For soon there was nothing to be observed but many fires as in a camp, and no other phrases fell from men's lips but "This or that is burning "; "Where?"; "How?"; "Who set it?"; "To the rescue!" An extraordinary perturbation laid hold on all wherever they might be, and they ran about as if distracted, some in one direction and some in another. Some men in the midst of assisting their neighbors would learn that their own premises were on fire. Others received the first intimation of their own possessions being aflame when informed that they were destroyed. Persons would run from their houses into the lanes with some idea of being of assistance from the outside, or again they would dash into the dwellings from the streets, appearing to think they could accomplish something inside. The shouting and screaming of children, women, men, and graybeards all together were incessant, so that one could have no consciousness nor comprehension of anything by reason of the smoke and shouting combined. On this account some might be seen standing speechless, as if dumb. All this time many who were carrying out their goods and many more who were stealing what belonged to others kept encountering one another and falling over the merchandise. It was not possible to get anywhere, nor yet to stand still; but people pushed and were pushed back, they upset others and were themselves upset, many were suffocated, many were crushed: in fine, no evil that can possibly happen to men at such a crisis failed to befall them. They could not with ease find even any avenue of escape, and, if any one did save himself from some immediate danger, he usually fell into another one and was lost.

[Sidenote:--17--] This did not all take place on one day, but lasted for several days and nights together. Many houses were destroyed through lack of some one to defend them and many were set on fire in still more places by persons who presumably came to the rescue. For the soldiers (including the night watch), having an eye upon plunder, instead of extinguishing any blaze kindled greater conflagrations. While similar scenes were being enacted at various points a sudden wind caught the fire and swept it over whatever remained. Consequently no one concerned himself any longer about goods or houses, but all the survivors, standing in a place of safety, gazed upon what seemed to be many islands and cities burning. There was no longer any grief over individual losses, for it was swallowed up in the public lamentation, as men reminded one another how once before most of their city had been similarly laid waste by the Gauls. [Sidenote:--18--] While the whole population was in this state of mind and many crazed by the disaster were leaping into the blaze itself, Nero mounted to the roof of the palace, where nearly the whole conflagration could be taken in by a sweeping glance, and having assumed the lyrist's garb he sang the Taking (as he said) of Ilium, which, to the ordinary vision, however, appeared to be the Taking of Rome.

The calamity which the city at this time experienced has no parallel before or since, except in the Gallic invasion. The whole Palatine hill, the theatre of Taurus, and nearly two-thirds of the remainder of the city were burned and countless human beings perished. The populace invoked curses upon Nero without intermission, not uttering his name but simply cursing those who had set the city on fire: and this was especially the case because they were disturbed by the memory of the oracle chanted in Tiberius's day. These were the words:--

"Thrice three hundred cycles of tireless years being ended, Civil strife shall the Romans destroy." [Footnote: Compare Book Fifty-seven, chapter 18.]

And when Nero by way of encouraging them reported that these verses were nowhere to be found, they changed and went to repeating another oracle, which they averred to be a genuine Sibylline production, namely:--

"Last of the sons of Aeneas a matricide shall govern."

And so it proved, whether this was actually revealed beforehand by some divination or whether the populace now for the first time gave it the form of a divine saying adapted to existing circumstances. For Nero was indeed the last emperor of the Julian line descended from Aeneas.

He now began to collect vast sums from both individuals and nations, sometimes using compulsion, with the conflagration for his excuse, and sometimes obtaining it by "voluntary" offers; and the mass of the Romans had the food supply fund withdrawn.

[Sidenote:--19--] While he was so engaged, he received news from Armenia and soon after a laurel wreath in honor of victory. The scattered bodies of soldiery in that region had been united by Corbulo, who trained them sedulously after a period of neglect, and then by the very report of his coming had terrified both Vologaesus, king of Parthia, and Tiridates, chief of Armenia. He resembled the primitive Romans in that besides coming of a brilliant family and besides possessing much strength of body he was still further gifted with a shrewd intelligence: and he behaved with great bravery, with great fairness, and with great good faith toward all, both friends and enemies. For these reasons Nero had despatched him to the scene of war in his own stead and had entrusted to him a larger force than to anybody else, being equally assured that the man would subdue the barbarians and would not revolt against him. And Corbulo proved neither of these assumptions false.

All other men, however, had it as a particular grievance against him that he kept faith with Nero. They were very anxious to get him as emperor in place of the actual despot, and this conduct of his seemed to them his only defect.

[Sidenote:--20--] Corbulo, accordingly, had taken Artaxata without a struggle and had razed the city to the ground. This exploit finished, he marched in the direction of Tigranocerta, sparing all the districts that yielded themselves but devastating the lands of all such as resisted him. Tigranocerta submitted to him voluntarily, and he performed other brilliant and glorious deeds, as a result of which he induced the formidable Vologaesus to accept terms that accorded with the Roman reputation. [For Vologaesus, on hearing that Nero had assigned Armenia to others and that Adiabene was being ravaged by Tigranes, made preparations himself to go on a campaign into Syria against Corbulo, but sent into Armenia Monobazus, king of Adiabene, and Monaeses, a Parthian. These two had shut up Tigranes in Tigranocerta. But since they did not succeed in harming him at all by their siege and as often as they tried conclusions with him were repulsed by both the native troops and the Romans that were in his army, and since Corbulo guarded Syria with extreme care, Vologaesus recognized the hopelessness of his attempt and disbanded his forces. Then he sent to Corbulo and obtained peace on condition that he send a new embassy to Nero, raise the siege, and withdraw his soldiers from Armenia. Nero made him no immediate nor speedy nor definite reply, but despatched Lucius Caesennius Paetus to Cappadocia to see to it that there should be no Armenian uprising.]

[Sidenote:--21--] [So Vologaesus attacked Tigranocerta and drove back Paetus, who had come to its aid. When the latter fled he pursued him, beat back the garrison left by Paetus at the Taurus, and shut him up in Rhandea, near the river Arsanias. Then he was on the point of retiring without accomplishing anything; for destitute as he was of heavy-armed soldiers he could not approach close to the wall, and he had no large stock of provender, particularly as he had come at the head of a vast host without making arrangements for food supplies. Paetus, however, stood in terror of his archery, which took effect in the very camp itself, as well as of the cavalry, which kept appearing at all points. Hence he made peace proposals to his antagonist, accepted his terms, and took an oath that he would himself abandon all of Armenia and that Nero should give it to Tiridates. The Parthian was satisfied enough with this agreement, seeing that he was to obtain control of the country without a contest and would be making the Romans his debtors for a very considerable kindness. And, as he learned that Corbulo (whom Paetus several times sent for before he was surrounded) was drawing near, he dismissed the beleaguered soldiers, having first made them agree to build a bridge over the river Arsanias for him. He was not really in need of a bridge, for he had crossed on foot, but he wished to give them a practical example of the fact that he was stronger than they. Indeed, he did not retire by way of the bridge even on this occasion, but rode across on an elephant, while the rest got over as before.

[Sidenote:--22--] The capitulation had scarcely been made when Corbulo with inconceivable swiftness reached the Euphrates and there waited for the retreating force. When the two armies approached each other you would have been struck with the difference between them and between their generals: one set were fairly aglow with delight at their rapidity; the others were grieved and ashamed of their compact. Vologaesus sent Monaeses to Corbulo with the demand that the newcomer should give up the fort in Mesopotamia. So they held a prolonged conference together right at the bridge crossing the Euphrates, after first destroying the center of the structure. Corbulo having promised to leave the country if the Parthian would also abandon Armenia, both of these things were done temporarily until Nero could learn the outcome of the engagements and begin negotiations with the envoys of Vologaesus, whom the latter had sent a second time. The answer given them by the emperor was that he would bestow Armenia upon Tiridates if this aspirant would come to Rome. Paetus was deposed from his command and the soldiers that had been with him were sent somewhere else. Corbulo was again assigned to the war against the same foes. Nero had intended to accompany the expedition in person, but after falling down during the ceremony of sacrificing he would not venture to go abroad but remained where he was.]

[Sidenote:--23--] [Corbulo therefore officially prepared for war upon Vologaesus and sent a centurion bidding him depart from the country. Privately, however, he suggested to the king that he send his brother to Rome, and this advice met with acceptance, since Corbulo seemed to have the stronger force. Thus it came about that they both, Corbulo and Tiridates, met at no other place than Rhandea, which suited them both. It appealed to the Parthian because there his people had cut off the Romans and had sent them away under a capitulation, a visible proof of the favor that had been done them. To the Roman it appealed because his men were going to wipe out the ill repute that had attached to them there before. For the meeting of the two was not limited merely to conversation; a lofty platform had been erected on which were set images of Nero, and in the presence of crowds of Armenians, Parthians, and Romans Tiridates approached and did them reverence; after sacrificing to them and calling them by laudatory names he took off the diadem from his head and set it upon them. Monobazus and Vologaesus also came to Corbulo and gave him hostages. In honor of this event Nero was a number of times saluted as imperator and held a triumph, contrary to precedent.] But Corbulo in spite of the large force that he had and the very considerable reputation that he enjoyed did not rebel and was never accused of rebellion. He might easily have been made emperor, since men thoroughly detested Nero but all admired him in every way. [In addition to the more striking features of his submissive behavior he voluntarily sent to Rome his son-in-law Annius, who served as his lieutenant; this was done professedly that Annius might escort Tiridates back, but in fact this relative stood in the position of a hostage to Nero. The latter was so firmly persuaded that his general would not revolt that Corbulo obtained his son-in-law as lieutenant [Footnote: Reading [Greek: hyparchon] (Boissevain) for [Greek: hypaton].] before he had been praetor.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 65 (a.u. 818)] [Sidenote:--24--] Seneca, however, and Rufus the prefect and some other prominent men formed a plot against Nero. They could no longer endure his ignoble behavior, his licentiousness, and his cruelty. They desired at one and the same time to be rid of these evils and to give Nero his release from them. Indeed, Sulpicius Asper, a centurion, and Subrius Flavius, a military tribune, both belonging to the body-guards, admitted this to him point blank. Asper, when interrogated by the emperor as to the reason for his attempt, replied: "I could help you in no other way." And the response of Flavins was: "I both loved you and hated you above all men. I loved you, hoping that you would prove a good emperor: I have hated you because you do so-and-so. I can not be slave to charioteer or lyre-player."--Information was lodged and these men were punished, besides many others indirectly associated with them. Everything in the nature of a complaint that could be entertained against any one for excessive joy or grief, for words or gestures, was brought forward and was believed. Not one of these complaints, even if fictitious, could be refused credence in view of Nero's actual deeds. Hence conscienceless friends and house servants of some men flourished greatly. Persons guarded against strangers and foes,--for of these they were suspicious,--but were bound to expose themselves whether they would or no to their associates.

[Sidenote:--25--] It would be no small task to record details about most of those that perished, but the fate of Seneca needs a few words by itself. It was his wish to end the life of his wife Paulina at the same time with his own, for he declared that he had taught her to despise death and that she desired to leave the world in company with him. So he opened her veins as well as his own. As he failed, however, to yield readily to death, his end was hastened by the soldiers; and his dying so speedily enabled Paulina to survive. He did not lay hands upon himself, however, until he had revised the book which he had composed and had deposited with various persons certain other valued possessions which he feared might come into Nero's hands and be destroyed. Thus was Seneca forced to part with life in spite of the fact that he had on the pretext of illness abandoned the society of the emperor and had bestowed upon him his entire property, supposedly to help defray the expense of necessary building operations. His brothers, too, perished after him.

[Sidenote:--26--] Likewise Thrasea and Soranus, who had no superiors in family, wealth, and every excellence, met their death not because they were accused of conspiracy but because they were what they were. Against Soranus Publius Egnatius Celer, a philosopher, gave false evidence. The victim had had two associates,--Cassius Asclepiodotus of Nicaea and this Publius of Berytus. Now Asclepiodotus so far from speaking against Soranus bore witness to his noble qualities; he was at the time exiled for his pains, but later, under Galba, was restored. Publius in return for his services as blackmailer received money and honors (as did others of the same profession), but subsequently he was banished. Soranus was slain on the charge of having caused his daughter to employ a species of magic, the foundation for this story being that when he was sick his family had offered some sacrifices. Thrasea was executed for not appearing regularly at the senate-house, thus showing that he did not like the measures passed, for not listening to the emperor's singing and zither-playing, for not sacrificing to Nero's Divine Voice as did the rest, and for not giving any public exhibitions: for it was remarked that at Patavium, his native place, he had acted in a tragedy given in pursuance of some old custom at a festival held every thirty years. As he made the incision in his artery, he raised his hand, exclaiming: "To thee, Jupiter, patron of freedom, I pour this libation of blood."

[Sidenote:--27--] [And Junius Torquatus, a descendant of Augustus, made himself liable to a most strange indictment. He had squandered his property in a rather lavish way, whether following his native bent or with the intention of not being very rich. Nero therefore declared that, as he lacked many things, he must be covetous of the goods of others, and consequently caused a fictitious charge to be brought against him of aspiring to imperial power.]

And why should one be surprised that such complaints were fastened upon them, [Footnote: A slight gap in the MS. exists here, filled by a doubtful conjecture of Boissevain's.] seeing that one man [Footnote: _Salvidienus Orfitus_ (according to Suetonius, Life of Nero, chap. 37).] was brought to trial and slain for living near the Forum, for letting out some shops, or for receiving a few friends in them; and another [Footnote: _C. Cassius Longinus_ (ibid)..] because he possessed a likeness of Cassius, the murderer of Caesar?

The conduct of a woman named Epicharis also deserves mention. She had been included in the conspiracy and all its details had been trusted to her without reserve; yet she revealed none of these though often tortured in all the ways that the skill of Tigillinus could devise. And why should one enumerate the sums given to the Pretorians on the occasion of this conspiracy or the excessive honors voted to Nero and his friends? Let me say only that it led to the banishment of Rufus Musonius, the philosopher. Sabina also perished at this time through an act of Nero's. Either accidentally or intentionally he had given her a violent kick while she was pregnant.

[Sidenote:--28--] The extremes of luxury indulged in by this Sabina I will indicate in the briefest possible terms. She had gilded girths put upon the mules that carried her and caused five hundred asses that had recently foaled to be milked each day that she might bathe in their milk. She devoted great thought to making her person appear youthful and lustrously beautiful,--and with brilliant results; and this is why, not fancying her appearance in a mirror one day, she prayed that she might die before she passed her prime. Nero missed her so that [after her death, at first, on learning that there was a woman resembling her he sent for and kept this female: later] because a boy of the _liberti_ class, named Sporus, resembled Sabina, he had him castrated and used him in every way like a woman; and in due time he formally married him though he [Nero] was already married to a freedman Pythagoras. He assigned the boy a regular dowry according to contract, and Romans as well as others held a public celebration of their wedding.

While Nero had Sporus the eunuch as a wife, one of his associates in Rome, who had made a specialty of philosophy, on being asked whether the marriage and cohabitation in question met with his approval replied: "You do well, Caesar, to seek the company of such wives. If only your father had had the same ambition and had dwelt with a similar consort!"--indicating that if this had been the case, Nero would not have been born, and the government would have been relieved of great evils.

This was, however, later. At the time with which we are immediately concerned many, as I stated, were put to death and many who purchased their preservation with Tigillinus with a great price were released.

[Sidenote:--29--] Nero continued to commit many ridiculous acts, among which may be cited his descending at a kind of popular festival to the orchestra of the theatre, where he read some Trojan lays of his own: and in honor of these there were offered numerous sacrifices, as there were over everything else that he did. He was now making preparations to compile in verse a narration of all the achievements of the Romans: before composing any of it, however, he began to consider the proper number of books, and took as his adviser Annaeus Cornutus, who at this time was famed for his learning. This man he came very near putting to death and did deport to an island, because, while some were urging him to write four hundred books, Cornutus said that was too many and nobody would read them. And when some one objected: "Yet Chrysippus, whom you praise and imitate, has composed many more," the savant retorted: "But they are a help to the conduct of men's lives." So Cornutus was punished with exile for this. And Lucanus was enjoined from writing poetry because he was securing great praise for his work.

DIO'S ROMAN HISTORY 63

Nero, receiving Tiridates with imposing state, places a crown upon his head (chapters 1-7).

He journeys to Greece in order to become Periodonikes (chapters 8-10).

With the help of Tigillinus and Crispinilla he lays Greece waste: Helius and Polycletus perform the same office for Rome and Italy (chapters 11, 12).

Nero's marriages and abominations with Sporus and Pythagoras (chapter 13).

His victories and proclamation: frenzy against Apollo: hatred toward the senators (chapters 14, 15).

Digging a canal through the Isthmus (chapter 16).

Demise of the Scribonii, of Corbulo, of Paris, of the Sulpicii (chapters 17, 18).

At the solicitation of Helius, Nero returning conducts an Iselasticum triumph (chapters 19-21).

Vindex's conspiracy against Nero, and his extinction (chapters 22-24).

Rufus, saluted as Caesar and Augustus, refuses the sovereignty (chapter 25).

Nero's flight and demise (chapters 26-29).

DURATION OF TIME.

C. Lucius Telesinus, C. Suetonius Paulinus. (A.D. 66 = a.u. 819 = Thirteenth of Nero, from Oct. 13th).

Fonteius Capito, Iunius Rufus. (A.D. 67 = a.u. 820 = Fourteenth of Nero).

C. Silius Italicus, Galerius Trachalus Turpilianus. (A.D. 68 = a.u. 821, to June 9th).

[Sidenote: A.D. 66 (a.u. 819)] [Sidenote:--1--] In the consulship of Gaius Telesinus and Suetonius Paulinus one event of great glory and another of deep disgrace took place. For one thing Nero contended among the zither-players, and after Menecrates, [Footnote: This proper name is the result of an emendation by Reimar.]the teacher of this art, had celebrated a triumph for him in the hippodrome, he appeared as a charioteer. For the other, Tiridates presented himself in Rome, bringing with him not only his own children but those of Vologaesus, of Pacorus, and of Monobazus. They were the objects of interest in a quasi-triumphal procession through the whole country west from the Euphrates. [Sidenote:--2--] Tiridates himself was in the prime of life, a notable figure by reason of his youth, beauty, family, and intelligence: and his whole train of servants together with the entourage of a royal court accompanied the advance. Three thousand Parthian horsemen and besides them numerous Romans followed his train. They were received by gaily decorated cities and by peoples who shouted their compliments aloud. Provisions were furnished them free of cost, an expenditure of twenty myriads for their daily support being thus charged to the public treasury. This went on without change for the nine months occupied in their journey. The prince covered the whole distance to the confines of Italy on horseback and beside him rode his wife, wearing a golden helmet in place of a veil, so as not to defy the traditions of her country by letting her face be seen. In Italy he was conveyed in a two-horse carriage sent by Nero and met the emperor at Naples, which he reached by way of the Picentes. He refused, however, to obey the order to put down his dagger when he approached the Roman monarch, and he nailed it firmly to the scabbard. Yet he knelt upon the ground, and with arms crossed called him master and did obeisance. [Sidenote:--3--] Nero manifested his approbation of this act and entertained him in many ways, one of which was a gladiatorial show at Puteoli. The person who directed the contests was Patrobius, one of his freedmen. He managed to make it a brilliant and costly affair, as is shown by the fact that on one of the days not a person but Ethiopians, men, women, and children, appeared in the theatre. By way of showing Patrobius some proper honor Tiridates shot at beasts from his elevated seat. And, if we may trust the report, he transfixed and killed two bulls together with one arrow.

[Sidenote:--4--] After this affair Nero took him up to Rome and set the diadem upon his head. The entire city had been decorated with lights and garlands, and great crowds of people were to be seen everywhere, the Forum, however, being especially full. The center was occupied by the populace, arranged according to rank, clad in white and carrying laurel branches: everywhere else were the soldiers, arrayed in shining armor, their weapons and standards reflecting back the sunbeams. The very roof tiles of the buildings in this vicinity were completely hidden from view by the spectators who had ascended to these points of vantage. Everything was in readiness by the time night drew to a close and at daybreak Nero, wearing the triumphal garb and accompanied by the senate and the Pretorians, entered the Forum. He ascended the rostra and seated himself upon the chair of state. Next Tiridates and his suite passed through rows of heavy-armed men drawn up on each side, took their stand close to the rostra, and did obeisance to the emperor as they had done before. [Sidenote:--5--] At this a great roar went up which so alarmed Tiridates that for some moments he stood speechless, in terror of his life. Then, silence having been proclaimed, he recovered courage and quelling his pride made himself subservient to the occasion and to his need, caring little how humbly he spoke, in view of the prize he hoped to obtain. These were his words: "Master, I am the descendant of Arsaces, brother of the princes Vologaesus and Pacorus, and thy slave. And I have come to thee, my deity, to worship thee as I do Mithra. The destiny thou spinnest for me shall be mine: for thou art my Fortune and my Fate."

Nero replied to him as follows: "Well hast thou done to come hither in person, that present in my presence thou mayest enjoy my benefits. For what neither thy father left thee nor thy brothers gave and preserved for thee, this do I grant thee. King of Armenia I now declare thee, that both thou and they may understand that I have power to take away kingdoms and to bestow them." At the end of these words he bade him come up the inclined plane built for this very purpose in front of the rostra, and Tiridates having been made to sit beneath his feet he placed the diadem upon his head. At this there was no end of shouts of all sorts. [Sidenote:--6--] According to decree there also took place a celebration in the theatre. Not merely the stage but the whole interior of the theatre round about had been gilded, and all properties brought in had been adorned with gold, so that people came to refer to the very day as "golden." The curtains stretched across the sky-opening to keep off the sun were of purple and in the centre of them was an embroidered figure of Nero driving a chariot, with golden stars gleaming all about him. So much for the setting: and of course they had a costly banquet.

Afterward Nero sang publicly with zither accompaniment and drove a chariot, clad in the costume of the Greens and wearing a charioteer's helmet. This made Tiridates disgusted with him; but for Corbulo the visitor had only praise and deemed the one thing against him to be that he would put up with such a master. Indeed, he made no concealment of his views to Nero's face, but one day said to him: "Master, you have in Corbulo a good slave." The person addressed, however, did not comprehend his speech.--In all other matters he flattered the emperor and ingratiated himself most skillfully, with the result that he received all kinds of gifts, said to have possessed in the aggregate a value of five thousand myriads, and obtained permission to rebuild Artaxata. Moreover, he took with him from Rome many artisans, some of whom he got from Nero, and some whom he persuaded by offers of high wages. Corbulo, however, would not let them all cross into Armenia, but only the ones whom Nero had given him. That caused Tiridates to admire him all the more and to despise his chief.

[Sidenote:--7--] The return was made not by the same route as he followed in coming,--through Illyricum and north of the Ionian Gulf,--but instead he sailed from Brundusium to Dyrrachium. He viewed also the cities of Asia, which helped to increase his amazement at the strength and beauty of the Roman empire.

Tiridates one day viewed an exhibition of pancratium. One of the contestants fell to the ground and was being pummeled by his opponent. When the prince saw it, he exclaimed: "That's an unfair contest. It isn't fair that a man who has fallen should be beaten."

On rebuilding Artaxata Tiridates named it Neronia. But Vologaesus though often summoned refused to come to Nero, and finally, when the latter's invitations became burdensome to him, sent back a despatch to this effect: "It is far easier for you than for me to traverse so great a body of water. Therefore, if you will come to Asia, we can then arrange [where we shall be able] to meet each other." [Such was the message which the Parthian wrote at last.]

[Sidenote:--8--] Nero though angry at him did not sail against him, nor yet against the Ethiopians or the Caspian Pylae, as he had intended. [He saw that the subjugation of these regions demanded time and labor and hoped that they would submit to him of their own accord:] and he sent spies to both places. But he did cross over into Greece, not at all as Flamininus or Mummius or as Agrippa and Augustus his ancestors had done, but for the purpose of chariot racing, of playing and singing, of making proclamations, and of acting in tragedies. Rome was not enough for him, nor Pompey's theatre, nor the great hippodrome, but he desired also a foreign tour, in order to become, as he said, victor in all the four contests. [Footnote: Literally "victor of the periodos." This was a name applied to an athlete who had conquered in the Pythian, Isthmian, Nemean and Olympian games.] And a multitude not only of Augustans but of other persons were taken with him, large enough, if it had been a hostile host, to have subdued both Parthians and all other nations. But they were the kind you would have expected Nero's soldiers to be, and the arms they carried were zithers and plectra, masks and buskins. The victories Nero won were such as befitted that sort of army, and he overcame Terpnus and Diodorus and Pammenes, instead of Philip or Perseus or Antiochus. It is probable that his purpose in forcing the Pammenes referred to, who had been in his prime in the reign of Gaius, to compete in spite of his age, was that he might overcome him and vent his dislike in abuse of his statues.

[Sidenote: A.D. 67 (?)] [Sidenote:--9--] Had he done only this, he would have been the subject of ridicule. So how could one endure to hear about, let alone seeing, an emperor, an Augustus, listed on the program among the contestants, training his voice, practicing certain songs, wearing long hair on his head but with his chin shaven, throwing his toga over his shoulder in the races, walking about with one or two attendants, eyeing his adversaries suspiciously and ever and anon throwing out a word to them in the midst of a boxing match; how he dreaded the directors of the games and the wielders of the whip and spent money on all of them secretly to avoid being shown up in his true colors and whipped; and how all that he did to make himself victor in the citharoedic contest only contributed to his defeat in the Contest of the Caesars? How find words to denounce the wickedness of this proscription in which it was not [Footnote: [Greek: oi] supplied by Reiske.] Sulla that bulletined the names of others, but Nero bulletined his own name? What victory less deserves the name than that by which one receives the olive, the laurel, the parsley, or the fir-tree garland, and loses the political crown? And why should one bewail these acts of his alone, seeing that he also by treading on the high-soled buskins lowered himself from his eminence of power, and by hiding behind the mask lost the dignity of his sovereignty to beg in the guise of a runaway slave, to be led like a blind man, to conceive, to bear children, to go mad [to drive a chariot], as he acted out time after time the story of Oedipus, and of Thyestes, of Heracles and Alemeon, and of Orestes? The masks he wore were sometimes made to resemble the characters and sometimes had his own likeness. The women's masks were all fashioned to conform to the features of Sabina [in order that though dead she might still move in stately procession. All the situations that common actors simulate in their acting he, too, would undertake to present, by speech, by action, by being acted upon,--save only that] golden chains were used to bind him: apparently it was not thought proper for a Roman emperor to be bound in iron shackles.

[Sidenote:--10--] All this behavior, nevertheless, the soldiers and all the rest saw, endured, and approved. They entitled him Pythian Victor, Olympian Victor, National Victor, Absolute Victor, besides all the usual expressions, and of course added to these names the honorific designations belonging to his imperial office, so that every one of them had "Caesar" and "Augustus" as a tag.

He conceived a dislike for a certain man because while he was speaking the man frowned and was not overlavish of his praises; and so he drove him away and would not let him come into his presence. He persisted in his refusal to grant him audience, and when the person asked: "Where shall I go, then?" Phoebus, Nero's freedman, replied: "To the deuce!"

No one of the people ventured either to pity or to hate the wretched creature. One of the soldiers, to be sure, on seeing him bound, grew indignant, ran up, and set him free. Another in reply to a question: "What is the emperor doing?" had to answer: "He is in labor pains," for Nero was then acting the part of Canace. Not one of them conducted himself in a way at all worthy of a Roman. Instead, because so much money fell to their share, they offered prayers that he might give many such performances and they in this way get still more.

[Sidenote:--11--] And if things had merely gone on like this, the affair, while being a source of shame and of ridicule alike, would still have been deemed free from danger. But as a fact he devastated the whole of Greece precisely as if he had been despatched to some war and without regard to the fact that he had declared the country free, also slaying great numbers [of men, women and children. At first he commanded the children and freedmen of those who were executed to leave him half their property at their death, and allowed the original victims to make wills in order to make it seem less likely that he had killed them for their money; and he invariably took all that was bequeathed to him, if not more. In case any one left to him or to Tigillinus less than they were expecting, the wills were of no avail.--Later he deprived persons of their _entire_ property and banished all their children at once by one decree. Not even this satisfied him, but he destroyed not a few of the exiles.] For no one could begin to enumerate all the confiscated possessions of men allowed to live and all the votive offerings that he stole from the very temples in Rome. [The despatch-bearers hurried hither and thither with no piece of news other than "kill this man!" or that that man was dead. No private messages, only state documents, were delivered; for Nero had taken many of the foremost men to Greece under pretence of needing some assistance from them merely in order that they might perish there. [Sidenote:--12--] The whole population of Rome and Italy he surrendered like captives to a certain Helius, a Caesarian. The latter had been given absolutely complete authority, so that he might confiscate, banish, and put to death (even before notifying Nero) ordinary persons, knights, and senators alike.]

Thus the Roman domain was at that time a slave to two emperors at once,--Nero and Helius; and I do not feel able to say which was the worse. In most respects they behaved entirely alike, and the one point of difference was that the descendant of Augustus was emulating zither-players, whereas the freedman of Claudius was emulating Caesars. I consider the acts of Tigillinus as a part of Nero's career because he was constantly with him: but Polyclitus and Calvia Crispinilla by themselves plundered, sacked, despoiled all the places they could get at. The former was associated with Helius at Rome, and the latter with Sabina, born Sporus. Calvia had been entrusted with the care of the boy and with the oversight of the wardrobe, though a woman and of high rank; and she saw to it that all were stripped of their possessions.

[Sidenote:--13--] Now Nero called Sporus Sabina not merely on account of the fact that by reason of resemblance to her he had been made a eunuch, but because the boy like the mistress had been solemnly contracted to him in Greece, with Tigillinus to give the bride away, as the law ordained. All the Greeks held a festal celebration of their marriage, uttering all the customary good wishes (as they could not well help) even to the extent of praying that legitimate children might be born to them. After that Nero took to himself two bedfellows, Pythagoras to treat as a man and Sporus as a woman. The latter, in addition to other forms of address, was termed lady, queen, and mistress.

Yet why should one wonder at this, seeing that this monarch would fasten naked boys and girls to poles, and then putting on the hide of a wild beast would approach them and satisfy his brutal lust under the appearance of devouring parts of their bodies? Such were the indecencies of Nero.

When he received the senators he wore a short flowered tunic with muslin collar, for he had already begun to transgress precedent in wearing ungirt tunics in public. It is stated also that knights belonging to the army used in his reign for the first time saddle-cloths during their public review.

[Sidenote:--14--] At the Olympic games he fell from the chariot he was driving and came very near being crushed to death: yet he was crowned victor. In acknowledgment of this favor he gave to the Hellanodikai the twenty-five myriads which Galba later demanded back from them. [And to the Pythia he gave ten myriads for giving some responses to suit him: this money Galba recovered.] Again, whether from vexation at Apollo for making some unpleasant predictions to him or because he was merely crazy, he took away from the god the territory of Cirrha and gave it to the soldiers. In fact, he abolished the oracle, slaying men and throwing them into the rock fissure from which the divine _afflatus_ arose. He contended in every single city that boasted any contest, and in all cases requiring the services of a herald he employed for that purpose Cluvius Rufus, an ex-consul. Athens and the Lacedaemonians were exceptions to this rule, being the only places that he did not visit at all. He avoided the second because of the laws of Lycurgus, which stood in the way of his designs, and the former because of the story about the Furies.--The proclamation ran: "Nero Caesar wins this contest and crowns the Roman people and his world." Possessing according to his own statement a world, he went on singing and playing, making proclamations, and acting tragedies.

[Sidenote:--15--] His hatred for the senate was so fierce that he took particular pleasure in Vatinius, who kept always saying to him: "I hate you, Caesar, for being of senatorial rank."--I have used the exact expression that he uttered.--Both the senators and all others were constantly subjected to the closest scrutiny in their entrances, their exits, their attitudes, their gestures, their outcries. The men that stuck constantly by Nero, listened attentively, made their applause distinct, were commended and honored: the rest were both degraded and punished, so that some, when they could endure it no longer (for they were frequently expected to be on the _qui vive_ from early morning until evening), would feign to swoon and would be carried out of the theatres as if dead.

[Sidenote:--16--] As an incidental labor connected with his sojourn in Greece he conceived a desire to dig a canal across the isthmus of the Peloponnesus, and he did begin the task. Men shrank from it, however, because, when the first workers touched the earth, blood spouted from it, groans and bellowings were heard, and many phantoms appeared. Nero himself thereupon grasped a mattock and by throwing up some of the soil fairly compelled the rest to imitate him. For this work he sent for a large number of men from other nations as well.

[Sidenote:--17--] For this and other purposes he needed great sums of money; and as he was a promoter of great enterprises and a liberal giver and at the same time feared an attack from the persons of most influence while he was thus engaged, he destroyed many excellent men. Of most of these I shall omit any mention, merely saying that the stock complaint under which all of them were brought before him was uprightness, wealth, and family: all of them either killed themselves or were slaughtered by others. I shall pause to consider only Corbulo and (of the Sulpicii Scribonii) Rufus and Proculus. These two deserve attention because they were in a way brothers and contemporaries, never doing anything separately but united in purpose and in property as they were in family: they had for a long time administered the affairs of the Germanies and had come to Greece at the summons of Nero, who affected to want something from them. A complaint of the kind which that period so prodigally afforded was lodged against them. They could obtain no hearing on the matter nor even get within sight of Nero; and as this caused them to be slighted by all persons without exception, they began to long for death and so met their end by slitting open their veins.--And I notice Corbulo, because the emperor, after giving him also a most courteous summons and invariably calling him (among other names) "father" and "benefactor," then, as this general approached Cenchrea, commanded that he be slain before he had even entered his presence. Some explain this by saying that Nero was about to sing with zither accompaniment and could not endure the idea of being seen by Corbulo while he wore the long ungirded tunic. The condemned man, as soon as he understood the import of the order, seized a sword, and dealing himself a lusty blow exclaimed: "Your due!" Now for the first time in his career was he ready to believe that he had done ill both in sparing the zither-player and in going to him unarmed.

[Sidenote:--18--] This is the substance of what took place in Greece. Does it add much to mention that Nero ordered Paris the dancer killed because he wished to learn dancing from him and was disappointed? Or that he banished Caecina Tuscus, governor of Egypt, for bathing in the tub that had been specially constructed for his coming visit to Alexandria?

In Rome about this same time Helius committed many acts of outrage. One of these was his killing of a distinguished man, Sulpicius Camerinus, together with his son; the complaint against them was that whereas they were called _Pythici_ after some of their ancestors they would not abandon possession of this name, thus blaspheming Nero's Pythian victories by the use of a similar title.--And when the Augustans offered to build a shrine to the emperor worth a thousand librae, the whole equestrian order was compelled to help defray the expense they had undertaken.--As for the doings of the senate, it would be a task to describe them all in detail. For so many sacrifices and days of thanksgiving were announced that the whole year would not hold them all.

[Sidenote:--19--] Helius having for some time sent Nero repeated messages urging him to return as quickly as possible, when he found that no attention was paid to them, went himself to Greece on the seventh day and frightened him by saying that a great conspiracy against him was on foot in Rome. This news made him embark at double quick rate. There was some hope of his perishing in a storm and many rejoiced, but to no purpose: he came safely to land. And cause for destroying some few persons was found in the very fact that they had prayed and hoped that he might perish.

[Sidenote: A.D. 68 (a.u. 821)] [Sidenote:--20--] So, when he marched into Rome, a portion of the wall was torn down and a section of the gates broken in, because some asserted that each of these ceremonies was customary upon the return of garlanded victors from the games. First entered men wearing the garlands which, had been won, and after them others with boards borne aloft on spears, upon which were inscribed the name of the set of games, the kind of contest, and a statement that "Nero Caesar first of all the Romans from the beginning of the world has conquered in it." Next came the victor himself on a triumphal car in which Augustus once had celebrated his many victories: he wore a vesture of purple sprinkled with gold and a garland of wild olive; he held in his hand the Pythian laurel. By his side in the vehicle sat Diodorus the Citharoedist. After passing in this manner through the hippodrome and through the Forum in company with the soldiers and the knights and the senate he ascended the Capitol and proceeded thence to the palace.

[Sidenote: A.D. 68 (a.u. 821)] The city was all decked with garlands, was ablaze with lights and smoky with incense, and the whole population,--the senators themselves most of all,--kept shouting aloud: "Vah, Olympian Victor! Vah Pythian Victor! Augustus! Augustus! Hail to Nero the Hercules, hail to Nero the Apollo!! The one National Victor, the only one from the beginning of time! Augustus! Augustus! O, Divine Voice! Blessed are they that hear thee!"--Why should I employ circumlocutions instead of letting you see their very words? The actual expressions used do not disgrace my history: no, the concealment of none of them rather lends it distinction.

[Sidenote:--21--] When he had finished these ceremonies, he announced a series of horse-races, and transferring to the hippodrome these crowns and all the rest that he had secured by victories in chariot racing, he put them about the Egyptian obelisk. The number of them was one thousand eight hundred and eight. After doing this he appeared as charioteer.--A certain Larcius, a Lydian, approached him with an offer of twenty-five myriads if he would play and sing for them. Nero would not take the money, disdaining to do anything for pay; and so Tigillinus collected it, as the price of not putting Larcius to death. However, the emperor did appear on the stage with an accompanied song and he also gave a tragedy. In the equestrian contests he was seldom absent, and sometimes he would voluntarily let himself be defeated in order to make it more credible that he really won at other times.

Dio 62nd Book: "And he inflicted uncounted woes on many cities."

[Sidenote:--22--] This was the kind of life Nero led, this was the way he ruled. I shall narrate also how he was put down and driven from his throne.

While Nero was still in Greece, the Jews revolted openly and he sent Vespasian against them. The inhabitants of Britain and of Gaul, likewise, oppressed by the taxes, experienced an even keener distress, which added fuel to the already kindled fire of their indignation.

--There was a Gaul named Gaius Julius Vindex [an Aquitanian], descended from the native royal race and on his father's side entitled to rank as a Roman senator. He was strong of body, had an intelligent mind, was skilled in warfare and was full of daring for every enterprise. [He was to the greatest degree a lover of freedom and was ambitious; and he stood at the head of the Gauls.] Now this Vindex made an assembly of the Gauls, who had suffered much during the numerous forced levies of money, and were still suffering at Nero's hands. And ascending a tribunal he delivered a long and detailed speech against Nero, saying that they ought to revolt from the emperor and join him in an attack [upon him],--"because," said he, "he has despoiled the whole Roman world, because he has destroyed all the flower of their senate, because he debauched and likewise killed his mother, and does not preserve even the semblance of sovereignty. Murders, seizures and outrages have often been committed and by many other persons: but how may one find words to describe the remainder of his conduct as it deserves? I have seen, my friends and allies,--believe me,--I have seen that man (if he is a man, who married Sporus and was given in marriage to Pythagoras) in the arena of the theatre and in the orchestra, sometimes with the zither, the loose tunic, the cothurnus, [Footnote: The two kinds of footwear mentioned here appear in the Greek as _chothornos_ and _embates_ respectively. These words are often synonymous, and both may refer, as a rule, to _high_ boots. In the present passage, however, some kind of contrast is evidently intended, and the most acceptable solution of the question is that given by Sturz, in his edition, who says that the _chothornos_ seems to have been used by Nero only in singing, whereas he wore the _embates_ (as also the mask) while acting.] sometimes with wooden shoes [Footnote: see previous footnote] and mask. I have often heard him sing, I have heard him make proclamations, I have heard him perform tragedy. I have seen him in chains, I have seen him dragged about, pregnant, bearing children, going through all the situations of mythology, by speech, by being addressed, by being acted upon, by acting. Who, then, will call such a person Caesar and emperor and Augustus? Let no one for any consideration so abuse those sacred titles. They were held by Augustus and by Claudius. This fellow might most properly be termed Thyestes and Oedipus, Alcmeon and Orestes. These are the persons he represents on the stage and it is these titles that he has assumed rather than the others. Therefore now at length rise against him: come to the succor of yourselves and of the Romans; liberate the entire world!"

[Sidenote:--23--] Such words falling from the lips of Vindex met with entire approval from all. Vindex was not working to get the imperial office for himself but chose Servius Sulpicius Galba for that position: this man was distinguished for his upright behavior and knowledge of war, was governor of Spain, and had a not inconsiderable force. He was also nominated by the soldiers as emperor.

It is stated that Nero having offered by proclamation two hundred and fifty myriads to the person who should kill Vindex, the latter when he heard of it remarked: "The person who kills Nero and brings his head to me may take mine in return." That was the sort of man Vindex was.

[Sidenote:--24--] Rufus, governor of Germany, set out to make war on Vindex; but when he reached Vesontio he sat down to besiege the city, for the alleged reason that it had not received him. Vindex came against him to the aid of the city and encamped not far off. They then sent messages back and forth to each other and finally held a conference together at which no one else was present and made a mutual agreement,--against Nero, as it was thought. After this Vindex set his army in motion for the apparent purpose of occupying the town: and the soldiers of Rufus, becoming aware of their approach, and thinking the force was marching straight against them, set out without being ordered to oppose their progress. They fell upon the advancing troop while the men were off their guard and in disarray, and so cut down great numbers of them. Vindex seeing this was afflicted with so great grief that he slew himself. For he felt, besides, at odds with Heaven itself, in that he had not been able to attain his goal in an undertaking of so great magnitude, involving the overthrow of Nero and the liberation of the Romans.

This is the truth of the matter. Many afterwards inflicted wounds on his body, and so gave currency to the erroneous supposition that they had themselves killed him.

[Sidenote:--25--] Rufus mourned deeply his demise, but refused to accept the office of emperor, although his soldiers frequently obtained it. He was an energetic man and had a large, wide-awake body of troops. His soldiers tore down and shattered the image of Nero and called their general Caesar and Augustus. When he would not heed them, one of the soldiers thereupon quickly inscribed these words on one of his standards. He erased the terms, however, and after a great deal of trouble brought the men to order and persuaded them to submit the question [Footnote: [Greek: ta pragmata] supplied by Polak.] to the senate and the people. It is hard to say whether this was merely because he did not deem it right for the soldiers to bestow the supreme authority upon any one (for he declared this to be the prerogative of the senate and the people), or because he was entirely highminded and felt no personal desire for the imperial power, to secure which others were willing to do everything.

[Sidenote:--26--] [Nero was informed of the Vindex episode as he was in Naples viewing the gymnastic contest just after luncheon. He was naturally far from sorry, and leaping from his seat vied in prowess with some athlete. He did not hurry back to Rome but merely sent a letter to the senate, in which he asked them to regard leniently his non-arrival, because he had a sore throat, implying that when he did come he wanted to sing to them. And he continued to devote the same care and attention to his voice, to his songs, and to the zither tunes, not only just then but also subsequently: so he would not try a tone of his intended program. If he was at any time compelled by circumstances to make some exclamation, yet somebody, reminding him that he was to appear as citharoedist, would straightway check and control him.

In general he still behaved in his accustomed manner and he was pleased with the news brought him because he had been expecting in any event to overcome Vindex and because he thought he had now secured a justifiable ground for money-getting and murders. He enjoyed the same degree of luxury; and upon the completion and adornment of the heroum of Sabina he gave it a brilliant dedication, taking care to have inscribed upon it: "The Women have built This to Sabina, the Goddess Venus." And the writing told the truth: for the building had been constructed with money of which a great part had been stolen from women. Also he had his numerous little jokes, of which I shall mention only one, omitting the rest.] One night he suddenly summoned in haste the foremost senators and knights, apparently to make some communication to them regarding the political situation. When they were assembled, he said: "I have discovered a way by which the water organ"--I must write exactly what he said--"will produce a greater and more harmonious volume of sound." Such were his jokes about this period. And little did he reck that both sets of doors, those of the monument and those of the bedchamber of Augustus, opened of their own accord in one and the same night, or that at Albanum it rained so much blood that rivers of it flowed over the land, or that the sea retreated a good distance from Egypt and covered a large portion of Lycia. [Sidenote:--27--] But when he heard about Galba's being proclaimed emperor by the soldiers and about the desertion of Rufus, he fell into great fear: he made preparations in person at Rome and he sent against the rebels Rubrius Gallus and some others.

On learning that Petronius, [Footnote: _P. Petronius Turpilianus_.] whom he had sent ahead against the rebels with the larger portion of the army, also favored the cause of Galba, Nero reposed no further hope in arms.

Being abandoned by all without exception he began forming plans to kill the senators, burn the city to the ground, and sail to Alexandria. He dropped this hint in regard to his future course: "Even though we be driven from our empire, yet this little artistic gift of ours shall support us there." To such a pitch of folly had he come as to believe that he could live for a moment as a private citizen and would be able to appear as a musician.

He was on the point of putting those measures into effect when the senate first withdrew the guard that surrounded Nero, then entered the camp, and declared Nero an enemy but chose Galba in his place as emperor.

But when he perceived that he had been deserted also by his body-guards (he happened to be asleep in some garden), he undertook to make his escape. Accordingly, he assumed shabby clothing and mounted a horse no better than his attire. Closely veiled he rode while it was yet night towards an estate of Phao, a Caesarian, in company with the owner of the place, and Epaphroditus and Sporus. [Sidenote:--28--] While he was on the way an extraordinary earthquake occurred, so that one might have thought the whole world was breaking apart and all the spirits of those murdered by him were leaping up to assail him. Being recognized, they say, in spite of his disguise by some one who met him he was saluted as emperor; consequently he turned aside from the road and hid himself in a kind of reedy place. There he waited till daylight, lying flat on the ground so as to run the least risk of being seen. Every one who passed he suspected had come for him; he started at every voice, thinking it to be that of some one searching for him: if a dog barked anywhere or a bird chirped, or a bush or twig was shaken by the breeze, he was thrown into a violent tremor. These sounds would not let him have rest, yet he dared not speak a word to any one of those that were with him for fear some one else might hear: but he wept and bewailed his fortune, considering among other things how he had once stood resplendent in the midst of so vast a retinue and was now dodging from sight in company with three freedmen. Such was the drama that Fate had now prepared for him, to the end that he should no longer represent all other matricides and beggars, but only himself at last. Now he repented of his haughty insolence, as if he could make one of his acts undone. Such was the tragedy in which Nero found himself involved, and this verse constantly ran through his mind:

"Both spouse and father bid me pitiably die."

After a long time, as no one was seen to be searching for him, he went over into the cave, where in his hunger he ate such bread as he had never before tasted and in his thirst drank water such as he had never drunk before. This gave him such a qualm that he said: "So this is my famous frigid _decocta_." [Footnote: Reading [Greek: apepsthon] (Reimar, Cobet et al)..]

While he was in this plight the Roman people were going wild with delight and offering whole oxen in sacrifice. Some carried small liberty caps, and they voted to Galba the rights pertaining to the imperial office. For Nero himself they instituted a search in all directions and for some time were at a loss to know whither he could have betaken himself. When they finally learned, they sent horsemen to dispose of him. He, then, perceiving that they were drawing near, commanded his companions to kill him. As they refused to obey, he uttered a groan and said: "I alone have neither friend nor foe." By this time the horsemen were close at hand, and so he killed himself, uttering that far-famed sentence: "Jupiter, what an artist perishes in me!" And as he lingered in his agony Epaphroditus dealt him a finishing stroke. He had lived thirty years and nine months, out of which he had ruled thirteen years and eight months. Of the descendants of Aeneas and of Augustus he was the last, as was plainly indicated by the fact that the laurels planted by Livia and the breed of white chickens perished somewhat before his death.

There was no one who might not hope to lay hands on the sovereignty in a time of so great confusion.

Rufus visited Galba and could obtain from him no important privileges, unless one reckons the fact that a man who had frequently been hailed as emperor was allowed to live. Among the rest of mankind, however, he had acquired a great name, greater than if he had accepted the sovereignty, for refusing to receive it.

Galba, now that Nero had been destroyed and the senate had voted him the imperial authority and Rufus had made advances to him, plucked up courage. However, He did not adopt the name "Caesar," until envoys of the senate had paid him a visit. Nor had he hitherto inscribed the name "emperor" in any document.

DIO'S ROMAN HISTORY 64

Omens announcing Galba's sovereignty: his avarice: the insolence of freedmen, of Nymphidius, of Capito (chapters 1, 2).

His ferocious entrance into the city: punishment of the Neronians (chapter 3).

About the uprising of Vitellius against Galba (chapter 4).

L. Piso Caesar adopted by Galba: Otho usurps the sovereignty (chapter 5).

Death of Galba and Piso (chapter 6).

Otho assumes the sovereignty amid unfavorable auspices and flattery (chapters 7, 8).

Insolence of the soldiers: the Pseudo-Nero (chapter 9).

Battles between Otho and Vitellius at Cremona (chapters 10, 11).

Otho's speech to his soldiers (chapters 12, 13).

How Otho with his dagger took his own life (chapters 14, 15).

The rapacity of Valens (chapter 16).

DURATION OF TIME.

C. Silius Italicus, Galerius Trachalus Turpilianus. (A.D. 68 = a.u. 821, from the 9th of June).

Galba Caes. Aug. (II), T. Vinius. (A.D. 69 = a.u. 822, to January 15th).

[Sidenote: A.D. 68 (a.u. 821)] [Sidenote:--1--] Thus was Galba declared emperor just as Tiberius had foretold when he said to him: "You also shall have a little taste of sovereignty." The event was likewise foretold by unmistakable omens. He beheld in visions the Goddess of Fortune telling him that she had now stuck by him for a long time yet no one appeared ready to take her into his house; and if she should be barred out much longer she should take up her abode with some one else. During those very days also boats full of weapons and under the guidance of no human being came to anchor off the coast of Spain. And a mule brought forth young, an occurrence which had been previously interpreted as destined to portend the possession of authority by him. Again, a boy that was bringing him incense in the course of a sacrifice suddenly had his hair turn gray; whereupon the seers declared that dominion over the younger generation should be given to his old age.

[Sidenote:--2--] These, then, were the signs given beforehand that had a bearing on his sovereignty. Personally his conduct was in most ways moderate and he avoided giving offence since he bore in mind that he had not taken the emperor's seat but it had been given him;--indeed, he said so frequently:--unfortunately, he collected money greedily since his wants were numerous, though he spent comparatively little after all, bestowing upon some persons not even denarii but merely asses. His freedmen, however, committed a great number of wrongs, the responsibility for which was laid upon him. Ordinary individuals need only keep themselves from crime, but those who hold sovereign power must see to it that no dependent of theirs practices villany either. For it makes little difference to the ones who suffer wrong at whose hands they happen to be ill treated. Consequently, even though Galba abstained from inflicting injury, yet he was ill spoken of because he allowed these others to commit crimes, or at least was ignorant of what was taking place. Nymphidius and Capito, in particular, were allowed by him to run riot. For instance, Capito, when one day some one appealed a case from his jurisdiction, changed his seat hastily to a high chair near by and then cried out: "Now plead your case before Caesar!" He went through the form of deciding it and had the man put to death. Galba felt obliged to proceed against them for this.

[Sidenote:--3--] As he drew near the City, the guards of Nero met him and asked that their organization be preserved intact. At first he was for postponing his decision and averred that he wanted to think the matter over. Since, however, they would not obey but kept up a clamor, the army submitted to them. As a consequence about seven thousand of his soldiers lost their lives and the guardsmen were decimated. This shows that even if Galba was bowed down with age and disease, yet his spirit was keen and he did not believe in an emperor's being compelled to do anything unwillingly. A further proof is that when the Pretorians asked him for the money which Nymphidius had promised them, he would not give it, but replied: "I am accustomed to levy soldiers, not to buy them." And when the populace brought urgent pressure to bear on him to kill Tigillinus and some others who had before been wantonly insolent, he would not yield, though he would probably have disposed of them had not their enemies made this demand. Helius, however, as well as Narcissus, Patrobius, Lucusta the poison merchant, and some others who had been active in Nero's day, he ordered to be carried in chains all over the city and afterwards to receive punishment. The slaves, likewise, who had been guilty of any act or speech detrimental to their masters were handed over to the latter for punishment.

Some disdained receiving their own slaves, wishing to be rid of rascally slaves.

Galba demanded the return of all moneys and objects of value which any persons had received from Nero. However, if anybody had been exiled by the latter on the charge of impiety towards the emperor, he restored him to citizenship; and he also transferred to the tomb of Augustus the bones of members of the imperial family who had been murdered, and he set up their images anew.

For this he was praised. On the other hand he was the victim of uproarious laughter for wearing a sword whenever he walked on the street, since he was so old and weak of sinew.

[Sidenote: A.D. 69 (a.u. 822)] [Sidenote:--4--] I shall relate also the circumstances of his death. The soldiers in Germany under control of Rufus became more and more excited because they could not obtain any favors from Galba; and, having failed to secure the object of their desire through the medium of Rufus, they sought to obtain it through somebody else. This they