The Lives of the Caesars quotes

When this became known, the aristocracy authorized Bibulus to promise the same amount, being seized with fear that Caesar would stick at nothing when he became chief magistrate, if he had a colleague who was heart and soul with him.

Many of them contributed to the fund, and even Cato did not deny that bribery under such circumstances was for the good of the commonwealth.

So Caesar was chosen consul with Bibulus. With the same motives the aristocracy took care that provinces of the smallest importance should be assigned to the newly elected consuls; that is, mere woods and pastures.

Then, overtaking his cohorts at the river Rubicon, which was the boundary of his province, he paused for a while, and realising what a step he was taking, he turned to those about him and said: “

Even yet we may draw back; but once cross yon little bridge, and the whole issue is with the sword.

”

That he drank very little wine not even his enemies denied.

There is a saying of Marcus Cato that Caesar was the only man who undertook to overthrow the state when sober.

Even in the matter of food Gaius Oppius tells us that he was so indifferent, that once when his host served stale oil instead of fresh, and the other guests would have none of it, Caesar partook even more plentifully than usual, not to seem …

When the issue was doubtful, he used to send away the horses, and his own among the first, to impose upon the troops the greater necessity of standing their ground by taking away that aid to flight.

He rode a remarkable horse, too, with feet that were almost human; for its hoofs were cloven in such a way as to look like toes.

This horse was foaled on his own place, and since the soothsayers had declared that it foretold the rule of the world for its master, he reared it with the greatest care, and was the first to mount it, for it would endure no other …

… of the Tenth clamoured for their discharge and rewards with terrible threats and no little peril to the city, though the war in Africa was then raging, he did not hesitate to appear before them, against the advice of his friends, and to disband them.

But with a single word, calling them “citizens,” instead of “soldiers,” he easily brought them round and bent them to his will; for they at once replied that they were his “soldiers” and insisted on following him to Africa, although he refused their service.

Even then he punished the most insubordinate by the loss of a third part of the booty and of the land intended for them.

He certainly showed admirable self-restraint and mercy, both in his conduct of the civil war and in the hour of victory.

While Pompey announced that he would treat as enemies those who did not take up arms for the government, Caesar gave out that those who were neutral and of neither party would be numbered with his friends.

He freely allowed all those whom he had made centurions on Pompey’s recommendation to go over to his rival.

and being then asked whether he wished to see the tomb of the Ptolemies as well, he replied, “

My wish was to see a king, not corpses.

” He reduced Egypt to the form of a province, and then to make it more fruitful and better adapted to supply the city with grain, he set his soldiers at work cleaning out all the canals into which the Nile overflows, which in the …

He also vowed great games to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, in case the condition of the commonwealth should improve, a thing which had been done in the Cimbric and Marsic wars.

In fact, they say that he was so greatly affected that for several months in succession he cut neither his beard nor his hair, and sometimes he would dash his head against a door, crying: “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!”

And he observed the day of the disaster each year as one of sorrow and mourning.

and he made no further inquiry either at the time or afterwards. When Tiberius complained to him of the same thing in a letter, but in more forcible language, he replied as follows: “

My dear Tiberius, do not be carried away by the ardour of youth in this matter, or take it too much to heart that anyone speak evil of me; we must be content if we can stop anyone from doing evil to us.

”

“I did not understand,” and another: “I would contradict you if I had an opportunity.” Several times when he was rushing from the House in anger at the excessive bickering of the disputants, some shouted after him: “

Senators ought to have the right of speaking their mind on public affairs.

” At the selection of senators when each member chose another, Antistius Labeo named Marcus Lepidus, an old enemy of the emperor’s who was at the time in banishment;

He also cast his own vote in his tribe, as one of the people. When he gave testimony in court, he was most patient in submitting to questions and even to contradiction.

He made his forum narrower than he had planned, because he did not venture to eject the owners of the neighbouring houses.

He never recommended his sons for office without adding “If they be worthy of it.” When they were still under age and the audience at the theatre rose as one man in their honour, and stood up and applauded them, he expressed strong disapproval.

If he could not resume his sleep when it was interrupted, as would happen, he sent for readers or storytellers, and when sleep came to him he often prolonged it until after daylight.

He would never lie awake in the dark without having someone sit by his side.

He detested early rising and when he had to get up earlier than usual because of some official or religious duty, to avoid inconveniencing himself he spent the night in the room of one of his friends near the appointed place.

Or would you rather introduce into our tongue the verbose and unmeaning fluency of the Asiatic orators?” And in a letter praising the talent of his granddaughter Agrippina he writes: “

But you must take great care not to write and talk affectedly.

”

… on innovators and archaizers with equal contempt, as faulty in opposite directions, and he sometimes had a fling at them, in particular his friend Maecenas, whose “unguent-dripping curls,” as he calls them, he loses no opportunity of belabouring and pokes fun at them by parody.

He did not spare even Tiberius, who sometimes hunted up obsolete and pedantic expressions; and as for Mark Antony, he calls him a madman, for writing rather to be admired than to be understood.

Then going on to ridicule his perverse and inconsistent taste in choosing an oratorical style, he adds the following: “Can you doubt whether you ought to imitate Annius Cimber or Veranius Flaccus, that you use the words which Sallustius Crispus gleaned from Cato’s Origines?

so that presently she ceased ever to go to the public baths. In the tenth month after that Augustus was born and was therefore regarded as the son of Apollo.

Atia too, before she gave him birth, dreamed that her vitals were borne up to the stars and spread over the whole extent of land and sea, while Octavius dreamed that the sun rose from Atia’s womb.

The day he was born the conspiracy of Catiline was before the House, and Octavius came late because of his wife’s confinement;

but after long search he was at last found on a lofty tower with his face towards the rising sun.

As soon as he began to talk, it chanced that the frogs were making a great noise at his grandfather’s country place; he bade them be silent, and they say that since then no frog has ever croaked there.

As he was lunching in a grove at the fourth milestone on the Campanian road, an eagle surprised him by snatching his bread from his hand, after flying to a great height, equally to his surprise dropped gently down again and gave it back to …

Claudius Russus, having set up his statue at Forum Appi with a crown upon his head, tried to take possession of Italy through his dependents.

Claudius Pulcher began a sea-fight off Sicily, though the sacred chickens would not eat when he took the auspices, throwing them into the sea in defiance of the omen, and saying that they might drink, since they would not eat.

He was defeated, and on being bidden by the senate to appoint a dictator, he appointed his messenger Glycias, as if again making a jest of his country’s peril. The women also have records equally diverse, since both the famous Claudias belonged to that family:

Finally, some lost patience, and one man cried out in the confusion: “Let him take it or leave it.”

Another openly voiced the taunt that others were slow in doing what they promised, but that he was slow to promise what he was already doing.

At last, as though on compulsion, and complaining that a wretched and burdensome slavery was being forced upon him, he accepted the empire, but in such fashion as to suggest the hope that he would one day lay it down. His own words are:

… when he recommended that the people of Trebia be allowed to use, in making a road, a sum of money which had been left them for the construction of a new theatre, he could not prevent the wish of the testator from being carried out.

When it happened that the senate passed a decree by division and he went over to the side of the minority, not a man followed him.

Other business as well was done solely through meetings and the ordinary process of law, while the importance of the consuls was such that certain envoys from Africa presented themselves before them with the complaint that their time was being wasted by Caesar, to whom …

When this man waited before the Emperor’s door at Rome to pay his respects, Tiberius took no further revenge than to bid him return seven years later.

To the governors who recommended burdensome taxes for his provinces, he wrote in answer that it was the part of a good shepherd to shear his flock, not skin it.

Little by little he unmasked the ruler, and although for some time his conduct was variable, yet he more often showed himself kindly and devoted to the public weal. His intervention was at first limited to the prevention of abuses.

“Carnulus has given me the slip;” and when he was inspecting the prisons and a man begged for a speedy death, he replied:

“I have not yet become your friend.”

An ex-consul has recorded in his Annals that once at a large dinner-party, at which the writer himself was present, Tiberius was suddenly asked in a loud voice by one of the dwarfs that stood beside the table among the jesters why Paconius, who was …

Many were accused and condemned with their children and even by their children. The relatives of the victims were forbidden to mourn for them. Special rewards were voted the accusers and sometimes even the witnesses. The word of no informer was doubted.

Every crime was treated as capital, even the utterance of a few simple words.

A poet was charged with having slandered Agamemnon in a tragedy, and a writer of history of having called Brutus and Cassius the last of the Romans.

At last in utter self-disgust he all but admitted to extremity of his wretchedness in a letter beginning as follows:

“If I know what to write to you, Fathers of the Senate, or how to write it, or what to leave unwritten at present, may all gods and goddesses visit me with more destruction than I feel that I am daily suffering.”

Some think that through his knowledge of the future he foresaw this situation, and knew long beforehand what detestation and ill-repute one day awaited him;

When his grandmother Antonia gave him some advice, he was not satisfied merely to listen but replied:

“Remember that I have the right to do anything to anybody.”

When he was on the point of killing his brother, and suspected that he had taken drugs as a precaution against poison, he cried: “What! an antidote against Caesar?”

Whenever he kissed the neck of his wife or sweetheart, he would say:

“Off comes this beautiful head whenever I give the word.”

He even used to threaten now and then that he would resort to torture if necessary, to find out from his dear Caesonia why he loved her so passionately.

that on board of them he might recline at table from an early hour, and coast along the shores of Campania amid songs and choruses.

He built villas and country houses with utter disregard of expense, caring for nothing so much as to do what men said was impossible.

So he built moles out into the deep and stormy sea, tunnelled rocks of hardest flint, built up plains to the height of mountains and razed mountains to the level of the plain; all with incredible dispatch, since the penalty for delay was death.

He built villas and country houses with utter disregard of expense, caring for nothing so much as to do what men said was impossible.

So he built moles out into the deep and stormy sea, tunnelled rocks of hardest flint, built up plains to the height of mountains and razed mountains to the level of the plain; all with incredible dispatch, since the penalty for delay was death.

To make a long story short, vast sums of money, including the 2,700,000,000 sesterces which Tiberius Caesar had amassed, were squandered by him in less than the revolution of a year.

He also made proclamation that he would receive New Year’s gifts, and on the Kalends of January took his place in the entrance to the Palace, to clutch the coins which a throng of people of all classes showered on him by handfuls and lapfuls.

Finally, seized with a mania for feeling the touch of money, he would often pour out huge piles of goldpieces in some open place, walk over them barefooted, and wallow in them for a long time with his whole body.

He had but one experience with military affairs or war, and then on a sudden impulse;

for he never rested more than three hours at night, and even for that length of time he did not sleep quietly, but was terrified by strange apparitions, once for example dreaming that the spirit of the Ocean talked with him.

Therefore weary of lying in bed wide awake during the greater part of the night, he would now sit upon his couch, and now wander through the long colonnades, crying out from time to time for daylight and longing for its coming.

I think I may fairly attribute to mental weakness the existence of two exactly opposite faults in the same person, extreme assurance and, on the other hand, excessive timorousness.

… in great and deathly fear, he seated them on a stage and then on a sudden burst out with a great din of flutes and clogs, dressed in a cloak and a tunic reaching to his heels, and after dancing a number went off again.

And yet varied as were his accomplishments, the man could not swim.

Toward those to whom he was devoted his partiality became madness.

Yet he gave no slight attention to liberal studies from his earliest youth, and even published frequent specimens of his attainments in each line. But even so he could not attain any public position or inspire more favourable hope of his future.

His mother Antonia often called him “a monster of a man, not finished but merely begun by Dame Nature;” and if she accused anyone of dullness, she used to say that he was “a bigger fool than her son Claudius.”

His grandmother Augusta always treated him with the utmost contempt, very rarely speaking to him; and when she admonished him, she did so in short, harsh letters, or through messengers.

In one case he is credited with having rendered the following decision, which he had actually written out beforehand:

“I decide in favour of those who have told the truth.”

By such acts as these he so discredited himself that he was held in general and open contempt.

When a guest was suspected of having stolen a golden bowl the day before, he invited him again the next day, but set before him an earthenware cup.

He is even said to have thought of an edict allowing the privilege of breaking wind quietly or noisily at table, having learned of a man who ran some risk by restraining himself through modesty.

He was eager for food and drink at all times and in all places.

… holding court in the forum of Augustus and had caught the savour of a meal which was preparing for the Salii in the temple of Mars hard by, he left the tribunal, went up where the priests were, and took his place at their table.

He hardly ever left the dining-room until he was stuffed and soaked; then he went to sleep at once, lying on his back with his mouth open, and a feather was put down his throat to relieve his stomach.

He slept but little at a time, for he was usually awake before midnight; but he would sometimes drop off in the daytime while holding court and could hardly be roused when the advocates raised their voices for the purpose.

and to the praetorian cohorts he gave a monthly allowance of grain free of cost. When he was asked according to custom to sign the warrant for the execution of a man who had been condemned to death, he said:

“How I wish I had never learned to write!”

He greeted men of all orders offhand and from memory. When the senate returned thanks to him, he replied, “When I shall have deserved them.” He admitted even the commons to witness his exercises in the Campus, and often declaimed in public.

Finally encouraged by his progress, although his voice was weak and husky, he began to long to appear on the stage, and every now and then in the presence of his intimate friends he would quote a Greek proverb meaning

“Hidden music counts for nothing.”

And he made his début at Naples, where he did not cease singing until he had finished the number which he had begun, even though the theatre was shaken by a sudden earthquake shock. In the same city he sang frequently and for several days.

“However much it may be your advice and your wish that I should return speedily, yet you ought rather to counsel me and to hope that I may return worthy of Nero.”

While he was singing no one was allowed to leave the theatre even for the most urgent reasons.

And so it is said that some women gave birth to children there, while many who were worn out with listening and applauding, secretly leaped from the wall, since the gates at the entrance were closed, or feigned death and were carried out as if …

He enriched the monkey-faced usurer Paneros with estates in the country and in the city and had him buried with almost regal splendour. He never wore the same garment twice. He played at dice for four hundred thousand sesterces a point.

He fished with a golden net drawn by cords woven of purple and scarlet threads.

It is said that he never made a journey with less than a thousand carriages, his mules shod with silver and their drivers clad in wool of Canusium, attended by a train of Mazaces and couriers with bracelets and trappings.

The main banquet hall was circular and constantly revolved day and night, like the heavens. He had baths supplied with sea water and sulphur water.

When the edifice was finished in this style and he dedicated it, he deigned to say nothing more in the way of approval than that he was at last beginning to be housed like a human being.

He also began a pool, extending from Misenum to the lake of Avernus, roofed over and enclosed in colonnades, into which he planned to turn all the hot springs in every part of Baiae;

In the rest of the house all parts were overlaid with gold and adorned with gems and mother-of-pearl.

There were dining-rooms with fretted ceils of ivory, whose panels could turn and shower down flowers and were fitted with pipes for sprinkling the guests with perfumes.

The main banquet hall was circular and constantly revolved day and night, like the heavens. He had baths supplied with sea water and sulphur water.

… the man invoked the law and declared that he was a Roman citizen, Galba, pretending to lighten his punishment by some consolation and honour, ordered that a cross much higher than the rest and painted white be set up, and the man transferred to it.

But he gradually changed to sloth and inaction, not to give Nero any cause for jealousy, and as he used to say himself, because no one could be forced to render an account for doing nothing.

As he was holding the assizes at New Carthage, he learned of the rebellion of the Gallic provinces through an urgent appeal for help from the governor of Aquitania;

But when Piso was preferred and he at last lost that hope, he resorted to force, spurred on not merely by feelings of resentment, but also by the greatness of his debts.

For he flatly declared that he could not keep on his feet unless he became emperor, and that it made no difference whether he fell at the hands of the enemy in battle or at those of his creditors in the Forum.

He had extorted a million sesterces from one of the emperor’s slaves a few days before for getting him a stewardship. This was the entire capital for his great undertaking.

Then he was carried about the most populous villages, holding a drawn sword of the Deified Julius, which someone had taken from a shrine of Mars and handed him during the first congratulations.

He did not return to headquarters until the dining-room caught fire from the stove and was ablaze; and then, when all were shocked and troubled at what seemed a bad omen, he said: “Be of good cheer; to us light is given;” and this was his only address to the soldiers.

When he presently received the support of the army of the upper province too, which had previously transferred its allegiance for Galba to the senate, he eagerly accepted the surname of Germanicus, which was unanimously offered him, put off accepting the title of Augustus, and …

Again, when he was dining, an ox that was ploughing shook off its yoke, burst into the dining-room, and after scattering the servants, fell at the very feet of Vespasian as he reclined at table, and bowed its neck as if suddenly tired out.

A cypress tree, also, on his grandfather’s farm was torn up by the roots, without the agency of any violent storm, and thrown down, and on the following day rose again greener and stronger than before.

He dreamed in Greece that the beginning of good fortune for himself and his family would come as soon as Nero had a tooth extracted;

for he would buy up certain commodities merely in order to distribute them at a profit. He made no bones of selling offices to candidates and acquittals to men under prosecution, whether innocent or guilty.

He is even believed to have had the habit of designedly advancing the most rapacious of his procurators to higher posts, that they might be the richer when he later condemned them; in fact, it was common talk that he used these men as sponges, because he, so to speak, soaked them when they were dry and squeezed them when they were wet.

Some say that he was naturally covetous and was taunted with it by an old herdsman of his, who on being forced to pay for the freedom for which he earnestly begged Vespasian when he became emperor, cried:

Some say that he was naturally covetous and was taunted with it by an old herdsman of his, who on being forced to pay for the freedom for which he earnestly begged Vespasian when he became emperor, cried:

“The fox changes his fur, but not his nature.”

Others on the contrary believe that he was driven by necessity to raise money by spoliation and robbery because of the desperate state of the treasury and the privy purse;

On another occasion, remembering at dinner that he had nothing for anybody all day, he gave utterance to that memorable and praiseworthy remark:

“Friends, I have lost a day.”

The whole body of the people in particular he treated with such indulgence on all occasions, that once at a gladiatorial show he declared that he would give it, “not after his own inclinations, but those of the spectators;”

And after his death he bestowed no honour upon him, save that of deification, and he often assailed his memory in ambiguous phrases, both in his speeches and in his edicts.

At the beginning of his reign he used to spend hours in seclusion every day, doing nothing but catch flies and stab them with a keenly-sharpened stylus.

Consequently when someone once asked whether anyone was in there with Caesar, Vibius Crispus made the witty reply: “Not even a fly.” Then he saluted his wife Domitia as Augusta.

“Pray, shall we hear this base slave tomorrow?”

To abuse men’s patience the more insolently, he never pronounced an unusually dreadful sentence without a preliminary declaration of clemency, so that there came to be no more certain indication of a cruel death than the leniency of his preamble.

He had brought some men charged with treason into the senate, and when he had introduced the matter by saying that he would find out that day how dear he was to the members, he had no difficulty in causing them to be condemned to …

With no less arrogance he began as follows in issuing a circular letter in the name of his procurators, “

Our Master and our God bids that this be done.

” And so the custom arose of henceforth addressing him in no other way even in writing or in conversation. He suffered no statues to be set up in his honour in the Capitol, except of gold and silver and of a fixed weight.

He read nothing except the memoirs and transactions of Tiberius Caesar; for his letters, speeches and proclamations he relied on others’ talents. Yet his conversation was not inelegant, and some of his sayings were even noteworthy.

“How I wish,” said he, “that I were as fine looking as Maecius thinks he is.”

He declared too that the head of a certain man, whose hair had changed colour in such a way that it was partly reddish and partly grey, was like “snow on which mead had been poured.”

He declared too that the head of a certain man, whose hair had changed colour in such a way that it was partly reddish and partly grey, was like “snow on which mead had been poured.”

He used to say that the lot of princes was most unhappy, since when they discovered a conspiracy, no one believed them unless they had been killed.

Whenever he had leisure he amused himself with playing at dice, even on working days and in the morning hours.