The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars - free ebook by Suetonius

THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; To which are added, The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D. revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M....

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THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; To which are added, The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D. revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M....

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THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; To which are added, The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D. revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M. C. Suetonius Tranquillus was the son of a Roman knight who commanded a legion, on the side of Otho, at the battle which decided the fate of the empire in favour of Vitellius. From incidental notices in t

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NERO CLAUDIUS CAESAR.

(337) I. Two celebrated families, the Calvini and Aenobarbi, sprung from the race of the Domitii. The Aenobarbi derive both their extraction and their cognomen from one Lucius Domitius, of whom we have this tradition: —As he was returning out of the country to Rome, he was met by two young men of a most august appearance, who desired him to announce to the senate and people a victory, of which no certain intelligence had yet reached the city. To prove that they were more than mortals, they strok

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TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS CAESAR. [465]

(295) I. Livia, having married Augustus when she was pregnant, was within three months afterwards delivered of Drusus, the father of Claudius Caesar, who had at first the praenomen of Decimus, but afterwards that of Nero; and it was suspected that he was begotten in adultery by his father-in-law. The following verse, however, was immediately in every one's mouth: Tois eutychousi kai primaena paidia. Nine months for common births the fates decree; But, for the great, reduce the term to th

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CAIUS JULIUS CAESAR.

I. Julius Caesar, the Divine [3], lost his father [4] when he was in the sixteenth year of his age [5]; and the year following, being nominated to the office of high-priest of Jupiter [6], he repudiated Cossutia, who was very wealthy, although her family belonged only to the equestrian order, and to whom he had been contracted when he was a mere boy. He then married (2) Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, who was four times consul; and had by her, shortly afterwards, a daughter named Julia. Resisti

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THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; To which are added, The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D. revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M....

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[548] A.U.C. 593, 632, 658, 660, 700, 722, 785.

[551] For the distinction between the praenomen and cognomen, see note, p. 192. [553] The Allobroges were a tribe of Gauls, inhabiting Dauphiny and Savoy; the Arverni have left their name in Auvergne. [558] Nais seems to have been a freedwoman, who had been allowed to adopt the family name of her master. [559] By one of those fictions of law, which have abounded in all systems of jurisprudence, a nominal alienation of his property was made in the testator's life-time. [560] The suggestion offere

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[465] A.U.C. 714.

[466] Pliny describes Drusus as having in this voyage circumnavigated Germany, and reached the Cimbrian Chersonese, and the Scythian shores, reeking with constant fogs. [467] Tacitus, Annal. xi. 8, 1, mentions this fosse, and says that Drusus sailed up the Meuse and the Waal. Cluverius places it between the village of Iselvort and the town of Doesborg. [468] The Spolia Opima were the spoils taken from the enemy's king, or chief, when slain in single combat by a Roman general. They were always hu

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THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; To which are added, The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D. revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M....

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D. OCTAVIUS CAESAR AUGUSTUS.

(71) I. That the family of the Octavii was of the first distinction in Velitrae [106], is rendered evident by many circumstances. For in the most frequented part of the town, there was, not long since, a street named the Octavian; and an altar was to be seen, consecrated to one Octavius, who being chosen general in a war with some neighbouring people, the enemy making a sudden attack, while he was sacrificing to Mars, he immediately snatched the entrails of the victim from off the fire, and offe

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THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; To which are added, The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D. revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M....

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SERGIUS SULPICIUS GALBA.

(400) I. The race of the Caesars became extinct in Nero; an event prognosticated by various signs, two of which were particularly significant. Formerly, when Livia, after her marriage with Augustus, was making a visit to her villa at Veii [639], an eagle flying by, let drop upon her lap a hen, with a sprig of laurel in her mouth, just as she had seized it. Livia gave orders to have the hen taken care of, and the sprig of laurel set; and the hen reared such a numerous brood of chickens, that the

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THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; To which are added, The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D. revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M....

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TIBERIUS NERO CAESAR.

(192) I. The patrician family of the Claudii (for there was a plebeian family of the same name, no way inferior to the other either in power or dignity) came originally from Regilli, a town of the Sabines. They removed thence to Rome soon after the building of the city, with a great body of their dependants, under Titus Tatius, who reigned jointly with Romulus in the kingdom; or, perhaps, what is related upon better authority, under Atta Claudius, the head of the family, who was admitted by the

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THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; To which are added, The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D. revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M....

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A. SALVIUS OTHO.

(416) I. The ancestors of Otho were originally of the town of Ferentum, of an ancient and honourable family, and, indeed, one of the most considerable in Etruria. His grandfather, M. Salvius Otho (whose father was a Roman knight, but his mother of mean extraction, for it is not certain whether she was free-born), by the favour of Livia Augusta, in whose house he had his education, was made a senator, but never rose higher than the praetorship. His father, Lucius Otho, was by the mother's side no

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CAIUS CAESAR CALIGULA.

(251) I. Germanicus, the father of Caius Caesar, and son of Drusus and the younger Antonia, was, after his adoption by Tiberius, his uncle, preferred to the quaestorship [377] five years before he had attained the legal age, and immediately upon the expiration of that office, to the consulship [378]. Having been sent to the army in Germany, he restored order among the legions, who, upon the news of Augustus's death, obstinately refused to acknowledge Tiberius as emperor [379], and offered to pla

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THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; To which are added, The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D. revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M. AULUS VITELLIUS. (427) I. Very different accounts are given of the origin of the Vitellian family. Some describe it as ancient and noble, others as recent and obscure, nay, extremely mean. I am inclined

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THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; To which are added, The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D. revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M....

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[377] A.U.C. 757.

[382] This opinion, like some others which occur in Suetonius, may justly be considered as a vulgar error; and if the heart was found entire, it must have been owing to the weakness of the fire, rather than to any quality communicated to the organ, of resisting the power of that element. [383] The magnificent title of King of Kings has been assumed, at different times, by various potentates. The person to whom it is here applied, is the king of Parthia. Under the kings of Persia, and even under

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T. FLAVIUS VESPASIANUS AUGUSTUS.

(441) I. The empire, which had been long thrown into a disturbed and unsetted state, by the rebellion and violent death of its three last rulers, was at length restored to peace and security by the Flavian family, whose descent was indeed obscure, and which boasted no ancestral honours; but the public had no cause to regret its elevation; though it is acknowledged that Domitian met with the just reward of his avarice and cruelty. Titus Flavius Petro, a townsman of Reate [721], whether a centurio

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THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; To which are added, The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D. revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M....

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TITUS FLAVIUS VESPASIANUS AUGUSTUS.

(465) I. Titus, who had the same cognomen with his father, was the darling and delight of mankind; so much did the natural genius, address, or good fortune he possessed tend to conciliate the favour of all. This was, indeed, extremely difficult, after he became emperor, as before that time, and even during the reign of his father, he lay under public odium and censure. He was born upon the third of the calends of January, [30th Dec.] in the year remarkable for the death of Caius [776], near the

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THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; To which are added, The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D. revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M....

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TITUS FLAVIUS DOMITIANUS.

(479) I. Domitian was born upon the ninth of the calends of November [24th October] [795], when his father was consul elect, (being to enter upon his office the month following,) in the sixth region of the city, at the Pomegranate [796], in the house which he afterwards converted into a temple of the Flavian family. He is said to have spent the time of his youth in so much want and infamy, that he had not one piece of plate belonging to him; and it is well known, that Clodius Pollio, a man of pr

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LIVES OF EMINENT GRAMMARIANS

(506) I. The science of grammar [842] was in ancient times far from being in vogue at Rome; indeed, it was of little use in a rude state of society, when the people were engaged in constant wars, and had not much time to bestow on the cultivation of the liberal arts [843]. At the outset, its pretensions were very slender, for the earliest men of learning, who were both poets and orators, may be considered as half-Greek: I speak of Livius [844] and Ennius [845], who are acknowledged to have taugh

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LIVES OF THE POETS.

(531) Terence Juvenal Persius Horace Lucan Pliny...

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THE LIFE OF TERENCE.

Publius Terentius Afer, a native of Carthage, was a slave, at Rome, of the senator Terentius Lucanus, who, struck by his abilities and handsome person, gave him not only a liberal education in his youth, but his freedom when he arrived at years of maturity. Some say that he was a captive taken in war, but this, as Fenestella [925] informs us, could by no means have been the case, since both his birth and death took place in the interval between the termination of the second Punic war and the com

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THE LIFE OF JUVENAL.

D. JUNIUS JUVENALIS, who was either the son [944] of a wealthy freedman, or brought up by him, it is not known which, declaimed till the middle of life [945], more from the bent of his inclination, than from any desire to prepare himself either for the schools or the forum. But having composed a short satire [946], which was clever enough, on Paris [947], the actor of pantomimes, (537) and also on the poet of Claudius Nero, who was puffed up by having held some inferior military rank for six mon

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THE LIFE OF PERSIUS.

AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS was born the day before the Nones of December [4th Dec.] [952], in the consulship of Fabius Persicus and L. Vitellius. He died on the eighth of the calends of December [24th Nov.] [953] in the consulship of Rubrius Marius and Asinius Gallus. Though born at Volterra, in Etruria, he was a Roman knight, allied both by blood and marriage to persons of the highest rank [954]. He ended his days at an estate he had at the eighth milestone on the Appian Way. His father, Flaccus, wh

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THE LIFE OF HORACE.

HORATIUS FLACCUS was a native of Venusium [963], his father having been, by his own account [964], a freedman and collector of taxes, but, as it is generally believed, a dealer in salted (541) provisions; for some one with whom Horace had a quarrel, jeered him, by saying; "How often have I seen your father wiping his nose with his fist?" In the battle of Philippi, he served as a military tribune [965], which post he filled at the instance of Marcus Brutus [966], the general; and having obtained

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