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The Life of Domitian by Suetonius

A sub-edited version of the 1914 Loeb Classical Library translation of Suetonius’s Life of Domitian by J.C. Rolfe, with comments and clarifications.

Summary of Domitian’s life (from Wikipedia)

Domitianus (Domitian) lived from 51 to 96 AD and reigned as Roman emperor from 81 to 96. The son of Vespasian and the younger brother of Titus, his two predecessors on the throne, he was the third and final member of the Flavian dynasty. Domitian’s authoritarian style of ruling put him at odds with the senate, whose powers he drastically curtailed.

Domitian had an early moment of prominence in the Year of Four Emperors, 69 AD, aged just 18, after Vitellius was assassinated and before Vespasian arrived in Rome to take power, when he was acclaimed ‘Caesar’ and nominally ran the government. Once Vespasian arrived in Rome and was enthroned, though, Domitian reverted to playing a minor and largely ceremonial role during the reigns of his father and brother.

After Titus died on 13 September 81, Domitian was declared emperor by the Praetorian Guard. His 15-year reign was to be the longest since that of Tiberius. As emperor, Domitian:

strengthened the economy by revaluing the Roman coinage
expanded the border defences of the empire
initiated a massive building program to restore the damaged city of Rome

Significant wars were fought in Britain, where his general Agricola attempted to conquer Caledonia (Scotland), and in Dacia, where Domitian was unable to secure a decisive victory against King Decebalus.

Domitian’s government exhibited strong authoritarian characteristics. Religious, military, and cultural propaganda fostered a cult of personality. He nominated himself perpetual censor in an effort to control public and private morals.

As a result Domitian was popular with the people and the army but considered a tyrant by members of the senate. Domitian’s reign came to an end in 96 when he was assassinated by court officials. He was succeeded the same day by his advisor, Nerva.

After his death Domitian’s memory was condemned to oblivion by the Senate while senatorial and equestrian authors such as Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Suetonius propagated the view of Domitian as a cruel and paranoid tyrant. The later part of his rule was regularly described as a ‘tyranny’. (In the Penguin translation of the Epigrams of Martial, Peter Howell says that in his day, 1964, Domitian had a reputation little short of Hitler’s for evil tyranny.)

Modern revisionists have characterised Domitian as a ruthless but efficient autocrat whose cultural, economic and political programs laid the foundation of the peaceful second century.

The Life of Domitian by Suetonius

(1) Domitian was born on the ninth day before the Kalends of November [24 October] of the year when his father was consul elect and was about to enter on the office in the following month [51 AD] in a street of the sixth region called ‘the Pomegranate’, in a house which he afterwards converted into a temple of the Flavian family.

Domitian is said to have passed the period of his boyhood and early youth in great poverty and infamy for it is said that he did not possess a single piece of plate.

It is a well-known fact that Claudius Pollio, a man of praetorian rank, against whom Nero’s poem ‘The One-eyed Man’ is directed, preserved a letter in Domitian’s handwriting and sometimes exhibited it, in which the future emperor promised him an assignation [i.e. sex]. And some people claim that Domitian was also debauched [i.e. abused] by Nerva, who succeeded him.

In the war with Vitellius Domitian took refuge in the Capitol with his paternal uncle, Sabinus, and a part of the forces under him. When Vitellius’s forces stormed the hill and the temple of Jupiter was set alight, Domitian hid during the night with the guardian of the shrine. In the morning, disguised in the tunic of a follower of Isis and mingling with the priests of that fickle superstition, he went across the Tiber with a single companion to the mother of one of his school-fellows. There he was so effectually concealed that, although he was closely followed he could not be found, in spite of a thorough search. [For more on this episode, see Tacitus’s Histories.]

It was only after the Flavian forces took Rome that Domitian ventured out. After being hailed as ‘Caesar’, he assumed the office of city praetor with consular powers, but only in name, turning over all the judicial business to his next colleague.

Domitian exercised all the tyranny of his high position (i.e. son of the emperor) so lawlessly that it was even then apparent what sort of a man he was going to be. For example, after making free with the wives of many men, he went so far as to marry Domitia Longina who was the wife of Aelius Lamia. And in a single day he assigned more than twenty positions in the city and in the provinces, which led Vespasian to say more than once that he was surprised that his son did not appoint the emperor’s successor along with the rest.

(2) Domitian began an expedition against Gaul and the Germanies which was uncalled for and from which his father’s friends dissuaded him, simply to make himself equal to his brother Titus in power and rank. For this he was reprimanded and, to give him a better realisation of his youth (aged 18) and position, he was made to live with his father. When they appeared in public Domitian followed the emperor’s chair and that of his brother in a litter. He also attended their triumph over Judaea riding on a white horse. Of his six consulships before he became emperor only one was a regular one, and he obtained that only because his brother gave place to him and recommended his appointment.

Domitian made a pretence of modesty and especially of an interest in poetry, an art which had previously been as unfamiliar to him as it was later despised and rejected, and he even gave readings in public.

Yet in spite of all this, when Vologaesus, king of the Parthians, had asked for auxiliaries against the Alani and for one of Vespasian’s sons as their leader, Domitian made every effort to have himself sent rather than Titus and, when the affair came to nothing, he tried by gifts and promises to induce other eastern kings to make the same request.

On the death of his father and his older brother, Titus, succeeding, Domitian hesitated for some time whether to offer a largess to the soldiers twice as large as the one his brother gave. He often said that he had been left a partner in the imperial power [i.e. alongside his brother] but that the will had been tampered with.

And from that time on he never ceased to plot against his brother secretly and openly, until Titus was seized with a dangerous illness whereupon Domitian ordered that he be left for dead before he had actually drawn his last breath. And after Titus’s death Domitian bestowed no honour upon him, save that of deification, and he often attacked his memory in ambiguous phrases, both in his speeches and in his edicts.

(3) At the beginning of his reign Domitian 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.’

He had his wife Domitia honoured with the title ‘Augusta’. He had had a son by her in his second consulship, whom he lost the second year after he became emperor. He divorced her because of her love for the actor, Paris, but could not bear the separation and soon took her back, alleging that the people demanded it. [It was for lampooning this actor, Paris, that the satirist Juvenal was, according to some biographies, exiled to Egypt.]

In his administration of the government Domitian for some time showed himself inconsistent, with about an equal number of virtues and vices, but eventually he turned the virtues into vices. For so far as one may guess, it was contrary to his natural disposition but he was made rapacious through need and cruel through fear.

(4) Domitian constantly gave grand costly entertainments, both in the amphitheatre and in the Circus, where in addition to the usual races between two-horse and four-horse chariots, he also exhibited two battles, one between forces of infantry and the other by horsemen, and he even gave a naval battle in the amphitheatre.

As well as these, he gave hunts of wild beasts, gladiatorial shows at night by the light of torches, and not only combats between men but between women as well. He was always present, too, at the games given by the quaestors, which he revived after they had been abandoned for some time, and invariably granted the people the privilege of calling for two pairs of gladiators from his own school, and brought them in last, in all the splendour of the court.

During the whole of every gladiatorial show there always stood at his feet a small boy clad in scarlet, with an abnormally small head, with whom he used to talk a great deal, and sometimes seriously. At any rate, he was overheard to ask him if he knew why he had decided at the last appointment day to make Mettius Rufus prefect of Egypt.

He often gave sea-fights almost with regular fleets, having dug a lake near the Tiber and surrounded it with seats. He continued to witness the contests even in heavy rains.

Domitian also celebrated the Secular games reckoning the time, not according to the year when Claudius had last given them, but by the previous calculation of Augustus. In the course of these, to make it possible to finish a hundred races on the day of contests in the Circus, he diminished the number of laps from seven to five.

Domitian also established a quinquennial contest in honour of Jupiter Capitolinus of a threefold character, comprising music, riding, and gymnastics, and with considerably more prizes than are awarded nowadays. For there were competitions in prose declamation both in Greek and in Latin, between lyre-players, between choruses of such players and in the lyre alone without singing. In the stadium there were races even between women.

Domitian presided at the competitions in half-boots, clad in a purple toga in the Greek fashion, and wearing upon his head a golden crown with figures of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. By his side sat the priest of Jupiter and the college of the Flaviales (established for the worship of the deified Flavian emperors) similarly dressed, except that their crowns bore his image as well.

Domitian celebrated the Quinquatria every year in honour of Minerva at his Alban villa, and established for her a college of priests, from which men were chosen by lot to act as officers and give splendid shows of wild beasts and stage plays, besides holding contests in oratory and poetry.

Domitian made a present to the people of three hundred sesterces each on three occasions, and in the course of one of his shows in celebration of the feast of the Seven Hills gave a plentiful banquet, distributing large baskets of victuals to the senate and knights and smaller ones to the commons, and he himself was the first to begin to eat. On the following day he scattered gifts of all sorts of things to be scrambled for, and since the greater part of these fell where the people sat, he had five hundred tickets thrown into each section occupied by the senatorial and equestrian orders.

(5) Domitian restored many splendid buildings which had been destroyed by fire, among them the Capitolium, which had again been burned [rebuilt after having been burned down in 69, the Capitoline temple was again burned down in 80]. In all cases he gave the new buildings the inscription of his own name only, with no mention of the original builder.

He also built a new temple on the Capitoline hill in honour of Jupiter Custos and the forum which now bears the name of Nerva [who finished and dedicated it]. He had built a temple to the Flavian family, a stadium, an Odeum [or music hall] and a pool for sea-fights. From the stone used in this last the Circus Maximus was afterwards rebuilt, when both sides of it had been destroyed by fire.

(6) Domitian’s campaigns he undertook partly without provocation and partly of necessity. That against the Chatti was uncalled for, while the one against the Sarmatians was justified by the destruction of a legion with its commander. He made two against the Dacians, the first when Oppius Sabinus an ex-consul was defeated, and the second on the overthrow of Cornelius Fuscus, prefect of the Praetorian Guard, to whom he had entrusted the conduct of the war. After several battles of varying success he celebrated a double triumph over the Chatti and the Dacians. [Tacitus says that Domitian’s unjustified triumph over the Germans (and the Dacians) was a laughing-stock; Agricola, chapter 39.] His victories over the Sarmatians he commemorated merely by the offering of a laurel crown to Jupiter of the Capitol.

A civil war which was set on foot by Lucius Antonius, governor of Upper Germany, was put down in the emperor’s absence by a remarkable stroke of good fortune; for at the very hour of battle the Rhine suddenly thawed and prevented his barbarian allies from crossing over to Antonius. Domitian learned of this victory through omens before he actually had news of it, for on the very day when the decisive battle was fought a magnificent eagle enfolded his statue at Rome with its wings, uttering exultant shrieks. Soon afterwards the report of Antony’s death became so current that several went so far as to claim that they had seen his head brought to Rome.

(7) Domitian made many innovations in common customs. He abolished the distribution of food to the people and revived the custom of holding formal dinners. He added two factions of drivers in the Circus, with gold and purple as their colours, to the four former ones. He forbade the appearance of actors on the stage, but allowed the practice of their art in private houses. He prohibited the castration of males, and kept down the price of the eunuchs that remained in the hands of the slave dealers.

Once, upon the occasion of a plentiful wine crop attended with a scarcity of grain, thinking that the fields were neglected through too much attention to the vineyards, he made an edict forbidding anyone to plant more vines in Italy and ordering that the vineyards in the provinces be cut down, or that only half of them should be left standing; but he did not persist in carrying out the measure.

Domitian opened some of the most important offices of the court [i.e. those that had formerly been restricted to the senatorial order] to freedmen and Roman knights.

He prohibited the uniting of two legions in one camp and the deposit of more than 1,000 sesterces by any one soldier at headquarters because it was clear that Lucius Antonius had been especially led to attempt a revolution by the amount of such deposits in the combined winter quarters of two legions.

He increased the pay of the soldiers one fourth, by the addition of three gold pieces each year [i.e. raised the amount from nine to twelve aurei: an aureus contained 100 sesterces.]

(8) Domitian administered justice scrupulously and conscientiously, frequently holding special sittings on the tribunal in the Forum. He rescinded such decisions of the Hundred Judges as were made from interested motives [i.e. to curry favour with the rich or powerful]. He often warned the arbiters not to grant claims for freedom made under false pretences. He degraded jurors who accepted bribes, together with all their associates.

He also induced the tribunes of the commons to prosecute a corrupt aedile for extortion, and to ask the senate to appoint jurors in the case. He took such care to exercise restraint over the city officials and the governors of the provinces, that at no time were they more honest or just, whereas after his time we have seen many of them charged with all manner of offences.

In his role as censor he undertook the correction of public morals. He:

put an end to the licence at the theatres, where the general public occupied the seats reserved for the knights
did away with the prevailing publication of scurrilous lampoons in which distinguished men and women were attacked, and imposed ignominious penalties on their authors
expelled an ex-quaestor from the senate because he was given to acting and dancing
deprived notorious women of the use of litters, as well as of the right to receive inheritances and legacies
struck the name of a Roman knight from the list of jurors because he had taken back his wife after divorcing her and charging her with adultery
condemned several men of both orders, offenders against the Scantinian law
the incest of Vestal virgins, condoned even by his father and his brother, he punished severely in divers ways, at first by capital punishment and afterwards in the ancient fashion

For while Domitian allowed the sisters Oculata and Varronilla free choice of the manner of their death and banished their lovers, he later ordered that Cornelia, a chief-vestal who had been acquitted once but after a long interval again arraigned and found guilty, be buried alive and her lovers were beaten to death with rods in the Comitium – with the exception of an ex-praetor whom he allowed to go into exile, because he admitted his guilt while the case was still unsettled and the examination and torture of the witnesses had led to no result.

To protect the gods from being dishonoured with impunity by any sacrilege, Domitian caused a tomb which one of his freedmen had built for his son from stones intended for the temple of Jupiter of the Capitol to be destroyed by the soldiers and the bones and ashes contained in it thrown into the sea.

(9) In the earlier part of his reign Domitian so shrank from any form of bloodshed that while his father was still absent from the city, he planned to issue an edict that no oxen should be offered up, recalling the line of Virgil:

‘Ever yet an impious race did slay and feast upon bullocks.’

He was equally free from any suspicion of love of gain or of avarice, both in private life and for some time after becoming emperor. On the contrary, he often gave strong proofs not merely of integrity, but even of liberality.

He treated all his intimates most generously and there was nothing which he urged them more frequently, or with greater insistence, than that they should be niggardly in none of their acts. He would not accept inheritances left him by those who had children. He even annulled a legacy in the will of Rustus Caepio, who had provided that his heir should yearly pay a specified sum to each of the senators on his entrance into the House.

He cancelled the suits against those who had been posted as debtors to the public treasury for more than five years and would not allow a renewal except within a year and on the condition that an accuser who did not win his suit should be punished with exile.

Scribes of the quaestors who carried on business, which had become usual although contrary to the Clodian law, he pardoned for past offences.

Parcels of land which were left unoccupied here and there after the assignment of lands to the veterans he granted to their former owners as by right of possession. He checked false accusations designed for the profit of the privy purse and inflicted severe penalties on offenders, and a saying of his was current, that an emperor who does not punish informers hounds them on.

(10) But Domitian did not continue this course of mercy or integrity, although he turned to cruelty somewhat more speedily than to avarice. He put to death a pupil of the pantomimic actor Paris, who was still a beardless boy and ill at the time, because in his skill and his appearance he seemed not unlike his master [who he had had executed for having an affair with his wife].

He executed Hermogenes of Tarsus because of some allusions in his History, besides crucifying even the slaves who had written it out.

A householder who said that a Thracian gladiator was a match for the murmillo, but not for the giver of the games, he caused to be dragged from his seat and thrown into the arena to dogs, with this placard: ‘A favourer of the Thracians who spoke impiously.’

Domitian put to death many senators, among them several ex-consuls, including Civica Cerealis, at the very time when he was proconsul in Asia; Salvidienus Orfitus; Acilius Glabrio while he was in exile — these on the ground of plotting revolution, the rest on any charge, however trivial.

He slew Aelius Lamia for joking remarks, which were reflections on him, it is true, but made long before and harmless. For when Domitian had taken away Lamia’s wife, the latter replied to someone who praised his voice: ‘I practise continence’, and when Titus urged him to marry again, he replied: ‘Are you too looking for a wife?’

He put to death:

Salvius Cocceianus because he had kept the birthday of the emperor Otho, his paternal uncle
Mettius Pompusianus because it was commonly reported that he had an imperial nativity and carried about a map of the world on parchment and speeches of the kings and generals from Titus Livius, besides giving two of his slaves the names of Mago and Hannibal
Sallustius Lucullus, governor of Britain, for allowing some lances of a new pattern to be named ‘Lucullean’ after his own name
Junius Rusticus because he had published eulogies of Paetus Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus and called them the most upright of men – and on the occasion of this charge he banished all the philosophers from the city and from Italy

He also executed the younger Helvidius, alleging that in a farce composed for the stage he had under the characters of Paris and Oenone censured Domitian’s divorce from his wife. He executed Flavius Sabinus, too, one of his cousins, because on the day of the consular elections the crier had inadvertently announced him to the people as emperor elect, instead of consul.

After his victory in the civil war Domitian became even more cruel and to discover any conspirators who were in hiding, tortured many of the opposite party by a new form of inquisition, inserting fire in their privates, and he cut off the hands of some of them.

Of the more conspicuous only two were pardoned, a tribune of senatorial rank and a centurion, who the more clearly to prove their freedom from guilt, showed that they were of shameless unchastity and could therefore have had no influence with the general or with the soldiers.

(11) Domitian’s savage cruelty was not only excessive, but also cunning and sudden. He invited one of his stewards to his bed-chamber the day before crucifying him, made him sit beside him on his couch, and dismissed him in a secure and gay frame of mind, even deigning to send him a share of his dinner.

When he was on the point of condemning the ex-consul Arrecinius Clemens, one of his intimates and tools, he treated him with as great favour as before, if not greater, and finally, as he was taking a drive with him, catching sight of his accuser he said: ‘Pray, shall we hear this base slave to‑morrow?’

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.

Domitian 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 suffer the ancient method of punishment. Then, appalled at the cruelty of the penalty, he interposed a veto, to lessen the odium, in these words (for it will be of interest to know his exact language): ‘Allow me, Fathers of the senate, to prevail on you by your love for me to grant a favour which I know I shall obtain with difficulty, namely that you allow the condemned men free choice of the manner of their death; for thus you will spare your own eyes and all men will know that I was present at the meeting of the senate.’

(12) Reduced to financial straits by the cost of his buildings and shows, as well as by the additions which he had made to the pay of the soldiers, Domitian tried to lighten the military expenses by diminishing the number of his troops. But perceiving that in this way he exposed himself to the attacks of the barbarians, and nevertheless had difficulty in easing his burdens, he had no hesitation in resorting to every sort of robbery. The property of the living and the dead was seized everywhere on any charge brought by any accuser. It was enough to allege any action or word derogatory to the majesty of the prince.

Estates of those in no way connected with him were confiscated if but one man came forward to declare that he had heard from the deceased during his lifetime that Caesar was his heir.

Besides other taxes, that on the Jews [Titus had imposed a tax of two drachmas per head on Jews for permission to practise their religion] was levied with the utmost rigour, and people were prosecuted who, without publicly acknowledging that faith, yet lived as Jews [a possible reference to Christians who the Romans didn’t distinguish from the Jews], as well as those who concealed their origin and did not pay the tribute levied upon their people.

I recall being present in my youth when the person of a man ninety years old was examined before the procurator and a very crowded court, to see whether he was circumcised.

From his youth Domitian was far from being of an affable disposition, but was on the contrary presumptuous and unbridled both in act and in word. When his father’s concubine Caenis returned from Histria and offered to kiss him as usual, he held out his hand to her.

(13) When he became emperor, Domitian did not hesitate to boast in the senate that he had conferred their power on both his father and his brother, and that they had but returned him his own; nor on taking back his wife after their divorce, that he had ‘recalled her to his divine couch’ [meaning the couch which held the household gods].

Domitian delighted to hear the people in the amphitheatre shout on his feast day: ‘Good Fortune attend our Lord and Mistress.’

Even more, in the Capitoline competition, when all the people begged him with great unanimity to restore Palfurius Sura who had been banished some time before from the senate, and on that occasion received the prize for oratory, he deigned no reply, but merely had a crier bid them be silent.

With no less arrogance he began 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 allowed no statues to be set up in his honour in the Capitol, except of gold and silver and of a fixed weight. He erected so many and such huge vaulted passage-ways and arches in the various regions of Rome, adorned with chariots and triumphal emblems, that on one of them someone wrote in Greek: ‘It is enough’ [the Greek word for enough sounds like the Roman word for arch].

Domitian held the consulship seventeen times, more often than any of his predecessors. Of these the seven middle ones were in successive years, but all of them he filled in name only, continuing none beyond the first of May and few after the Ides of January. Having assumed the surname Germanicus after his two triumphs, he renamed the months of September and October from his own names, calling them ‘Germanicus’ and ‘Domitianus’, because in the former he had come to the throne and was born in the latter.

(14) In this way Domitian became an object of terror and hatred to all, but he was overthrown at last by a conspiracy of his friends and favourite freedmen, to which his wife was also privy.

He had long since had a premonition of the last year and day of his life, and even of the very hour and manner of his death. In his youth astrologers had predicted all this to him, and his father once even openly ridiculed him at dinner for refusing mushrooms, saying that he showed himself unaware of his destiny in not rather fearing the sword. Therefore he was at all times timorous and worried, and was disquieted beyond measure by even the slightest suspicions. It is thought that nothing had more effect in inducing him to ignore his proclamation about cutting down the vineyards than the circulation of notes containing the following lines:

‘Gnaw at my root, an you will; even then shall I have juice in plenty
To pour upon thee, O goat, when at the altar you stand.’ [a quote from Ovid’s Fasti]

It was because of this same timorousness that although he was most eager for all such honours, he refused a new one which the senate had devised and offered to him, a decree that whenever he held the consulship Roman knights selected by lot should precede him among his lictors and attendants, clad in the trabea and bearing lances.

As the time when he anticipated danger drew near, becoming still more anxious every day, he lined the walls of the colonnades in which he used to walk with phengite stone, to be able to see in its brilliant surface the reflection of all that went on behind his back. And he did not give a hearing to any prisoners except in private and alone, even holding their chains in his hands. Further, to convince his household that one must not venture to kill a patron even on good grounds, he condemned Epaphroditus, his confidential secretary, to death, because it was believed that after Nero was abandoned Epaphroditus had actually held the dagger with which Nero stabbed himself.

(15) Finally Domitian put to death his own cousin Flavius Clemens, suddenly and on a very slight suspicion, almost before the end of his consulship. And yet Flavius was a man of most contemptible laziness and Domitian had openly named his sons, who were then very young, as his successors, changing their former names and calling the one Vespasian and the other Domitian. And it was by this deed in particular that he hastened his own destruction.

For eight successive months so many strokes of lightning occurred and were reported that at last he cried: ‘Well, let him now strike whom they will.’ The temple of Jupiter of the Capitol was struck and that of the Flavian family, as well as the Palace and the emperor’s own bedroom. The inscription on the base of a triumphal statue of his was torn off in a violent tempest and fell upon a neighbouring tomb. The tree which had been overthrown when Vespasian was still a private citizen but had sprung up anew suddenly fell down again. Fortune of Praeneste had throughout his whole reign, when he commended the new year to her protection, given him a favourable omen and always in the same words. Now at last she returned a most direful omen, not without the mention of bloodshed.

Domitian dreamed that Minerva, whom he worshipped with superstitious veneration, came forth from her shrine and declared that she could no longer protect him since she had been disarmed by Jupiter.

But there was nothing by which he was so much disturbed as a prediction of the astrologer Ascletarion and what befell him. When this man was accused before the emperor and did not deny that he had spoken of certain things which he had foreseen through his art, he was asked what his own end would be. When Ascletarion replied that he would shortly be rent by dogs, Domitian ordered him killed at once but, to prove the fallibility of his art, he ordered that Ascletarion’s funeral be attended to with the greatest care. While this was being done, it chanced that the pyre was overset by a sudden storm and that the dogs mangled the corpse, which was only partly consumed. An actor of farces called Latinus, who happened to pass by and see the incident, told it to Domitian at the dinner table, with the rest of the day’s gossip.

(16) The day before he was killed Domitian gave orders to have some apples which were offered to him kept until the following day, and added: ‘If only I am spared to eat them’. Then, turning to his companions, he declared that on the following day the moon would be stained with blood in Aquarius and that a deed would be done of which men would talk all over the world. At about midnight he was so terrified that he leaped from his bed. The next morning he conducted the trial of a soothsayer sent from Germany who, when consulted about the lightning strokes, had foretold a change of rulers and condemned him to death.

While he was vigorously scratching a festered wart on his forehead and had drawn blood, he said: ‘May this be all.’

Then he asked the time, and by pre-arrangement the sixth hour was announced to him, instead of the fifth, which he feared. Filled with joy at this, and believing all danger now past, he was hastening to the bath, when his chamberlain Parthenius changed his purpose by announcing that someone had called about a matter of great moment and would not be put off. Then he dismissed all his attendants and went to his bedroom, where he was slain.

(17) Concerning the nature of the plot and the manner of his death, this is about all that became known. As the conspirators were deliberating when and how to attack him, whether at the bath or at dinner, Stephanus, steward of his niece, Domitilla, and at the time under accusation for embezzlement, offered his aid and counsel.

To avoid suspicion, he wrapped up his left arm in woollen bandages for some days, pretending that he had injured it, and concealed in them a dagger. Then pretending to betray a conspiracy and for that reason being given an audience, he stabbed the emperor in the groin as he was reading a paper which the assassin handed him and stood in a state of amazement.

As the wounded prince attempted to resist, he was slain with seven wounds by Clodianus, a subaltern, Maximus, a freedman of Parthenius, Satur, decurion of the chamberlains, and a gladiator from the imperial school.

A boy who was engaged in his usual duty of attending to the Lares in the bedroom and so was a witness of the murder, gave this additional information. He was bidden by Domitian, immediately after he was dealt the first blow, to hand him the dagger hidden under his pillow and to call the servants. But he found nothing at the head of the bed save the hilt and in any case all the doors were closed.

Meanwhile the emperor grappled with Stephanus and bore him to the ground, where they struggled for a long time, Domitian trying now to wrest the dagger from his assailant’s hands and now to gouge out his eyes with his lacerated fingers.

Domitian was slain on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of October (18 September) in the forty-fifth year of his age and the fifteenth of his reign (96 AD).

His corpse was carried out on a common bier by those who bury the poor, and his nurse Phyllis cremated it at her suburban estate on the Via Latina. But his ashes she secretly carried to the temple of the Flavian family and mingled them with those of Julia, daughter of Titus, whom she had also reared.

(18) Domitian was tall of stature, with a modest expression and a high colour. His eyes were large, but his sight was somewhat dim. He was handsome and graceful too, especially when a young man, and in his whole body with the exception of his feet, the toes of which were somewhat cramped. In later life he had the further disfigurement of baldness, a protruding belly, and spindling legs, though the latter had become thin from a long illness.

Domitian was so conscious that the modesty of his expression was in his favour that he once made this boast in the senate: ‘So far, at any rate, you have approved my heart and my countenance.’

He was so sensitive about his baldness that he regarded it as a personal insult if anyone else was twitted with that defect in jest or in earnest.

(19) Domitian was incapable of exertion and seldom went about the city on foot, while on his campaigns and journeys he rarely rode on horseback but was regularly carried in a litter.

He took no interest in arms, but was particularly devoted to archery. There are many who have more than once seen him slay a hundred wild beasts of different kinds on his Alban estate, and purposely kill some of them with two successive shots in such a way that the arrows gave the effect of horns. Sometimes he would have a slave stand at a distance and hold out the palm of his right hand for a mark, with the fingers spread; then he directed his arrows with such accuracy that they passed harmlessly between the fingers.

(20) At the beginning of his rule Domitian neglected liberal studies although he provided for having the libraries, which were destroyed by fire, renewed at very great expense, seeking everywhere for copies of the lost works, and sending scribes to Alexandria to transcribe and correct them.

Yet he never took any pains to become acquainted with history or poetry or even to acquire an ordinarily good style.

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 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.’

(21) Domitian 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. He went to the bath before the end of the forenoon and lunched to the point of satiety, so that at dinner he rarely took anything except a Matian apple and a moderate amount of wine from a jug. He gave numerous and generous banquets, but usually ended them early; in no case did he protract them beyond sunset, or follow them by a drinking bout. In fact, he did nothing until the hour for retiring except walk alone in a retired place.

(22) Domitian was excessively lustful. His constant sexual intercourse he called ‘bed-wrestling’ as if it were a kind of exercise.

It was reported that he depilated his concubines with his own hand and swam with common prostitutes.

After persistently refusing his niece, who was offered him in marriage when she was still a maid, because he was entangled in an intrigue with Domitia, he seduced her shortly afterwards when she became the wife of another, and that too during the lifetime of Titus.

Later, when she was bereft of father and husband, he loved her ardently and without disguise, and even became the cause of her death by compelling her to get rid of a child of his by abortion.

(23) The people received the news of his death with indifference but the soldiers were greatly grieved and at once attempted to call him the Deified Domitian. They insisted on the execution of his murderers.

The senators, on the contrary, were so overjoyed that they raced to fill the House where they did not refrain from attacking the dead emperor with the most insulting and stinging reproaches. They even had ladders brought and his shields and images torn down before their eyes and smashed on the ground. Finally they passed a decree that his inscriptions should everywhere be erased and all record of him obliterated.

A few months before he was killed, a raven perched on the Capitolium and cried ‘All will be well,’ an omen which some interpreted as follows:

‘High on the gable Tarpeian a raven but lately alighting,
Could not say “It is well,” only declared “It will be.”‘

Domitian himself, it is said, dreamed that a golden hump grew out on his back, and he regarded this as an infallible sign that the condition of the empire would be happier and more prosperous after his time. And this was soon shown to be true through the uprightness and moderate rule of the emperors who succeeded him.

Suetonius’s Lives of the Twelve Caesars

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by Simon on January 18, 2023 • Permalink

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Posted by Simon on January 18, 2023

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The Life of Titus by Suetonius

A sub-edited version of the 1914 Loeb Classical Library translation of Suetonius’s Life of Titus by J.C. Rolfe, with a few comments and clarifications.

Summary of Titus’s life (from Wikipedia)

Titus Caesar Vespasianus (39 to 81 AD) was Roman emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death.

Before becoming emperor, Titus gained renown as a military commander, serving under his father in Judea during the First Jewish–Roman War. The campaign came to a brief halt with the death of emperor Nero in 68, launching Vespasian’s bid for the imperial power during the Year of the Four Emperors. When Vespasian was declared Emperor on 1 July 69, Titus was left in charge of ending the Jewish rebellion. In 70, he besieged and captured Jerusalem, and destroyed the city and the Second Temple. For this achievement Titus was awarded a triumph – the Arch of Titus commemorates his victory to this day.

During his father’s rule, Titus gained notoriety in Rome in his role as prefect of the Praetorian Guard, and for carrying on a controversial relationship with the Jewish queen, Berenice. Despite concerns over his character, Titus ruled to great acclaim following the death of Vespasian in 79, and was considered a good emperor by Suetonius and other contemporary historians.

As emperor, Titus is best known for completing the Colosseum and for his generosity in relieving the suffering caused by two disasters, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 and a fire in Rome in 80. After barely two years in office, Titus died of a fever on 13 September 81. He was deified by the Roman Senate and succeeded by his younger brother Domitian.

The Life of Titus by Suetonius

(1) Titus, of the same surname as his father, was the delight and darling of the human race, such surpassing ability had he, by nature, art or good fortune, to win the affections of all men and, what was harder, to do so while he was emperor. For as a private citizen, and even during his father’s rule, he did not escape hatred, much less public criticism.

Titus was born on the third day before the Kalends of January (30 December, 41 AD) in a mean house near the Septizonium and in a very small dark room besides. It still remains and is on exhibition.

(2) Titus was brought up at court in company with [Claudius’s son] Britannicus and taught the same subjects by the same masters. At that time, so they say, a physiognomist was brought in by Narcissus, the freedman of Claudius, to examine Britannicus and declared most positively that he would never become emperor but that Titus, who was standing nearby at the time, would surely rule.

The boys were so intimate that it is believed that when Britannicus drained the fatal draught that poisoned him, Titus, who was reclining at his side, also tasted of the potion and for a long time suffered from an obstinate disorder. Titus did not forget all this, but later set up a golden statue of his friend in the Palace and dedicated another equestrian statue of ivory, which is to this day carried in the procession in the Circus, and he attended it on its first appearance.

(3) Even in boyhood Titus’s bodily and mental gifts were conspicuous and they became more and more so as he advanced in years. He had a handsome person in which there was no less dignity than grace, and was uncommonly strong, although he was not tall of stature and had a rather protruding belly. His memory was extraordinary and he had an aptitude for almost all the arts, both of war and of peace.

Skilful in arms and horsemanship, Titus made speeches and wrote verses in Latin and Greek with ease and readiness, and even extempore. He was not unacquainted with music but sang and played the harp agreeably and skilfully.

I have heard from many sources that he used also to write shorthand with great speed and would amuse himself by playful contests with his secretaries. Also that he could imitate any handwriting that he had ever seen and often declared that he might have been the prince of forgers.

(4) Titus served as military tribune both in Germany and in Britain, winning a high reputation for energy and no less integrity, as is evident from the great number of his statues and busts in both those provinces and from the inscriptions they bear.

After his military service Titus pleaded in the Forum, rather for glory than as a profession. He married Arrecina Tertulla, whose father, though only a Roman knight, had once been prefect of the praetorian cohorts. On her death he replaced her with Marcia Furnilla, a lady of a very distinguished family, but divorced her after he had acknowledged a daughter which she bore him.

Then, after holding the office of quaestor, as commander of a legion he subjugated the two strong cities of Tarichaeae and Gamala in Judaea, having his horse killed under him in one battle and mounting another, whose rider had fallen fighting by his side.

(5) Titus was sent to congratulate Galba on becoming ruler of the state [in January 69) and attracted attention wherever he went, through the belief that he had been sent for to be adopted by the new emperor. But observing that everything was once more in a state of turmoil, he turned back. He visited the oracle of the Paphian Venus to consult it about his voyage and was encouraged to hope for imperial power.

[His father, Vespasian, put him in charge of the siege of Jerusalem.] In the final attack on the city he slew twelve of the defenders with as many arrows. He took the city on his daughter’s birthday, so delighting the soldiers and winning their devotion that they hailed him as ‘Imperator’ and detained him when he wanted to leave the province, urging him with prayers and even with threats either to stay or to take them all with him.

This aroused the suspicion that he had tried to revolt from his father and make himself king of the East and he strengthened this suspicion on his way to Alexandria by wearing a diadem at the consecration of the bull Apis in Memphis, an act in accord with the usual ceremonial of that ancient religion, but unfavourably interpreted by some.

Because of this he hastened to Italy and, putting in at Regium and then at Puteoli in a transport ship, he went with all speed from there to Rome, where as if to show that the reports about him were groundless, he surprised his father with the greeting, ‘I am here, father; I am here.’

(6) From that moment onwards Titus never ceased to act as the emperor’s partner and even as his protector. He took part in his father’s triumph and was censor with him. He was also his colleague in the tribunicial power and in seven consulships. He took upon himself the discharge of almost all duties, personally dictated letters and wrote edicts in his father’s name and even read his speeches in the senate in lieu of a quaestor.

Titus also assumed the command of the praetorian guard, which before that time had never been held except by a Roman knight. In this office he conducted himself in a somewhat arrogant and tyrannical fashion for whenever he regarded anyone with suspicion, he would secretly send some of the Guard to the various theatres and camps to demand their punishment as if by consent of all who were present and then he would put them out of the way without delay.

Among these was Aulus Caecina, an ex-consul whom he invited to dinner and then ordered to be stabbed almost before he left the dining-room. But in this case he was led by a pressing danger, having got possession of an autograph copy of a harangue which Caecina had prepared to deliver to the soldiers. Although by such conduct he provided for his safety in the future, he incurred such odium at the time that hardly anyone ever came to the throne with so evil a reputation or so much against the desires of all.

(7) Besides cruelty, Titus was also suspected of riotous living, since he protracted his revels until the middle of the night with the most prodigal of his friends. Likewise of unchastity because of his troops of catamites and eunuchs and his notorious passion for Queen Berenice, to whom it was even said that he promised marriage.

He was suspected of greed as well for it was well known that in cases which came before his father he put a price on his influence and accepted bribes. In short, people not only thought but openly declared that he would be a second Nero. But this reputation turned out to his advantage and gave place to the highest praise when, on coming to power, no fault was discovered in him but, on the contrary, the highest virtues.

Titus’s banquets were pleasant rather than extravagant. He chose as his friends men whom succeeding emperors also retained as indispensable alike to themselves and to the State, and of whose services they made special use. Berenice he sent from Rome at once, against her will and against his own. Some of his most beloved paramours, although they were such skilful dancers that they later became stage favourites, he not only ceased to cherish any longer but even to attend their public performances.

Titus took away nothing from any citizen. He respected others’ property, if anyone ever did. In fact, he would not accept even proper and customary presents. And yet he was second to none of his predecessors in munificence. At the dedication of his amphitheatre and of the baths which were hastily built near it he gave a most magnificent and costly gladiatorial show. He presented a sham sea-fight too in the old naumachia, and in the same place a combat of gladiators, exhibiting 5,000 wild beasts of every kind in a single day.

(8) Titus was most kindly by nature, and whereas in accordance with a custom established by Tiberius, all the Caesars who followed him refused to regard favours granted by previous emperors as valid, unless they had themselves conferred the same ones on the same individuals, Titus was the first to ratify them all in a single edict, without allowing himself to be asked.

Moreover, in the case of other requests made of him, it was his fixed rule not to let anyone go away without hope. Even when his household officials warned him that he was promising more than he could perform, he said that it was not right for anyone to go away sorrowful from an interview with his emperor. On another occasion, remembering at dinner that he had done 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 Titus 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, what is more, he kept his word. For he refused nothing which anyone asked, and even urged them to ask for what they wished.

Titus openly displayed his partiality for Thracian gladiators and bantered the people about it by words and gestures (i.e. by humorously pretending to wrangle with those who favoured other gladiators than the Thracians). However, he always preserved his dignity, as well as observing justice. Not to omit any act of condescension, he sometimes bathed in the baths which he had built, in company with the common people.

There were some dreadful disasters during Titus’s reign, such as the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Campania, a fire at Rome which continued three days and as many nights, and a plague the like of which had hardly ever been known before. In these many great calamities he showed not merely the concern of an emperor but even a father’s surpassing love, now offering consolation in edicts, and now lending aid so far as his means allowed.

Titus chose commissioners by lot from among the ex-consuls for the relief of Campania and the property of those who lost their lives by Vesuvius and had no heirs left alive he applied to the rebuilding of the buried cities.

During the fire in Rome he made no remark except, ‘I am ruined,’ and he set aside all the ornaments of his villas for the public buildings and temples and put several men of the equestrian order in charge of the work, that everything might be done with the greater dispatch.

For curing the plague and diminishing the force of the epidemic there was no aid, human or divine, which he did not employ, searching for every kind of sacrifice (i.e. to propitiate the gods who were supposed to inflict such evils upon mankind by way of punishment) and all kinds of medicines.

Among the evils of the times were the informers and their instigators who had enjoyed a long-standing licence. After these had been soundly beaten in the Forum with scourges and cudgels and finally led in procession across the arena of the amphitheatre, he had some of them put up and sold and others deported to the wildest of the islands.

(9) Having declared that he would accept the office of pontifex maximus for the purpose of keeping his hands unstained, he was true to his promise for after that he neither caused nor connived at the death of any man, although he sometimes had no lack of reasons for taking vengeance, but he swore that he would rather be killed than kill.

When two men of patrician family were found guilty of aspiring to the throne, he satisfied himself with warning them to abandon their attempt, saying that imperial power was the gift of fate and promising that if there was anything else they desired, he himself would bestow it. Then he sent his couriers with all speed to the mother of one of them, for she was some distance off, to relieve her anxiety by reporting that her son was safe. And he not only invited the men themselves to dinner among his friends but on the following day, at a gladiatorial show, he purposely placed them near him and when the swords of the contestants were offered him handed them over for their inspection. It is even said that, inquiring into the horoscope of each of them, he declared that danger threatened them both, but at some future time and from another – as turned out to be the case.

Although his brother, Domitian, never ceased plotting against him, but almost openly stirred up the armies to revolt and meditated flight to them, he had not the heart to put him to death or banish him from the court or even to hold him in less honour than before. On the contrary, as he had done from the very first day of his rule, he continued to declare that Domitian was his partner and successor, and sometimes he privately begged him with tears and prayers to be willing at least to return his affection.

(10) Titus was cut off by death, to the loss of mankind rather than to his own. After finishing the public games, at the close of which he wept bitterly in the presence of the people, he went down to the Sabine territory, somewhat cast down because a sacrificial animal had escaped as he was sacrificing, and because it had thundered from a clear sky [i.e. bad omens]. Then at the very first stopping place he was seized with a fever and, as he was being carried onwards in a litter, it is said that he pushed back the curtains, looked up to heaven, and lamented bitterly that his life was being taken from him contrary to his deserts. For he said that there was no act of his life of which he had cause to repent, save one only.

What this was he did not himself disclose at the time nor could anyone easily divine. Some think that he meant the intimacy which he had with his brother’s wife; but Domitia swore most solemnly that this did not exist (and she would not have denied it if it had been in the least true, but on the contrary would have boasted of it, as she was most ready to do of all her scandalous actions).

11. Titus died in the same farmhouse as his father, on the Ides of September [13 September], two years two months and twenty days after succeeding Vespasian [81 AD], in the forty-second year of his age.

When his death was made known the whole populace mourned as they would for a loss in their own families, the senate hastened to the House before it was summoned by proclamation and, with the doors still shut, and then with them open, rendered such thanks to him and heaped such praise on him after death as they had never done even when he was alive and present.

Suetonius’s Lives of the Twelve Caesars

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by Simon on January 16, 2023 • Permalink

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Posted by Simon on January 16, 2023

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The Life of Vespasian by Suetonius

This is a sub-edited version of the 1914 Loeb Classical Library translation of Suetonius’s Life of Vespasian by J.C. Rolfe, with a few comments of my own.

Summary (from Wikipedia)

Vespasian (9 to 79 AD) reigned as Roman emperor from 69 to 79 AD. The fourth and last emperor who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty (consisting of himself and his sons Titus and Domitian) which ruled the Empire for 27 years (69 to 96). His fiscal reforms and consolidation of the empire created political stability, and he undertook a vast Roman building program.

Vespasian was the first emperor from an equestrian family and only rose late in his lifetime into the senatorial rank as the first member of his family to do so. Vespasian’s renown was based on his military success; he was legate of Legio II Augusta during the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 and pacified Judaea during the Jewish rebellion of 66 to 70.

In June 68, while Vespasian was besieging Jerusalem during the Jewish rebellion, Nero committed suicide and plunged Rome into a year of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors. After Galba and Otho perished in quick succession, Vitellius became emperor in April 69. The Roman legions of Roman Egypt and Judaea reacted by declaring Vespasian, their commander, emperor on 1 July 69.

In his bid for imperial power, Vespasian joined forces with Gaius Licinius Mucianus, the governor of Syria, and Marcus Antonius Primus, a general in Pannonia, leaving his son Titus to command the besieging forces at Jerusalem. Primus and Mucianus led the Flavian forces against Vitellius in Italy, while Vespasian took control of Egypt. On 24 October 69 Vitellius’ army was defeated at the second Battle of Bedriaticum. It took another 2 months for the Flavian army to march to Rome and take it by storm. During the sack Vitellius was murdered by Vespasian’s soldiers, on 20 December 69, and the following day Vespasian was declared emperor by the Senate.

Little information survives about the government during Vespasian’s ten-year rule. He:

brought the campaign in Judaea to a successful conclusion
reformed the financial system of Rome
initiated several ambitious construction projects, including the building of the Flavian Amphitheatre, better known today as the Roman Colosseum

Through his general, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, Vespasian increased imperial territory in Britain. Vespasian is often credited with restoring political stability to Rome following the chaotic reigns of his predecessors. After he died in 79, he was succeeded by his eldest son Titus, thus becoming the first Roman emperor to be succeeded by his natural son (all the emperors of the preceding Julio-Claudian dynasty had appointed their successors by adoption).

The Life of Vespasian by Suetonius

(1) The empire, which had been unsettled by the usurpation and violent death of four emperors (Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius) was at last taken in hand and given stability by the Flavian family. This house was obscure and without family portraits, yet it was one of which Rome had no reason to be ashamed (even though it is the general opinion that the penalty which Domitian paid for his avarice and cruelty was fully merited [he was to be assassinated in 96]).

Vespasian’s ancestor ,Titus Flavius Petro, a burgher of Reate and during the civil war a centurion or a volunteer veteran on Pompey’s side, fled from the field of Pharsalus and went home, where after at last obtaining pardon and an honourable discharge, he carried on the business of a collector of moneys. His son, surnamed Sabinus (although some say that he was an ex-centurion of the first grade; others that while still in command of a cohort he was retired because of ill-health) took no part in military life, but farmed the public tax of a fortieth in Asia. [A fortieth was a duty (portorium) of two and a half per cent on imports and exports.] And there existed for some time statues erected in his honour by the cities of Asia, inscribed ‘To an honest tax-gatherer’.

Later Petro carried on a banking business in the Helvetian country and there he died, survived by his wife, Vespasia Polla, and by two of her children, of whom the elder, Sabinus, rose to the rank of prefect of Rome, and the younger, Vespasian, was to become emperor.

Polla, who was born of an honourable family at Nursia, had for father Vespasius Pollio, thrice tribune of the soldiers and prefect of the camp [a position held by tried and skilful officers, especially centurions of the first grade] while her brother became a senator with the rank of praetor.

There is, on the top of a mountain near the sixth milestone on the road from Nursia to Spoletium, a place called Vespasiae, where many monuments of the Vespasii are to be seen, giving strong proof of the renown and antiquity of the house.

I ought to add the rumour that Petro’s father came from the region beyond the Po and was a contractor for the day-labourers who come regularly every year from Umbria to the Sabine district, to till the fields, but that he settled in the town of Reate and there married. Personally I have found no evidence for this, in spite of careful investigation.

(2) Vespasian was born in the Sabine country, in a small village beyond Reate, called Falacrina, on the evening of the fifteenth day before the Kalends of December [17 November] in the consulate of Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus and Gaius Poppaeus Sabinus, five years before the death of Augustus [9 AD].

He was brought up under the care of his paternal grandmother Tertulla on her estates at Cosa. Even after he became emperor he used to visit the home of his infancy, where the manor house was kept in its original condition and he was so devoted to his grandmother’s memory that on religious and festival days he always drank from a little silver cup that had belonged to her.

After assuming the toga of manhood Vespasian for a long time made no attempt to win the broad stripe of senator, though his brother had gained it, and only his mother could eventually persuade him to bid for it. She at length drove him to it, but by sarcasm rather than entreaties or parental authority, since she constantly taunted him with being his brother’s ‘footman’. [This refers to the anteambulo who was a client who walked before his patron on the street and compelled people to make way for him.]

Vespasian served in Thrace as tribune of the soldiers. As quaestor he was assigned by lot to the province of Crete and Cyrene. He stood as a candidate for the aedileship, attaining it only after one defeat and then barely winning sixth place. He then stood for the praetorship, and was among the foremost candidates.

In his praetorship, Vespasian lost no opportunity of winning the favour of Gaius [Caligula] who was at odds with the senate, by asking for special games to celebrate the emperor’s victory in Germany and recommended as an additional punishment of the conspirators against the emperor, that they be cast out unburied. He also thanked the emperor, before the senate, because he had deigned to honour him with an invitation to dinner.

(3) Vespasian took to wife Flavia Domitilla, formerly the mistress of Statilius Capella, a Roman knight of Sabrata in Africa, a woman originally only of Latin rank. [This was a limited citizenship, taking its name from the old Latin cities and varying in different cases and at different times.] Later Flavia was declared a freeborn citizen of Rome in a suit before judges, brought by her father Flavius Liberalis, a native of Ferentum and merely a quaestor’s clerk.

By Flavia Vespasian had three children – two sons who were destined to become emperor after him, Titus and Domitian – and a daughter, Domitilla. Vespasian outlived his wife and daughter; in fact lost them both before he became emperor. After the death of his wife he resumed his relations with Caenis, a freedwoman and amanuensis of Antonia, and formerly his mistress. After he became emperor he treated her almost as a lawful wife.

(4) In the reign of Claudius, Vespasian was sent in command of a legion to Germany, through the influence of Claudius’s freedman and secretary, Narcissus. From there he was transferred to Britain, where he fought thirty battles with the enemy.

In Britain he reduced to subjection two powerful nations, more than twenty towns, and the island of Vectis [the Isle of Wight], partly under the leadership of Aulus Plautius, the consular governor, and partly under that of Claudius himself.

For this he received the triumphal regalia and, shortly afterwards, two priesthoods, besides the consulship, which he held for the last two months of the year. The rest of the time up to his proconsulate he spent in rest and retirement, through fear of Agrippina [Claudius’s fourth wife and mother of the emperor Nero], who still had a strong influence over her son and hated any friend of Narcissus, even after the latter’s death.

The administrative lottery then gave him Africa, which he governed with great justice and high honour, save that in a riot at Hadrumetum he was pelted with turnips. Unusually for a Roman governor he returned from the post none the richer, for his credit was so nearly gone that he mortgaged all his estates to his brother, and had to resort to trading in mules to keep up his position. [Suetonius’s text refers to him by the slang term mango, which was applied to a dealer in slaves, cattle, or wares which he tried to give an appearance of greater value than they actually possessed. The nickname implies that Vespasian’s trade was in mules.] As a result he became known as ‘the Muleteer.’

He is also said to have been found guilty of squeezing 200,000 sesterces out of a young man for whom he obtained the broad stripe against his father’s wish, and to have been severely rebuked in consequence.

When he accompanied Nero on his tour through Greece, Vespasian bitterly offended the emperor by either leaving the room while Nero was singing, or falling asleep if he remained. He was, as a result, banished, not only from intimacy with the emperor but even from his public receptions, so he withdrew to a little out‑of-the‑way town, until a province and an army were offered him while he was in hiding and in fear of his life.

There had spread over all the Orient an old belief that it was fated at that time for men coming from Judaea to rule the world. The people of Judaea wrongly applied this prophecy to themselves (although, as later became clear, it referred to the future emperor of Rome) and so they revolted and, after killing their governor, routed the consular ruler of Syria as well, when he came to the rescue, and took one of his eagles.

Since putting down this rebellion required a considerable army with a leader of no little enterprise, yet one to whom such great power could be entrusted without risk, Nero chose Vespasian for the task, both as a man of tried energy and one not to be suspected of ambition due to the obscurity of his family and name.

Vespasian added to the forces in Judaea two legions, with eight divisions of cavalry and ten cohorts. He took his elder son, Titus, as one of his lieutenants, and as soon as he reached his province he attracted the attention of the neighbouring provinces by the way he at once reformed the discipline of the army. He fought one or two battles with such daring that in the storming of a fortress he was wounded in the knee with a stone and received several arrows in his shield.

(5) While Otho and Vitellius were fighting for the throne in Italy, Vespasian began to cherish the hope of imperial power which he had long nurtured because of the following portents:

On the suburban estate of the Flavii an old oak tree, which was sacred to Mars, on each of the three occasions when Vespasia was delivered of a child, suddenly put forth a branch from its trunk – obvious indications of the destiny of each child. The first was slender and quickly withered, and so the girl that was born died within the year; the second branch was strong and long and portended great success; but the third was the image of a tree.
Their father Sabinus, so they say, being further encouraged by an inspection of sacrificial victims, announced to his mother that a grandson had been born to her that would one day be a Caesar. But she only laughed, marvelling that her son should already be in his dotage, while she was still of strong mind.
Later, when Vespasian was aedile, Gaius Caesar, incensed at his neglect of his duty of cleaning the streets, ordered that he be covered with mud, which the soldiers accordingly heaped into the bosom of his purple-bordered toga. This some interpreted as an omen that one day, in some civil commotion, his country, trampled under foot and forsaken, would come under his protection and, as it were, into his embrace.
Once when Vespasian was taking breakfast, a stray dog brought in a human hand from the cross-roads and dropped it under the table. [The human hand was a symbol of power, and the word manus is often used in the sense of potestas or power.]
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 feet of Vespasian as he reclined at table and bowed its neck as if suddenly tired out.
Also, a cypress tree on his grandfather’s farm was torn up by the roots without the agency of any violent storm, then thrown down and, on the following day, rose again greener and stronger than before.
Vespasian dreamed in Greece that the beginning of good fortune for himself and his family would come as soon as Nero had a tooth extracted and on the next day it came to pass that a physician walked into the hall and showed him a tooth which he had just then taken out.
When Vespasian consulted the oracle of the god of Carmel in Judaea, the lots were highly encouraging, promising that whatever he planned or wished, however great it might be, would come to pass. One of his high-born prisoners, Josephus by name, as he was being put in chains, confidently declared that he would soon be released by the same man, who would then become emperor.

Omens were also reported from Rome:

Nero in his latter days was admonished in a dream to take the sacred chariot of Jupiter Optimus Maximus from its shrine to the house of Vespasian and from there to the Circus.
Not long after this, when Galba was on his way to the elections which gave him his second consulship, a statue of the Deified Julius of its own accord turned towards the East.
On the field of Bedriacum, before the battle began, two eagles fought in the sight of all and, when one was vanquished, a third came from the direction of the rising sun and drove off the victor.

(6) Yet Vespasian made no move (although his followers were quite ready and even urgent) until he was roused to it by the accidental support of men unknown to him and at a distance. Two thousand soldiers of the three legions that made up the army in Moesia had been sent to help Otho. When word came to them after they had begun their march that he had been defeated and had taken his own life, they none the less kept on as far as Aquileia, because they did not believe the report. There, taking advantage of the lawless state of the times, they indulged in every kind of pillage. Then, fearing that if they went back, they would have to give an account and suffer punishment, they took it into their heads to select and appoint an emperor, saying that they were just as good as the Spanish army which had appointed Galba, or the praetorian guard which had elected Otho, or the German army which had chosen Vitellius.

Accordingly the names of all the consular governors who were serving anywhere were taken up, and since objection was made to the rest for one reason or another, while some members of the third legion, which had been transferred from Syria to Moesia just before the death of Nero, highly commended Vespasian, they unanimously agreed on him and inscribed his name on all their banners.

When their action became known, Tiberius Alexander, prefect of Egypt, was the first to compel his legions to take the oath for Vespasian on the Kalends of July (1 July), the day which was afterwards celebrated as that of his accession. Then the army in Judaea swore allegiance to him personally on the fifth day before the Ides of July (11 July).

The enterprise was greatly forwarded by the circulation of a copy of a letter from the late emperor Otho to Vespasian (whether genuine or forged) urging him with the utmost earnestness to vengeance and expressing the hope that he would come to the aid of his country. It was further helped:

by a rumour which spread abroad that Vitellius had planned, after his victory, to change the winter quarters of the legions and to transfer those in Germany to a safer and milder service in the Orient
among the governors of provinces, by the support of Licinius Mucianus (governor of the neighbouring province of Syria) and, among the kings, by that of Vologaesus, the Parthian. The former (Mucianus), laying aside the jealousy which had created rivalry between them, promised Vespasian the support of the Syrian army; and the latter 40,000 bowmen

(7) Therefore Vespasian began another civil war by sending generals with troops to Italy while he crossed to Alexandria to take possession of the key to Egypt. Here he dismissed all his attendants and entered the temple of Serapis alone, to consult the auspices as to the duration of his power. And when after many propitiatory offerings to the god he at length turned about, it seemed to him that his freedman, Basilides, offered him sacred boughs, garlands, and loaves as is the custom there and yet he knew very well a) that no one had let him in, b) that for some time he had been hardly able to walk by reason of rheumatism, and c) was far away. And immediately letters came with the news that Vitellius’s army had been defeated at Cremona and the Vitellius himself slain at Rome.

Vespasian as yet lacked prestige and a certain divinity, so to speak, since he was an unexpected and still new-made emperor; but these also were given him. A man of the people who was blind, and another who was lame, came to him together as he sat on the tribunal, begging for the help for their disorders which Serapis had promised in a dream; for the god declared that Vespasian would restore the eyes, if he would spit upon them, and give strength to the leg, if he would deign to touch it with his heel. Though Vespasian had hardly any faith that this could succeed and therefore shrank from even making the attempt, he was at last prevailed upon by his friends and tried both things in public before a large crowd – and they worked!

And, at this same time, by the direction of certain soothsayers, some vases of antique workmanship were dug up in a consecrated spot at Tegea in Arcadia and on them was an image very like Vespasian.

(8) Returning to Rome under such auspices and attended by so great renown, after celebrating a triumph over the Jews, Vespasian added eight consulships to his former one. He also assumed the censorship and during the whole period of his rule he considered nothing more essential than first to strengthen the state, which was tottering and almost overthrown, and then to embellish it as well.

The soldiery, some emboldened by their victory and some resenting their humiliating defeat, had abandoned themselves to every form of licence and recklessness. The provinces, too, and the free cities, as well as some of the kingdoms, were in a state of internal dissension. Therefore Vespasian discharged many of the soldiers of Vitellius and punished many. But so far from showing any special indulgence to those who had shared in his victory, he was slow in paying them their lawful rewards.

To let slip no opportunity of improving military discipline, when a young man reeking with perfumes came to thank him for a commission which had been given him, Vespasian drew back his head in disgust, adding the stern reprimand: “I would rather you had smelt of garlic” and then revoked the appointment.

When the marines who march on foot by turns from Ostia and Puteoli to Rome asked that an allowance be made them for shoe money, not content with sending them away without a reply, he ordered that in future they should make the run barefooted, and they have done so ever since.

Vespasian made Roman provinces of Achaia, Lycia, Rhodes, Byzantium and Samos, taking away their freedom, and likewise of Trachian Cilicia and Commagene, which up to that time had been ruled by kings. He sent additional legions to Cappadocia because of the constant inroads of the barbarians, and gave it a consular governor in place of a Roman knight.

As Rome was unsightly from former fires and fallen buildings, Vespasian allowed anyone to take possession of vacant sites and build upon them, in case the owners failed to do so. He began the restoration of the Capitol in person [after the fire which broke out during the siege of his brother Sabinus – see Tacitus’s Histories for a detailed description of this event], was the first to lend a hand in clearing away the debris, and himself carried some of it off in a basket.

Vespasian undertook to restore the 3,000 bronze tablets which were destroyed with the temple, making a thorough search for copies. These included priceless and most ancient records of the empire, containing the decrees of the senate and the acts of the commons almost from the foundation of the city, regarding alliances, treaties and special privileges granted to individuals.

(9) Vespasian also undertook new works, the temple of Peace hard by the Forum and one to the Deified Claudius on the Caelian mount, which was begun by Agrippina but almost utterly destroyed by Nero. Also an amphitheatre in the heart of the city, a plan which he learned that Augustus had cherished. [This is the building we call the Colosseum, which was known as the Flavian amphitheatre until the Middle Ages.]

Vespasian reformed the two great orders [senators and knights], reduced by a series of murders and sullied by longstanding neglect, and added to their numbers, holding a review of the senate and the knights, expelling those who least deserved the honour and enrolling the most distinguished of the Italians and provincials.

Furthermore, to let it be known that the two orders differed from each other not so much in their privileges as in their rank, in the case of an altercation between a senator and a Roman knight, he rendered his decision: ‘Unseemly language should not be used towards senators, but to return their insults in kind is proper and lawful’ [i.e. a citizen could return the abuse of another citizen, regardless of their respective ranks].

(10) Lawsuit upon lawsuit had accumulated in all the courts to an excessive degree, since those of long standing were left unsettled through the interruption of court business during the civil wars and new ones had arisen through the disorder of the times. Vespasian therefore chose commissioners by lot to restore what had been seized in time of war, and to make special decisions in the court of the Hundred, reducing the cases to the smallest number, since it was clear that the lifetime of the litigants would not suffice for the regular proceedings.

(11) Licentiousness and extravagance had flourished without restraint so Vespasian induced the senate to vote that any woman who formed a connection with the slave of another person should herself be made a slave. Also that anyone who lent money to minors (meaning sons who were still under the control of their fathers, regardless of their age) should never have a legal right to enforce payment, that is to say, not even after the death of the fathers.

(12) In other matters Vespasian was unassuming and lenient from the very beginning of his reign until its end. He never tried to conceal his former lowly condition and often paraded it. Indeed, when certain men tried to trace the origin of the Flavian family to the founders of Reate and a companion of Hercules whose tomb still stands on the Via Salaria, he laughed at them for their pains.

So far was he from a desire for pomp and show that on the day of his triumph he did not hesitate to say: ‘It serves me right for being such a fool as to want a triumph in my old age, as if it were due to my ancestors or had ever been among my own ambitions.’

He did not even assume the tribunician power at once nor the title of Father of his Country until late. As for the custom of searching people who came to pay their morning calls to him, he gave that up before the civil war was over.

(13) Vespasian bore the frank language of his friends, the quips of pleaders, and the impudence of the philosophers with the greatest patience. Though Licinius Mucianus, a man of notorious unchastity, presumed upon his services to treat Vespasian with scant respect [claiming that, as leader of Vespasian’s army, he won Italy and Rome and, in effect, gave it to him], he never had the heart to criticize him except privately and then only to the extent of adding to a complaint made to a mutual friend, the words: ‘I at least am a man’ [implying that Mucianus was effeminate and unchaste].

When Salvius Liberalis ventured to say, while defending a rich client, ‘What is it to Caesar if Hipparchus had a hundred millions?’ he personally commended him. When the Cynic Demetrius met him abroad after being condemned to banishment, and without deigning to rise in his presence or to salute him, even snarled out some insult, Vespasian merely called him a dog.

(14) Vespasian was not inclined to remember or to avenge affronts or enmities, but made a brilliant match for the daughter of his enemy Vitellius, and even provided her with a dowry and a house-keeping outfit.

When he was in terror at being forbidden Nero’s court and asked what on earth he was to do or where he was to go, one of the ushers threw him out and told him to ‘go to Morbovia’ [a made-up name meaning ‘go to the devil’]. When the man later begged for forgiveness, Vespasian confined his resentment to words, and those of about the same number and purport.

Indeed, so far was he from being led by any suspicion or fear to cause anyone’s death that when his friends warned him that he must keep an eye on Mettius Pompusianus, since it was commonly believed that he had an imperial horoscope, he ignored them and made Mettius consul, guaranteeing that he would one day be mindful of the favour.

(15) It cannot be shown that any innocent person was punished save in Vespasian’s absence and without his knowledge, or at any rate against his will and by misleading him.

Although Helvidius Priscus was the only one who greeted him on his return from Syria by his private name of ‘Vespasian’ and, in his praetorship, left the emperor unhonoured and unmentioned in all his edicts, still Vespasian did not show anger until by the extravagance of his railing Helvidius had all but degraded him [meaning reduced him to the status of a common citizen].

But even in Helvidius’s case, though Vespasian did banish him and later order his death, he was most anxious for any means of saving him, and sent messengers to recall those who were to slay him; and he would have saved him, but for a false report that Helvidius had already been done to death. Certainly he never took pleasure in the death of anyone, but even wept and sighed over those who suffered merited punishment.

(16) The only thing for which Vespasian can be fairly censured was his love of money. For not content with reviving the taxes which had been repealed under Galba, he added new and heavy burdens, increasing the amount of tribute paid by the provinces, in some cases actually doubling it, and quite openly carrying on traffic which would be shameful even for a man in private life. He bought up certain commodities in order to distribute them at a profit.

Vespasian made no bones of selling offices to candidates and acquittals to men under prosecution, whether innocent or guilty. He is even believed to have deliberately advanced the most rapacious of his procurators to higher posts so 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 ‘soaked’ them when they were dry and ‘squeezed’ them when they were wet.

Some say that Vespasian 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. He testified to this at the very beginning of his reign by declaring that 40,000 millions were needed to set the state upright. This latter view seems the more probable, since he made the best use of his gains, ill-gotten though they were.

(17) He was most generous to all classes, making up the requisite estate for senators [this had been increased to 1,200,000 sesterces by Augustus] giving needy ex-consuls an annual stipend of 500,000 sesterces, restoring to a better condition many cities throughout the empire which had suffered from earthquakes or fires and, in particular, encouraging men of talent and the arts.

(18) Vespasian was the first to establish a regular salary of 100,000 sesterces for Latin and Greek teachers of rhetoric, paid from the privy purse. He presented eminent poets with princely largess and great rewards, and artists, too, such as the restorer of the Venus of Cos and of the Colossus.

(19) At the plays with which he dedicated the new stage of the theatre of Marcellus, Vespasian revived the old musical entertainments. To Apelles, the tragic actor, he gave 400,000 sesterces; to Terpnus and Diodorus, the lyre-players, 200,000 each; to several, a hundred thousand; while those who received least were paid 40,000, and numerous golden crowns were awarded besides.

Vespasian gave constant dinner parties, too, usually formally and sumptuously, to help the marketmen. He gave gifts to women on the Kalends (first) of March [the Matronalia or feast of married women] as he did to the men on the Saturnalia.

Yet even so he could not be rid of his former bed reputation for covetousness. The Alexandrians persisted in calling him Cybiosactes, the surname of one of their kings who was scandalously stingy.

Even at his funeral, Favor, a leading actor of mimes, who wore his mask and, according to the usual custom, imitated the actions and words of the deceased during his lifetime, having asked procurators in a loud voice how much his funeral procession would cost, and hearing the reply ‘Ten million sesterces,’ cried out, ‘Give me a hundred thousand and fling me even into the Tiber.’

(20) Vespasian was well built, with strong, sturdy limbs, and the expression of one who was straining. Apropos of which a witty fellow, when Vespasian asked him to make a joke about him, replied, ‘I will, when you have finished relieving yourself.’

Vespasian enjoyed excellent health, though he did nothing to keep it up except to rub his throat and the other parts of his body a certain number of times in the tennis court, and to fast one day in every month.

(21) This was Vespasian’s manner of life. While emperor, he always rose very early, in fact before daylight. Then, after reading his letters and the reports of all the officials, he admitted his friends, and while he was receiving their greetings, he put on his own shoes and dressed himself. After despatching any business that came up, he took time for a drive and then for a nap, lying with one of his concubines, of whom he took several after the death of Caenis. After his siesta he went to the bath and the dining-room. It is said that this was the part of the day when he was most good-natured or indulgent, so that the members of his household eagerly watched for these opportunities of making requests.

(22) Not only at dinner but on all other occasions he was most affable, and turned off many matters with a jest. He was very ready with sharp sayings, albeit of a low and buffoonish kind, so that he didn’t refrain even from obscene expressions.

Yet many of his remarks are still remembered which are full of wit, among them the following. When an ex-consul called Mestrius Florus called his attention to the fact that the proper pronunciation was plaustra (‘wagons’) rather than plostra, he greeted him next day as ‘Flaurus.’

When he was importuned by a woman, who said that she was dying for love for him, he took her to his bed and gave her 400,000 sesterces for her favours. Being asked by his steward how he wanted the sum entered in his accounts, he replied: ‘To a passion for Vespasian.’

(23) Vespasian also quoted Greek verses with great timeliness, saying of a man of tall stature and monstrous parts:

‘Striding along and waving a lance that casts a long shadow’ [Iliad 7.213.]

And of the freedman Cerylus, who was very rich, and to cheat the privy purse of its dues at his death had begun to give himself out as freeborn, changing his name to Laches:

‘O Laches, Laches,
When you are dead, you’ll change your name at once
To Cerylus again.’

But he particularly resorted to witticisms about his unseemly means of gain, seeking to diminish their odium by some jocose saying and to turn them into a jest.

Having put off one of his favourite attendants, who asked for a stewardship for a pretended brother, he summoned the candidate himself, and after compelling him to pay him as much money as he had agreed to give his advocate, appointed him to the position without delay. On his attendant’s taking up the matter again, he said: ‘Find yourself another brother; the man that you thought was yours is mine.’

On a journey, suspecting that his muleteer had got down to shoe the mules merely to make delay and give time for a man with a lawsuit to approach the emperor, he asked how much he was paid for shoeing the mules and insisted on a share of the money.

When Titus found fault with him for levying a tax on public conveniences, Vespasian held a piece of money from the first payment to his son’s nose, asking whether its odour was offensive to him. When Titus said, ‘No,’ he replied, ‘Yet it comes from urine.’

On the report of a deputation that a colossal statue of great cost had been voted him at public expense, he demanded to have it set up at once, and holding out his open hand, said that the base was ready.

He did not cease his jokes even when in apprehension of death and in extreme danger for when among other portents the Mausoleum opened on a sudden and a comet appeared in the heavens, he declared that the former applied to Junia Calvina of the family of Augustus, and the latter to the king of the Parthians, who wore his hair long. And as death drew near, he said: ‘Woe is me. I think I am turning into a god.’

(24) In his ninth consulship he had a slight illness in Campania and, returning at once to the city, he left for Cutiliae and the country about Reate, where he spent the summer every year. There, in addition to an increase in his illness, having contracted a bowel complaint by too free use of the cold waters, he nevertheless continued to perform his duties as emperor, even receiving embassies as he lay in bed.

Suddenly taken with such an attack of diarrhoea that he all but fainted, he said: ‘An emperor ought to die standing’, and, while he was struggling to get on his feet, he died in the arms of those who tried to help him. Vespasian died on the ninth day before the Kalends of July [23 June] at the age of sixty-nine years, seven months and seven days.

(25) All agree that he had so much faith in his own horoscope and those of his family, that even after constant conspiracies were made against him he had the assurance to say to the senate that either his sons would succeed him or he would have no successor.

It is also said that he once dreamed that he saw a balance with its beam on a level placed in the middle of the vestibule of the palace, in one pan of which stood Claudius and Nero and in the other himself and his sons. And the dream came true, since both houses reigned for the same space of time and the same term of years.

[Suetonius’s Life of Vespasian should be read alongside Tacitus’s Histories, which give a detailed account of Mucianus’ and Primus’s military campaigns in north Italy which led to the overthrow of Vitellius as well as the siege of Sabinus on the Capitol.]

Suetonius’s Lives of the Twelve Caesars

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The Life of Vitellius by Suetonius

A sub-edited version of the 1914 Loeb Classical Library translation of Suetonius’s Life of Vitellius by J.C. Rolfe, with notes and comments.

Summary

Aulus Vitellius (15 to 69 AD) was Roman emperor for eight months, from 19 April to 20 December 69. Vitellius was proclaimed emperor following the quick succession of the previous emperors Galba and Otho in the year of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors. Like his direct predecessor, Otho, Vitellius attempted to rally public support to his cause by honouring Nero who remained widely popular in the empire.

Vitellius had been a companion of Tiberius’ retirement on Capri and there befriended Caligula. He was elected consul in 48, and served as proconsular governor of Africa in either 60 or 61. In 68, he was chosen to command the army of Germania Inferior. In January 69 he was proclaimed emperor by the armies of Germania Inferior and Superior, beginning a revolt against Galba. In Rome Galba was murdered in the coup of Marcus Otho and Vitellius then marched his army south to face Otho in battle. Vitellius defeated Otho’s army at the Battle of Bedriacum on 14 April 69 and, although he had enough troops in reserve and reinforcements on the way, Otho chose to commit suicide rather than fight on. With Otho out of the way the senate recognised Vitellius as emperor.

However, Vitellius’s claim to the throne was soon challenged by the legions stationed in the eastern provinces, who proclaimed their commander Vespasian emperor instead. Vespasian sent his armies through Greece and the Balkans into northern Italy where a complex series of military engagements followed, climaxing with a crushing defeat for Vitellius at the Second Battle of Bedriacum on 24 October 69.

Vitellius tried to abdicate in favour of Vespasian but was prevented by his political supporters, the praetorian guard and many of the people. This meant that instead of peacefully marching into Rome the armies of Vespasian had to fight their way into the city, with much destruction and loss of life. When Vespasian’s soldiers came upon Vitellius, he was lynched on 20 December 69.

The Life of Vitellius by Suetonius

(1) Different and widely varying accounts are given of the origin of the Vitellii, some saying that the family was ancient and noble, others that it was new and obscure, if not of mean ex traction. I should believe that these came respectively from the flatterers and detractors of the emperor, were it not for a difference of opinion about the standing of the family at a considerably earlier date.

We have a book of Quintus Elogius addressed to Quintus Vitellius, quaestor of the Deified Augustus, in which it is written that:

the Vitellii were sprung from Faunus, king of the Aborigines, and Vitellia, who was worshipped as a goddess in many places
that they ruled in all Latium
that the surviving members of the family moved from the Sabine district to Rome and were enrolled among the patricians
that traces of this stock endured long afterwards in the Vitellian Road, running from the Janiculum all the way to the sea, as well as in a colony of the same name, which in ancient days the family had asked the privilege of defending against the Aequicoli with troops raised from their own line
that when, afterwards, a force was sent into Apulia at the time of the Samnite war, some of the Vitellii settled at Nuceria,
that after a long time their descendants returned to the city and resumed their place in the senatorial order

(2) On the other hand, several have written that the founder of the family was a freedman, while Cassius Severus and others say further that he was a cobbler and that his son, after making a considerable fortune from the sale of confiscated estates and the profession of informer, married a common strumpet, daughter of one Antiochus who kept a bakery, and became the father of a Roman knight. But this difference of opinion may be left unsettled.

In any event, Publius Vitellius of Nuceria, whether of ancient stock or of parents and forefathers in whom he could take no pride, unquestionably a Roman knight and a steward of Augustus’s property, left four sons of high rank with the same name and differing only in their forenames: Aulus, Quintus, Publius and Lucius. Aulus, who was given to luxury and especially notorious for the magnificence of his feasts, died a consul, appointed to the office with Domitius, father of the emperor Nero. Quintus lost his rank at the time when it was decided, at the suggestion of Tiberius, to depose and get rid of undesirable senators.

Publius, a member of Germanicus’ staff, arraigned Gnaeus Piso, the enemy and murderer of his commander, and secured his condemnation. Arrested among the accomplices of Sejanus, after holding the praetorship, and handed over to his own brother to be kept in confinement, he opened his veins with a penknife but allowed himself to be bandaged and restored, not so much from unwillingness to die as because of the entreaties of his friends; and he met a natural death while still in confinement.

Lucius attained the consulate and then was made governor of Syria where, with supreme diplomacy he not only induced Artabanus, king of the Parthians, to hold a conference with him, but even to do obeisance to the standards of the legion. Later he held, with the emperor Claudius, two more regular consulships and the censorship. He also bore the charge of the empire while Claudius was away on his expedition to Britain. He was an honest and active man but gained a bad reputation because of his passion for a freedwoman which went so far that he used her spittle mixed with honey to rub on his throat and jaws as a medicine, not secretly nor seldom, but openly and every day.

Lucius also had a wonderful gift for flattery and was the first to begin to worship Gaius Caesar as a god; for on his return from Syria he did not presume to approach the emperor except with veiled head, turning himself about and then prostrating himself.

To neglect no means of gaining the favour of Claudius, who was a slave to his wives and freedmen, Lucius begged of Messalina as the highest possible favour that she would allow him to take off her shoes. And when he had taken off her right slipper he constantly carried it about between his toga and his tunic and sometimes kissed it. He also honoured Claudius’s powerful advisers, Narcissus and Pallas, by cherishing their golden images among his household gods. It was Lucius who made the famous remark, ‘May you often do it,’ when he was congratulating Claudius at the celebration of the Secular games.

(3) Lucius died of a paralytic stroke on the second day after he was seized, leaving two sons (begotten of Sestilia, a most worthy woman and of no mean family) and having lived to see them consuls both in the same year, and for the whole year, since the younger succeeded the elder for six months. On his decease the senate honoured Lucius with a public funeral and with a statue on the rostra with this inscription: ‘Of unwavering loyalty to his emperor.’

The emperor Aulus Vitellius, son of Lucius, was born on the eighth day before the Kalends of October (or, according to some, on the seventh day before the Ides of September) in the consulship of Drusus Caesar and Norbanus Flaccus (15 AD).

His parents were so aghast at his horoscope as announced by the astrologer that his father tried his utmost, while he lived, to prevent the assignment of any province to his son; and when he was sent to the legions and hailed as emperor, his mother immediately mourned over him as lost.

Vitellius spent his boyhood and early youth at Capri among the wantons of Tiberius, being branded for all time with the nickname ‘Spintria’ and suspected of having been the cause of his father’s first advancement at the expense of his own chastity.

(4) Stained by every sort of baseness as he advanced in years, Vitellius held a prominent place at court, winning the intimacy of Gaius (Caligula) by his devotion to driving and of Claudius by his passion for dice. But he was still dearer to Nero, not only because of these same qualities, but because of a special service besides. For when he was presiding at the contests of the Neronia and Nero wished to compete among the lyre-players but did not venture to do so although there was a general demand for him and accordingly left the theatre, Vitellius called him back, alleging that he came as an envoy from the insistent people and thus gave Nero a chance to yield to their entreaties.

(5) Having in this way through the favour of three emperors been honoured not only with political positions but with distinguished priesthoods as well, Vitellius afterwards governed Africa as proconsul and served as curator of public works, but with varying purpose and reputation.

In his province he showed exceptional integrity for two successive years, for he served as deputy to his brother who succeeded him. But in his city offices he was said to have stolen some of the offerings and ornaments from the temples and changed others, substituting tin and brass for gold and silver.

(6) Vitellius married Petronia, daughter of an ex-consul, and had by her a son Petronianus, who was blind in one eye. Since this son was named as his mother’s heir on condition of being freed from his father’s authority, he manumitted him, but shortly afterwards killed him, according to the general belief, charging him with attempted parricide and alleging that (his son’s) guilty conscience had led him to drink the poison which he had mixed for his intended crime (of murdering Vitellius).

Soon afterwards Vitellius married Galeria Fundana, daughter of an ex-praetor, and from her too he had a son and a daughter, but the former stammered so that he was all but dumb and tongue-tied.

(7) Galba surprised everyone by sending Vitellius to Lower Germany. Some think that it was due to Titus Vinius, who had great influence at the time and whose friendship Vitellius had long since won through their common support of the Blues (one of the teams in the chariot races). But since Galba openly declared that no men were less to be feared than those who thought of nothing but eating, and that Vitellius’s bottomless gullet might be filled from the resources of the province, it was clear to everyone that he was chosen rather through contempt than favour.

It is notorious that when he was about to set off he lacked means for his travelling expenses and that his need of funds was such, that after consigning his wife and children, whom he left in Rome, to a hired garret, he rented out his house for the rest of the year. And that he took a valuable pearl from his mother’s ear and pawned it to defray the expenses of his journey.

He had to resort to false accusation to get rid of the throng of creditors that lay in wait for him and tried to detain him, including the people of Sinuessa and of Formiae whose public revenues he had embezzled. For he brought an action for damages against a freedman who was persistent in demanding what was due to him, alleging that he had been kicked by him, and would not let him off until he had squeezed him to the tune of 50,000 sesterces.

On Vitellius’s arrival in Germany the army, which was disaffected towards the emperor and inclined to mutiny, received him gladly with open arms as if he had come to them as a gift from the gods, since he was the son of a man who had thrice been consul, in the prime of life, and of an easy-going and lavish disposition.

Vitellius took care to boost good opinion of himself by recent acts, for throughout the march he kissed even the common soldiers whom he met and at the posthouses and inns he was unusually affable to the mule drivers and travellers, asking each of them in the morning whether they had breakfasted and even showing by belching that he had done so.

(8) As soon as he had entered the camp, Vitellius granted every request that anyone made and even of his own accord freed those in disgrace from their penalties, defendants of suits from their mourning, and the convicted from punishment. Therefore hardly a month had passed, when one evening the soldiers took him from his bedroom, just as he was, in his common house-clothes, and hailed him as emperor. 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 forever refused that of Caesar.

(9) Hearing of the murder of Galba [15 January 69] Vitellius settled affairs in Germany and made two divisions of his forces, one to send on against Otho, and the other to lead in person. The former was greeted with a lucky omen at the start, for an eagle suddenly flew towards them from the right and after hovering about the standards, slowly preceded their line of march. But, on the contrary, when he himself began his advance, the equestrian statues which were being set up everywhere in his honour on a sudden all collapsed with broken legs, and the laurel crown which he had put on with due ceremony fell into a running stream. Later, as he was sitting in judgment on the tribunal at Vienna, a cock perched on his shoulder and then on his head. And the outcome corresponded with these omens for it turned out that he was not by his own efforts able to retain the power which his lieutenants secured for him.

(10) Vitellius heard of the victory at Betriacum and of the death of Otho (16 April 69) while he was still in Gaul, and without delay by a single edict he disbanded all the praetorian cohorts, as having set a pernicious example, and bade them hand over their arms to their tribunes. Furthermore, he gave orders that 120 of them should be hunted up and punished, having found petitions which they had written to Otho, asking for a reward for services rendered in connection with Galba’s murder. These acts were altogether admirable and noble, and such as to give hope that he would be a great prince, had it not been that the rest of his conduct was more in harmony with his natural disposition and his former habits of life than with imperial dignity.

For when he had begun his march, Vitellius rode through the middle of the cities like a triumphing general, and on the rivers he sailed in most exquisite craft wreathed with various kinds of garlands, amid lavish entertainments, with no discipline among his household or the soldiers, making a jest of the pillage and wantonness of all his followers. For not content with the banquets which were furnished them everywhere at public expense, they set free whatever slaves they pleased, paying those who protested with blows and stripes, often with wounds, and sometimes with death.

When Vitellius came to the plains where the battle was fought and some shuddered with horror at the mouldering corpses, he had the audacity to encourage them by the abominable saying that the odour of a dead enemy was sweet and that of a fellow-citizen sweeter still. But nevertheless, the better to bear the awful stench, he openly drained a great draught of unmixed wine and distributed some among the troops.

With equal bad taste and arrogance, gazing upon the stone inscribed to the memory of Otho, he declared that he deserved such a Mausoleum, and sent the dagger with which his rival had killed himself to the Colony of Agrippina, to be dedicated to Mars. He also held an all-night festival on the heights of the Apennines.

(11) Finally, Vitellius entered Rome to the sound of the trumpet, wearing a general’s mantle and a sword at his side, amid standards and banners, with his staff in military cloaks and his troops with drawn swords.

Then showing greater and greater disregard for the laws of gods and men, he assumed the office of high priest on the day of Allia, held elections for ten years to come, and made himself consul for life. And to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind what model he chose for the government of the state, he made funerary offerings to Nero in the middle of the Campus Martius, attended by a great throng of the official priests. And when, at the accompanying banquet a flute-player was received with applause, he openly urged him ‘to render something from the Master’s Book as well’, and when he began the songs of Nero, Vitellius was the first to applaud him and even jumped for joy.

(12) Beginning in this way, Vitellius regulated the greater part of his rule wholly according to the advice and whims of the commonest of actors and chariot-drivers, and in particular of his freedman Asiaticus. This fellow had immoral relations with Vitellius in his youth but later grew weary of him and ran away. When Vitellius came upon him selling posca at Puteoli, he put him in irons, but at once freed him again and made him his favourite. His vexation was renewed by the man’s excessive insolence and thievishness and he sold him to an itinerant keeper of gladiators. When, however, he was once reserved for the end of a gladiatorial show, Vitellius suddenly spirited him away, and finally on getting his province set him free. On the first day of his reign Vitellius presented Asiaticus with the golden ring at a banquet, although in the morning, when there was a general demand that Asiaticus be given that honour, he had deprecated in the strongest terms such a blot on the equestrian order.

(13) But Vitellius’s besetting sins were luxury and cruelty. He divided his feasts into three, sometimes into four a day – breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and a drinking bout – and he was readily able to do justice to all of them through his habit of taking emetics. Moreover, he had himself invited to each of these meals by different men on the same day, and the materials for any one of them never cost less than 400,000 sesterces.

Most notorious of all was the dinner given by his brother to celebrate the emperor’s arrival in Rome, at which 2,000 of the choicest fishes and 7,000 birds are said to have been served. He himself eclipsed even this at the dedication of a platter, which, on account of its enormous size, he called the ‘Shield of Minerva, Defender of the City.’ In this he mingled the livers of pike, the brains of pheasants and peacocks, the tongues of flamingos and the milt of lampreys, brought by his captains and triremes from the whole empire, from Parthia to the Spanish strait.

Possessing an appetite that was not only boundless but also regardless of time or decency, Vitellius could never refrain, even when he was sacrificing or making a journey, from snatching bits of meat and cakes amid the altars, almost from the very fire, and devouring them on the spot, and in the cookshops along the road, viands smoking hot or even those left over from the day before and partly consumed.

(14) Vitellius delighted in inflicting death and torture on anyone whatsoever and for any cause whatever, putting to death several men of rank, fellow students and comrades of his, whom he had solicited to come to court by every kind of deception, all but offering them a share in the rule. This he did in various treacherous ways, even giving poison to one of them with his own hand in a glass of cold water, for which the man had called when ill of a fever.

Vitellius spared hardly one of the money-lenders, contractors, and tax-gatherers who had ever demanded of him the payment of a debt at Rome or of a toll on a journey. When one of these had been handed over for execution just as he was paying his morning call and at once recalled, as all were praising the emperor’s mercy, Vitellius gave orders to have him killed in his presence, saying that he wished to feast his eyes. In another case he had two sons who attempted to intercede for their father put to death with him.

A Roman knight, who cried as he was being taken off to execution, ‘You are my heir,’ he compelled to show his will and, reading that one of the man’s freedmen was put down as joint-heir with himself, he ordered the death of both the knight and the freedman.

Vitellius even killed some of the common people merely because they had openly spoken ill of the Blue faction, judging that they had ventured to do this from contempt of himself and in anticipation of a change of rulers.

Vitellius was especially hostile to writers of lampoons and to astrologers and whenever any of them was accused, he put him to death without trial. He was particularly incensed because after a proclamation of his in which he ordered the astrologers to leave the city and Italy before the Kalends of October, a placard was at once posted, reading: ‘By proclamation of the Chaldeans, God bless the State! Before the same day and date let Vitellius Germanicus have ceased to live.’

When his mother died, Vitellius was suspected of having forbidden her being given food when she was ill, because a woman of the Chatti, in whom he believed as he would in an oracle, prophesied that he would rule securely and for a long time, but only if he should survive his parent. Others say that, through weariness of present evils and fear of those which threatened, she asked her son for poison and obtained it with no great difficulty.

(15) In the eighth month of his reign the armies of the Moesian provinces and Pannonia revolted against Vitellius, and also the provinces of Judaea and Syria, the former swearing allegiance to Vespasian in his absence and the latter in his presence. Therefore, to retain the devotion and favour of the rest of the people, there was nothing that Vitellius did not lavish publicly and privately, without any limit.

Vitellius held a levy in Rome, promising those who volunteered not only their discharge upon his victory but also the rewards and privileges given to veterans after their regular term of service. Later, when his enemies were pressing him hard by land and sea, he opposed to them in one quarter his brother with a fleet manned by raw recruits and a band of gladiators, and in another the forces and leaders who had fought at Bedriacum. And after he was everywhere either worsted or betrayed, he made a bargain with Flavius Sabinus, the brother of Vespasian, that he should have his own life and a hundred million sesterces.

As the tide turned against him, Vitellius declared from the steps of the palace before his assembled soldiers that he withdrew from the rule which had been given him against his will. But when all cried out against this, he postponed the matter and, after a night had passed, went at daybreak to the rostra in mourning clothes and with many tears made the same declaration, but from a written document.

When the people and soldiers again interrupted him and begged him not to lose heart, vying with one another in promising him all their efforts in his behalf, Vitellius again took courage and by a sudden onslaught drove Sabinus and the rest of the Flavians, who weren’t expecting an attack, into the Capitol. Then he set fire to the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus and destroyed them, viewing the battle and the fire from the house of Tiberius, where he was feasting. [Suetonius’s account should be compared with Tacitus’s much longer and more detailed account of the same events in his Histories.]

Not long afterwards he repented of his action and throwing the blame upon others, called an assembly and took oath, compelling the rest to do the same, that there was nothing for which he would strive more earnestly than for the public peace.

Then he took a dagger from his side and offered it first to the consul, and when he refused it, to the magistrates, and then to the senators, one by one. When no one would take it, he went off as if to place it in the temple of Concord. But when some cried out that he himself was Concord, he returned and declared that he would not only retain the steel but would also adopt the surname Concordia.

(16) Vitellius also persuaded the senate to send envoys with the Vestal virgins to sue for peace or at least to gain time for conference.

The following day, as he was waiting for a reply, word was brought by a scout that the enemy were drawing near. Then he was at once hurried into a sedan with only two companions, a baker and a cook, and secretly went to his father’s house on the Aventine, intending to flee from there to Campania. Presently, on a slight and dubious rumour that peace had been granted, he allowed himself to be taken back to the palace. Finding everything abandoned there, and that even those who were with him were making off, he put on a girdle filled with gold pieces and took refuge in the lodge of the door-keeper, tying a dog before the door and putting a couch and a mattress against it.

(17) The advance guard of the Flavian army had now forced their way into the city and, since no one opposed them, were ransacking everything in the usual way. They dragged Vitellius from his hiding-place and when they asked him his name (for they did not know him) and if he knew where Vitellius was, he attempted to escape them by a lie. Being soon recognised, he did not cease to beg that he be confined for a time, even in the prison, alleging that he had something to say of importance to the safety of Vespasian. But they bound his arms behind his back, put a noose about his neck, and dragged him with rent garments and half-naked to the Forum. All along the Sacred Way he was greeted with mockery and abuse, his head held back by the hair, as is common with criminals, and even the point of a sword placed under his chin, so that he could not look down but must let his face be seen.

Some pelted him with dung and ordure, others called him incendiary and glutton, and some of the mob even taunted him with his bodily defects. He was in fact abnormally tall, with a face usually flushed from hard drinking, a huge belly and one thigh crippled from being struck by a four-horse chariot when he was in attendance on Gaius (Caligula) as he was driving. At last, on the Stairs of Wailing, he was tortured for a long time, then killed and dragged off with a hook to the Tiber.

(18) Vitellius met his death, along with his brother and his son, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, fulfilling the prediction of those who had declared from the omen which befell him at Vienna that he was destined to fall into the power of some man of Gaul. For he was slain by Antonius Primus, a leader of the opposing faction, who was born at Tolosa [modern-day Toulouse].

[Suetonius’s Life of Vitellius should be read alongside Tacitus’s account of the same events in his Histories.]

Suetonius’s Lives of the Twelve Caesars

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Posted by Simon on January 11, 2023

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The Life of Otho by Suetonius

A sub-edited version of the 1914 Loeb Classical Library translation of Suetonius’s Life of Otho by J.C. Rolfe, with added notes and comments.

Summary

Marcus Otho (April 32 to April 69) was the seventh Roman emperor. He ruled for three months from 15 January to 16 April 69. He was the second emperor of the Year of the Four Emperors (69).

A member of a noble Etruscan family, Otho was, as a young man, a friend and courtier of the young emperor Nero. But when Nero wanted to have an affair with Otho’s wife, Poppaea Sabina, the emperor dispatched him to the governorship of the remote province of Lusitania (roughly modern-day Portugal) in 58. By all accounts Otho ruled there moderately and well.

During the revolts of 68, Otho allied himself with Galba, the governor of neighbouring Hispania Tarraconensis, and accompanied him on his march to Rome, where he Galba was acclaimed emperor on 8 June. Six months later, at the start of 69, Otho mounted a coup during which Galba was murdered.

Otho inherited the problem of the rebellion of Vitellius, commander of the army in Germania Inferior, who had also risen against Galba, at the start of the year (69). To crush this rebellion, Otho led an army north to meet Vitellius’s legions marching south from Germany. The two sides met at the Battle of Bedriacum on 14 April 69. Initial fighting resulted in 40,000 casualties and the retreat of his forces. His officers and supporters urged him to fight on but Otho refused and, early the next morning, committed suicide in his tent rather than spill more Roman blood, an act which was hailed as a noble sacrifice. As a result Vitellius was proclaimed emperor, the third of the year 69 so far.

The Life of Otho by Suetonius

[Like most Roman texts, this is divided up into short, numbered sections called ‘chapters’.]

1. The ancestors of Otho came from an old and illustrious family in the town of Ferentium and were descended from the princes of Etruria. His grandfather, Marcus Salvius Otho, whose father was a Roman knight but whose mother was of lowly origin and perhaps not even free-born, became a senator through the influence of Livia Augusta in whose house he was reared, but did not advance beyond the grade of praetor.

His father, Lucius Otho, came from a distinguished family on his mother’s side, with many powerful connections, and was so beloved by Tiberius and so like him in appearance, that he was believed by many to be the emperor’s son.

In the regular offices at Rome, the proconsulate of Africa, and several special military commands, Lucius conducted himself with extreme severity. In Illyricum he even had the courage to punish some soldiers with death, because in the rebellion of Camillus, repenting of their defection, they had killed their officers on the ground that these officers were the ringleaders in the revolt against Claudius. Lucius had them executed in his presence at his headquarters, because of this act of mutiny, although he knew that they had been promoted by Claudius precisely because of this very act. By this deed, while he increased his reputation, Otho’s father lost favour at court.

But then he speedily regained it by detecting the treachery of a Roman knight, whose slaves betrayed their master’s plan to assassinate the emperor. As reward for this, the senate conferred a very unusual honour on him by setting up his statue in the palace and Claudius enrolled him among the patricians and, after praising him in the highest terms, added these words: ‘He is a man of greater loyalty than I can even pray for in my own children.’

By Albia Terentia, a woman of an illustrious line, Lucius had two sons, Lucius Titianus and a younger, called Marcus, who had the same surname as himself. (He also had a daughter whom he betrothed to Drusus, son of Germanicus, almost before she was of marriageable age).

2. The future emperor Otho was born on the fourth day before the Kalends of May [28 April] in the consulate of Camillus Arruntius and Domitius Ahenobarbus [32 AD]. From his earliest youth Otho was so extravagant and wild that his father often flogged him. They say that he used to rove about Rome at night and lay hands on anyone whom he met who was feeble or drunk and toss him in a blanket.

After his father’s death, Otho pretended love for an influential freedwoman of the court, although she was an old woman and almost decrepit, so that he might win her favour. Having, through her, wormed his way into Nero’s good graces, Otho easily took the first place among the emperor’s friends because of the similarity of their characters – although some people claim it was also through having immoral relations with the emperor.

3. Otho was privy to all the emperor’s plans and secrets and on the day which Nero had chosen for the murder of his mother he gave both of them a most elaborate banquet in order to avert suspicion.

Also, when Poppaea Sabina, who up to that time had been Nero’s mistress, was separated from her husband, on the emperor’s orders Otho pretended marriage with her to prove cover for their affair. In the event, Otho became so devoted to Poppaea that he couldn’t endure the thought of having Nero as a rival. The result was that he not only wouldn’t admit servants whom Nero sent to fetch Poppaea, but that on one occasion he even shut out the emperor himself, who stood before his door mingling threats and entreaties and demanding the return of his trust.

Therefore Nero annulled the marriage and, under colour of appointment as governor, banished Otho to Lusitania, worried that if he inflicted a severer punishment he would make the whole farce public. Even as it was, the affair was published abroad in this couplet:

‘Why, do you ask, in feigned honour does Otho in banishment languish?
With his own wedded wife he had begun an intrigue.’

With the rank of quaestor, Otho governed Lusitania for ten years with remarkable moderation and integrity.

4. Then, at last, an opportunity for revenge arose. Otho was the first to espouse Galba’s cause [when the latter rose in rebellion against Nero], but at the same time conceived ambitions of imperial power for himself due to the troubled state of the times. He was encouraged in his hopes by the astrologer Seleucus for this astrologer had not only promised Otho some time before that he would survive Nero but now unexpectedly appeared and made the further promise that he, Otho, would soon become emperor himself.

Accordingly, Otho let slip no opportunity for flattery or attention to anyone. Whenever he entertained the prince at dinner he gave a gold piece to each man of the cohort on guard and put all the soldiers under obligation in one form or another. Chosen to be judge by a man who was involved in a law case with his neighbour about a part of his estate, Otho bought the whole property and presented it to him. As a result there was hardly anyone who did not both think and openly declare that he alone was worthy to succeed to the empire.

5. After the fall of Nero, Otho hoped to be adopted by Galba and looked forward to it from day to day. But when Galba adopted Piso instead [on 10 January 69] and Otho 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.

Otho 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. At first the enterprise was entrusted to five of his bodyguard, then to ten others, two being chosen by each of the first five. To all of them 10,000 sesterces were paid at once and they were promised 50,000 more. These then won others over to Otho’s cause, giving him confidence that more would join him when the business was afoot.

6. Otho had been inclined to seize the army camp immediately after the adoption of Piso and set upon Galba as he was dining in the palace, but he had been deterred out of consideration for the cohort which was on guard at the time, and a reluctance to increase its ill repute. For it was while that same cohort was at its post that both Galba had been slain and Nero had been abandoned. The intervening time was lost owing to bad omens and the warnings of Seleucus.

Accordingly, when the day was set [15 January 69], after admonishing his confederates to await him in the Forum at the golden mile-post near the temple of Saturn, Otho called upon Galba in the morning and was welcomed as usual with a kiss. He also attended the emperor as he was offering sacrifice and heard the predictions of the soothsayer.

Then a freedman announced that the architects had come, which was the signal agreed on, and going off as if to inspect a house which was for sale, he rushed from the palace by a back door and hastened to the appointed place. Others say that he feigned an attack of fever and asked those who stood near him to give that excuse, in case he should be missed.

Then, hurriedly entering a closed sedan such as women use, Otho hurried to the camp but got out when the bearers’ strength flagged and started to run. His shoe came untied and he stopped, whereupon without delay he was at once taken up on the shoulders of his companions and hailed as emperor. In this way he arrived at headquarters, amid acclamations and drawn swords, while everyone whom he met fell in, just as though he were an accomplice and a participator in the plot. He then sent emissaries to kill Galba and Piso and made no further promises in the assembly to win the loyalty of the soldiers than to declare that he would only take whatever [i.e. as much power as] they would give him.

7. Next, as the day was drawing to its close, Otho entered the senate and, after giving a brief account of himself, alleging that he had been carried off in the streets and forced to undertake the throne. He promised that he would exercise power in accordance with the general will then proceeded to the palace.

When in the midst of the other adulations of those who congratulated and flattered him, he was hailed by the common mob as Nero, he made no sign of dissent. On the contrary, according to some writers he even made use of that surname in his commissions and his first letters to some of the governors of the provinces. He allowed Nero’s busts and statues to be set up again and reinstated his procurators and freedmen in their former posts, while the first grant that he signed as emperor was one of 50 million to complete the construction of Nero’s Golden House.

It is said that he had a fearful dream that night, uttered loud groans, and was found by those who ran to his aid lying on the ground beside his couch. It is said that he tried by every kind of expiatory rite to propitiate the shade of Galba, by whom he dreamed that he was ousted and thrown out and that, on the next day, as he was taking the auspices, a great storm arose and he had a bad fall.

8. Now at about this same time the armies in Germany swore allegiance to Vitellius [Otho overthrew Galba on 15 January 69; the German legions had acclaimed Vitellius on 1 January].

When Otho learned of this, he persuaded the senate to send a deputation to say that an emperor had already been chosen and to counsel peace and harmony. But in spite of this he offered Vitellius by messengers and letters a share in the imperial dignity and proposed to become his son-in‑law. But when it became clear that war was inevitable and the generals and troops which Vitellius had sent in advance were approaching Rome he was given a proof of the affection and loyalty of the praetorians towards himself which almost resulted in the destruction of the senate.

It had been resolved that some arms should be removed and carried back on shipboard by the marines but as these were being taken out in the camp towards nightfall, some suspected treachery and started a riot. Then, suddenly, all the soldiers hastened to the palace without any particular leader, demanding the death of the senators. After putting to flight some of the tribunes who attempted to stop them, and killing others just as they were, all blood-stained, the soldiers burst right into the dining-room demanding to know where the emperor was and they could not be quieted until they had seen him.

Otho began his expedition against Vitellius with energy and in fact too hastily, without any regard even for the omens, and in spite of the fact that the sacred shields had been taken out but not yet put back, which for ages has been considered unlucky.

He began on the very day, too, when the worshippers of the Mother of the Gods begin their wailing and lamentation, and also with most unfavourable auspices. For having offered up a victim to father Dis he had good omens whereas in such a sacrifice, adverse indications are more favourable.
And when he first left Rome, Otho was delayed by floods of the Tiber, while at the twentieth milestone he found the road blocked by fallen buildings.

9. Although no one doubted that the proper course was to protract the war, since the enemy were hard pressed by hunger and by the narrowness of their quarters – Otho rashly decided to fight a decisive battle as soon as possible, either because he could not endure the continued worry and hoped that the war could be ended before the arrival of Vitellius, or from inability to resist the impetuosity of his soldiers, who clamoured for the fight. He himself did not take part in any of the battles but remained behind at Brixellum.

He was victorious in three minor battles – in the Alps, near Placentia, and ‘at Castor’s’, as the place is called – but they were irrelevant to the main contest. In the final and decisive struggle at Bedriacum he was defeated, but through treachery. For hope of a conference was offered and when his soldiers were led out in the belief that they were to discuss terms of peace a battle was forced upon them unexpectedly, just as they were exchanging greetings with the foe.

After the defeat, Otho at once resolved to take his own life, rather from a feeling of shame (as many have thought with good reason) and an unwillingness to persist in a struggle for imperial power at the expense of such danger to life and property, than from any despair of success or distrust of his troops. For despite the defeat, he still had a fresh and strong force which he had held in reserve for a second attempt, while other legions were on their way from Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Moesia. Even the defeated troops were not so crushed as not to be able to fight on and, even without further support, undertake to avenge their disgrace.

10. My father Suetonius Laetus took part in that war as a tribune of the equestrian order in the Thirteenth legion. He used often to say afterwards that Otho, even when he was a private citizen, so loathed civil strife that at the mere mention of the fate of Brutus and Cassius at a banquet he shuddered and that he would not have engaged with Galba if he had not felt confident that the affair could be settled peacefully. Moreover that Otho was led to hold his life cheap at that time by the example of a common soldier. This man on bringing news of the defeat of the army was believed by no one but was accused by the soldiers of falsehood and cowardice and fleeing the battle. At which, to prove his honesty, the soldier fell on his sword at the emperor’s feet. My father used to say that at this sight Otho cried out that he would no longer endanger the lives of such brave men who had deserved so well.

Having therefore advised his brother, his nephew, and his friends one by one to look out each for his own safety as best they could, Otho embraced and kissed them all and sent them away. Then, going to a retired place, he wrote two notes, one of consolation to his sister, and one to Nero’s widow Messalina, whom he had intended to marry, commending to her his corpse and his memory. Then he burned all his letters to prevent them from bringing danger or harm to anyone at the hands of the victor. He also distributed what money he had with him among his servants.

11. When Otho had thus made his preparations and was resolved to die, learning from a disturbance which meantime arose that those who were beginning to depart and leave the camp were being seized and detained as deserters, he said: ‘Let us add this one more night to our life’ (these were his very words), and he forbade the offering of violence to anyone. Leaving the door of his bedroom open until a late hour, he gave the privilege of speaking with him to all who wished to come in.

After that, quenching his thirst with a draught of cold water, he caught up two daggers and, having tried the point of both of them, put one under his pillow. Then, closing the doors, he slept very soundly. When he at last woke up at about daylight he stabbed himself with a single stroke under the left breast and breathed his last. He was hastily buried (for such were his orders) in the thirty-eighth year of his age and on the ninety-fifth day of his reign.

12. Neither Otho’s person nor his bearing suggested such great courage. He is said to have been of moderate height, splay-footed and bandy-legged, but almost feminine in his care of his person. He had the hair of his body plucked out, and because of the thinness of his locks wore a wig so carefully fashioned and fitted to his head that no one suspected it. They say that he used to shave every day and smear his face with moist bread, beginning the practice with the appearance of the first down so as never to have a beard. Also that he used to celebrate the rites of Isis publicly in the linen garment prescribed by the cult.

I am inclined to think that it was because of these habits that a death so little in harmony with his life excited the greater wonder. Many of the soldiers who were present kissed his hands and feet as he lay dead, weeping bitterly and calling him the bravest of men and an incomparable emperor, and then at once slew themselves beside his bier. Many of those who were absent too, on receiving the news attacked and killed one another from sheer grief.

In short, the greater part of those who had hated Otho most bitterly while he lived, praised him to the skies when he was dead. It was even commonly declared that he had put an end to Galba not so much for the sake of ruling as of restoring the republic and liberty.

Thought

Nothing became Otho’s life so much as the leaving it. When you read that many of his soldiers committed suicide to copy and honour him, your first reaction is simply to disbelieve it. But the Roman cult of principled suicide goes way beyond what we can really understand.

[Suetonius’s Life of Otho should be read alongside Tacitus’s account of the same events in his Histories.]

Suetonius’s Lives of the Twelve Caesars

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by Simon on January 9, 2023 • Permalink

Posted in Ancient history, Biography, Translation

Posted by Simon on January 9, 2023

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The Life of Galba by Suetonius

As an experiment I’m juxtaposing an edited-down version of the Wikipedia article about Galba with an edited-down version of an online English translation of Suetonius’s Life of Galba. Suetonius’s lives are often inaccurate and omit important facts. On the other hand, they contain much detail and comment which is omitted by encyclopedia articles. So I’ve set the two side by side to see how they complement each other. The most obvious learning is discovering just how much of the Wikipedia article is taken almost verbatim from Suetonius.

Servius Sulpicius Galba (3 BC to 69 AD) was the sixth Roman emperor, ruling briefly from the suicide of Nero on 8 June 68 AD to his own assassination on 15 January 69. After his adoption by his stepmother, and before becoming emperor, Galba was known as Livius Ocella Sulpicius Galba. He was the first of the emperors who ruled in the chaotic Year of the Four Emperors (69 AD).

1. Galba Wikipedia article

Background

Galba was born into a wealthy and distinguished family. His father and brother, both named Gaius, were consul in 5 BC and AD 22 respectively. Galba held at various times the positions of praetor, consul, and governor to the provinces of Aquitania, Upper Germany, and Africa during the first half of the first century AD. He retired from his positions during the latter part of Claudius’ reign (with the advent of Agrippina the Younger as Claudius’s fourth wife), but Nero later granted him the governorship of Hispania.

Taking advantage of the defeat of the uprising against Nero of Gaius Julius Vindex, governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, in early 68, Galba marched with his army on Rome, prompting Nero’s suicide on 9 June 68 whereupon Galba was declared emperor by the senate, with the support of the Praetorian Guard.

Galba’s physical weakness and general apathy led to him being easily led by favorites. Unable to gain popularity with the people or maintain the support of the Praetorian Guard (not least by not paying them the bounty he had promised), Galba was murdered by troops supporting Marcus Otho, governor of the neighbouring province of Lusitania, who had accompanied Galba in the march on Rome but was aggrieved at being passed over for high office.

Galba was distantly related to the empress Livia, who he respected and who, in turn, advanced his career. In her will Livia left him 50 million sesterces. Emperor Tiberius, however, cheated Galba by reducing the amount to 500,000 sesterces and never even paid Galba the reduced amount.

Galba was gay. According to Suetonius ‘he was more inclined to … the hard-bodied and those past their prime.’ Nevertheless, he married a woman named Aemilia Lepida and had two sons. Aemilia and their sons died during the early years of the reign of Claudius and Galba never remarried.

Career

In 39 Galba was appointed general of the Upper German legions. According to one report, Galba curried favour with the emperor Caligula by running alongside his chariot for twenty miles. As commander of the legions of Upper Germany, Galba gained a reputation as a disciplinarian. Suetonius writes that Galba was advised to seize the throne following the assassination of Caligula in 41, but instead loyally served Caligula’s uncle and successor Claudius.

Claudius appointed Galba governor of Africa in 44 or 45. He retired at an unknown point during the reign of Claudius, possibly in 49. He was recalled in 59 or 60 by the emperor Nero to govern Hispania.

Revolt

A rebellion against Nero was orchestrated by Gaius Julius Vindex in Gaul on the anniversary of the death of Nero’s mother, Agrippina the Younger, in 68. Shortly afterwards, Galba, in Spain, disavowed the title ‘General of Caesar’ in favour of ‘General of The Senate and People of Rome’.

Among several contenders for the throne who arose in light of Vindex’s revolt, Galba was supported by the influential imperial official Tigellinus. At midnight on 8 June, another imperial official, Nymphidius Sabinus, falsely announced to the Praetorian Guard that Nero had fled to Egypt, and the Senate proclaimed Galba emperor. Nero, who had fled to a suburban villa, committed assisted suicide with help from his secretary.

Reign

Galba was 72 when he came to the throne. Upon becoming emperor, he was faced by the rebellion of Nymphidius Sabinus, who had his own aspirations for the imperial throne. However, Sabinus was killed by the Praetorians before he could take the throne.

While Galba was arriving at Rome with the Lusitanian governor Marcus Salvius Otho, his army was attacked by a legion that had been organized by Nero. A number of Galba’s troops were killed in the fighting.

Galba surrounded himself with a group of cronies who gave him bad advice. He seized the property of Roman citizens, disbanded the German legions, and didn’t pay the Praetorian Guard and the soldiers who fought for him against Vindex. He condemned to death distinguished men of both orders on trivial suspicions without a trial. He became unpopular.

Mutiny on the frontier and assassination

On 1 January 69, the day Galba and Vinius took the office of consul, the fourth and twenty-second legions of Upper Germany refused to swear loyalty to Galba. They toppled his statues, demanding that a new emperor be chosen. On the following day, the soldiers of Lower Germany also refused to swear their loyalty and proclaimed the governor of the province, Aulus Vitellius, as emperor.

Galba tried to ensure his authority as emperor by adopting a successor, the young handsome nobleman Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus. But it was too little too late. Galba was killed by the Praetorian Guard on 15 January.

Marcus Salvius Otho was angry that he had been passed over for adoption and had organised a conspiracy with a small number of Praetorian Guards to murder the aged emperor and elevate himself. The soldiery in the capital, composed not just of Praetorians but of Galba’s legion from Spain and several detachments of men from the Roman fleet, Illyria, Britain, and Germany, were angered at not having received a donative i.e. reward for supporting him.

They also resented Galba’s purges of their officers and fellow soldiers (this was especially true of the men from the fleet). Many in the Praetorian Guard were shaken by the recent murder of their Prefect, Nymphidius Sabinus – some of the waverers were convinced to come over to Otho’s side out of fear that Galba might yet take revenge on them for their connection to Sabinus.

120 men later petitioned Otho that they had killed Galba. They would all be executed by Vitellius. A company of German soldiers to whom he had once done a kindness rushed to help Galba, however they took a wrong turn and arrived too late. He was killed near the Lacus Curtius.

Of Galba’s cronies: Vinius tried to run away, calling out that Otho had not ordered him killed, but was run through with a spear. Laco was banished to an island where he was later murdered by soldiers sent by Otho. Icelus was publicly executed. Piso was also killed; his head along with Galba’s and Vinius’s were placed on poles and mocked by the soldiers.

Galba’s head was brought by a soldier to Otho’s camp where camp boys mocked it. Vinius’s head was sold to his daughter for 2,500 drachmas. Piso’s head was given to his wife. Galba’s head was bought for 100 gold pieces by a freedman who threw it at Sessorium where his master, Patrobius Neronianus, had been killed by Galba. So much killing.

2. Suetonius’s Life of Galba

Suetonius gives Galba’s life in 23 short ‘chapters’ (compare with the 56 for Nero). I’ve copied and sub-edited the 1914 Loeb Classical Library translation by J. C. Rolfe.

Nero was the last who bore the name ‘Caesar’ because of his connection with the family of Augustus; after him it turned from being a family name into a designation of rank.

1. With Nero the line of the Caesars became extinct. [Suetonius is as superstitious as Plutarch or Tacitus and so records a crop of the usual bad omens.]

the holy laurel tree from which the emperors had their wreaths made wilted
the temple of the Caesars was struck by lightning which decapitated all the statues at the same time
Augustus’s sceptre was dashed from his hand

2. When he became emperor, Galba displayed a family tree in his hall claiming his ancestry went back on his father’s side to Jupiter and on his mother’s to Pasiphae, the wife of Minos.

3. Nobody knows how the name Galba was introduced into the clan Sulpicii which he belonged to. One theory is that after a long siege of some Spanish town the Sulpicius in question set fire to it with torches smeared with resin (galbanum). Others because this ancestor during a long illness resorted to galbeum, a sort of poultice, that is to say of remedies wrapped in wool. Others think he was very fat man, the Gallic word for which is galba. Others that he was, on the contrary, like the galba, a creature which breeds in oak trees. [Shows you how wild and inaccurate Roman attempts at etymology were.]

His ancestor, Servius Galba, served as consul, was the most eloquent speaker of his time and triggered the war with Viriathus because, while governing Spain, he treacherously massacred 30,000 Lusitanians.

Galba’s great-grandfather was blocked by Julius Caesar in his campaign for the consulship in 49 BC and so joined Brutus’s conspiracy and was one of Caesar’s assassins. From him were descended the grandfather and the father of the emperor Galba. The former published a voluminous and painstaking history.

Galba’s father attained the consulship and, despite being a hunchback, was an effective advocate. He had two wives: Mummia Achaica, great-granddaughter of Lucius Mummius who destroyed Corinth, bore him two sons, Gaius and Servius (our protagonist). Gaius committed suicide because Tiberius would not allow him to take part in the allotment of the provinces in his year (i.e. following immediately his consulship). When Achaica died, Galba’s father married Livia Ocellina, a very rich and beautiful woman, who adopted Servius as her step-son.

4. The future emperor Servius Galba was born in the consulship of Marcus Valerius Messala and Gnaeus Lentulus (3 BC), on the ninth day before the Kalends of January i.e. 24 December, in a country house situated on a hill near Tarracina.

Adopted by his stepmother Livia, he took her name and the surname Ocella, and also changed his forename, using Lucius instead of Servius from that time until he became emperor.

Suetonius has some entertaining anecdotes. It was, he says, well known in his day that when Galba was a boy and called to pay his respects to Augustus with others of his age, the emperor pinched his cheek and said in Greek: ‘You too will taste a little of my power, child.’

And Tiberius too, when he heard that Galba was destined to be emperor, but in his old age, said: ‘Well, let him live then, since that does not concern me.’

When he reached adult years, Galba dreamed that Fortune said that she was tired of waiting outside his door and, unless he let her in, she would be fair game for the next passerby. When he awoke and opened the door into the hall he found a bronze statue of Fortune about two feet high. This he carried lovingly to his summer house a Tusculum, and consecrated it in a room there, worshiping it from that time on with monthly sacrifices and an annual vigil. [Compare and contrast with Nero’s alleged attachment to a small figure of a girl sent him by an unnamed commoner.]

As a young man he persisted in keeping up an old and forgotten custom which survived only in his own household, of having his freedmen and slaves appear before him twice a day in a body, greeting him in the morning and bidding him goodnight at evening, one by one.

5. Galba applied himself to liberal studies, particularly the law.

He took marriage seriously but after his wife Lepida and the two sons he had by her died, he remained a widower. He could not be tempted afterwards by any match, not even with the redoubtable Agrippina [mother of Nero], who no sooner lost [her first husband] Domitius by death than she made such shameless advances to him, while his wife was still alive, that Lepida’s mother gave her a public reprimand, going so far as to slap her.

Galba showed marked respect to Livia Augusta, to whose favour he owed great influence during her lifetime and by whose last will he almost became a rich man; for he had the largest bequest among her legatees, one of 50 million sesterces. But because the sum was designated in figures and not written out in words, Tiberius, who was her heir, reduced the bequest to 500,000, and Galba never received even that amount.

6. Galba began his career of office before the legal age, and in celebrating the games of the Floralia in his praetorship he gave a new kind of exhibition, namely of elephants walking the rope. Then he governed the province of Aquitania for nearly a year and soon afterwards held a regular consulship for six months. It chanced that in this office he succeeded Lucius Domitius, the father of Nero, and was succeeded by Salvius Otho, the father of the emperor Otho, a kind of omen of what happened later, when he became emperor between the reigns of the sons of these two men.

Appointed governor of Upper Germany by Gaius Caesar, the day after he appeared before the legions Galba put a stop to their applause at a festival which chanced to fall at that time, by issuing a written order to keep their hands under their cloaks; and immediately this verse was bandied about the camp:

‘Soldier, learn to play the soldier; ’tis Galba, not Gaetulicus.’

With equal strictness Galba put a stop to the requests for furloughs. He got both the veterans and the new recruits into condition by plenty of hard work, speedily checked the barbarians, who had already made inroads even into Gaul. When Gaius (Caligula) arrived on a tour of inspection, Galba and his army made such a good impression that out of the great body of troops assembled from all the provinces none received greater commendation or richer rewards. Galba particularly distinguished himself while directing the military manoeuvres shield in hand, by running for twenty miles close beside Caligula’s chariot.

7. When the murder of Caligula was announced, although many urged Galba to take advantage of the opportunity, he preferred quiet. Hence he was in high favour with Claudius, became one of his staff of intimate friends, and was treated with such consideration that the departure of the expedition to Britain was put off because Galba was taken with a sudden illness (of no great severity).

Galba governed Africa for two years with the rank of proconsul, being specially chosen to restore order in the province, which was disturbed both by internal strife and by a revolt of the barbarians. He was successful owing to his insistence on strict discipline and his observance of justice even in trifling matters. When provisions were very scarce during a foray and a soldier was accused of having sold for a hundred denarii a peck of wheat which was left from his rations, Galba gave orders that when the man began to lack food, no one should help him and so he starved to death.

On another occasion, when Galba was holding court and the question of the ownership of a beast of burden was laid before him, as the evidence on both sides was slight and the witnesses unreliable so that it was difficult to get at the truth, Galba ruled that the beast should be led with its head muffled up to the pool where it was usually watered, that it should then be unmuffled, and should belong to which of the men it returned to of its own accord.

8. Galba’s services in Africa at that time, and previously in Germany, were recognised by the triumphal regalia and three priesthoods, for he was chosen a member of the Fifteen, of the brotherhood of Titius, and of the priests of Augustus.

After that he lived for the most part in retirement until about the middle of Nero’s reign, never going out even for recreation without taking a million sesterces in gold with him in a second carriage. Finally, while he was staying in the town of Fundi, the province of Hispania Tarraconensis was offered to him.

It happened that as he was offering sacrifice in a public temple after his arrival in the province, the hair of a young attendant who was carrying an incense-box suddenly turned white all over his head. Some interpreted this as a sign of a change of rulers and of the succession of an old man to a young one, that is to say, of Galba to Nero. Not long after this, lightning struck a lake of Cantabria and twelve axes were found there, an unmistakable token of supreme power.

9. For eight years Galba governed the province in a variable and inconsistent manner. At first he was vigorous and energetic and even over-severe in punishing offences. For example, he cut off the hands of a money-lender who carried on his business dishonestly and nailed them to his counter. He crucified a man for poisoning his ward, whose property he was to inherit in case of his death and when 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, Galba learned of the rebellion of the Gallic provinces through an urgent appeal for help from the governor of Aquitania. Then came letters from Vindex, calling on Galba to make himself the liberator and leader of mankind. So, without much hesitation, Galba accepted the proposal, led by fear as well as by hope. For he had intercepted despatches ordering his own death, which had been secretly sent by Nero to his agents.

Galba was encouraged too, in addition to most favourable auspices and omens, by the prediction of a young girl of high birth; and also because the priest of Jupiter at Clunia, directed by a dream, had found in the inner shrine of his temple the very same prediction, likewise spoken by an inspired girl 200 years before. The drift of the verses was that one day there would come out of Spain the ruler and lord of the world.

10. Accordingly, pretending that he was going to attend to the manumitting of slaves, Galba mounted the tribunal, on the front of which he had set up as many images as he could find of those who had been condemned and put to death by Nero – and having by his side a boy of noble family whom he had summoned for that very purpose from his place of exile hard by in the Balearic Isles – he deplored the state of the times.

Being hailed as emperor by his troops, Galba declared that he was their governor, representing the senate and people of Rome. Then, proclaiming a holiday, he enrolled from the people of the province legions and auxiliaries in addition to his former force of one legion, two divisions of cavalry and three cohorts.

But from the oldest and most experienced of the nobles Galba chose a kind of senate who he might refer matters of special importance to whenever it was necessary. He also chose young men of the order of knights, who were to have the title of volunteers and guard his bedchamber in place of the regular soldiers, without losing their right to wear the gold ring. He also sent proclamations throughout the province, urging all men individually and collectively to join the revolution and aid the common cause in every possible way.

More omens and portents:

During the fortification of a town which he had chosen as the seat of war, a ring of ancient workmanship was found, containing a precious stone engraved with a Victory and a trophy.
Immediately afterwards a ship from Alexandria loaded with arms arrived at Dertosa without a pilot, without a single sailor or passenger, removing all doubt in anyone’s mind that the war was just and holy and undertaken with the approval of the gods.

Then suddenly and unexpectedly the whole plan almost failed. One of Galba’s two divisions of cavalry, repenting of its change of allegiance, attempted to desert Galba as he was approaching his camp and was only with difficulty prevented.

Some slaves too, whom one of Nero’s freedmen had given to Galba with treachery in view, nearly assassinated him as he was going to the bath through a narrow passage-way. They would have succeeded had they not been overheard discussing ‘the opportunity’ and, when interrogated about what ‘the opportunity’ referred to, confessed.

11. To these great perils was added the defeat and death of Vindex by forces loyal to Nero. This made Galba panic and even contemplate taking his own life, believing the cause of insurrection was lost. But when some messengers came from Rome, reporting that Nero was dead and that all the people had sworn allegiance to him, Galba, he laid aside the title of governor and assumed that of Caesar.

He then began his march to Rome in a general’s cloak with a dagger hanging from his neck in front of his breast and he did not resume the toga until he had overthrown his opponents, Nymphidius Sabinus, prefect of the praetorian guard at Rome, and in Germany and Africa the governors Fonteius Capito and Clodius Macer.

12. Galba’s double reputation for cruelty and avarice had gone before him. Men said that he had punished the cities of the Spanish and Gallic provinces which had hesitated about taking sides with him by imposing heavier taxes and even razing the walls of some of them, executing the governors and imperial deputies along with their wives and children.

It was further alleged that he had melted down a golden crown of fifteen pounds weight, which the people of Tarraco had taken from their ancient temple of Jupiter and presented to him; he ordered that the three ounces which it fell short by should be exacted from them.

Galba’s reputation for harshness was confirmed immediately on his arrival in Rome. He compelled some marines whom Nero had made regular soldiers to return to their former position as rowers and, when they refused and obstinately demanded an eagle and standards, Galba not only dispersed them by a cavalry charge but had them decimated.

Galba also disbanded a cohort of Germans, whom the previous Caesars had made their bodyguard and had found absolutely faithful in many emergencies, and sent them back to their native country without any rewards. He alleged that they were favourably inclined towards Gnaeus Dolabella, near whose gardens they had their camp.

The following tales were told in mockery of him, whether truly or falsely:

that when an unusually elegant dinner was set before him, he groaned aloud
that when his duly appointed steward presented his expense account, he handed him a dish of beans in return for his industry
that when the flute player Canus greatly pleased him, he presented him with five denarii, which he took from his own purse with his own hand i.e. he acquired a reputation for being stingy

13. Accordingly Galba’s arrival in Rome was not so welcome as it might have been. This was apparent at the first performance in the theatre, for when the actors of an Atellan farce began the familiar lines:

‘Here comes Onesimus from his farm’

all the spectators at once finished the song in chorus and repeated it several times with appropriate gestures, as if it mockingly referred to Galba.

14. Thus Galba’s popularity and prestige were greater when he won than while he ruled the empire, although he gave many proofs of being an excellent prince. But he was more hated for his bad acts than loved for his wise ones.

Galba was wholly under the control of three men who were commonly known as his tutors because they lived with him in the palace and never left his side. These were:

Titus Vinius, one of his generals in Spain, a man of unbounded covetousness
Cornelius Laco, advanced from the position of judge’s assistant to that of prefect of the Guard and intolerably haughty and indolent
his own freedman Icelus, who had only just before received the honour of the gold ring and the surname of Marcianus, yet already aspired to the highest office open to the equestrian order

Galba was so under the influence of these men with their different agendas that his conduct was inconsistent: sometimes he was exacting and niggardly, other times more extravagant and reckless than became a prince chosen by the people and of his time of life.

Galba condemned to death various distinguished men of both orders on trivial suspicions without a trial. He rarely granted Roman citizenship, and granted the privileges of threefold paternity to hardly one or two men, and even to those only for a fixed and limited time.

When the jurors petitioned that a sixth division be added to their number, he not only refused but even deprived them of the privilege, granted by Claudius, of not being summoned for court duty in winter and at the beginning of the year.

15. It was thought too that Galba intended to limit the offices open to senators and knights to a period of two years, and to give them only to such as did not wish them and declined them.

He had all the grants of Nero revoked, allowing only a tenth part to be retained and he demanded repayment with the help of fifty Roman knights, stipulating that even if the actors and athletes had sold anything that had formerly been given them (by Nero), it should be taken away from the purchases, in case the recipient had spent the money and could not repay it.

On the other hand, there was nothing that he did not allow his friends and freedmen to sell at a price or bestow as a favour, taxes and freedom from taxation, the punishment of the guiltless and impunity for the guilty.

More, when the Roman people called for the punishment of Halotus and Tigellinus, the most abandoned of Nero’s creatures, not content with saving their lives, Galba honoured Halotus with an important stewardship and, in the case of Tigellinus, issued an edict rebuking the people for their cruelty in criticising him.

16. Having thus incurred the hatred of almost all men of every class, Galba was especially detested by the soldiers, for although their officers had promised them a larger gift than common when they swore allegiance to Galba in his absence, so far from keeping the promise, Galba declared more than once that it was his habit to levy troops, not to buy them. With this policy he embittered the soldiers all over the empire. He filled the praetorians with fear and indignation by discharging many of them from time to time as under suspicion of being partisans of Nymphidius.

But loudest of all was the grumbling of the army in Upper Germany, because it was defrauded of the reward for its services against the Gauls and Vindex. This is why these troops were the first to venture on mutiny, refusing on the Kalends of January to swear allegiance to anyone save the senate, and at once resolving to send a deputation to the praetorians with the following message: that the emperor created in Spain did not suit them and the Guard must choose one who would be acceptable to all the armies.

17. When this was reported to Galba, thinking that it was not so much his age as his lack of children that was criticised, he picked out Piso Frugi Licinianus from the throng at one of his morning receptions, a young man of noble birth and high character, who had long been one of his special favourites and always named in his will as heir to his property and his name.

Calling him ‘son’, Galba led Piso to the praetorian camp and adopted him before the assembled soldiers. But even then he made no mention of largess (i.e. money for the soldiers), thus making it easier for Marcus Salvius Otho to overthrow him just six days after the adoption.

18. Many prodigies from the start of his reign had foretold Galba’s end exactly as it happened:

when animals were being slain to right and left all along his march to Rome in every town, an ox, maddened by the stroke of an axe, broke its bonds and charged the emperor’s chariot and deluged him with blood
as Galba dismounted, one of his guards, pushed forward by the crowd, almost wounded him with his lance
as he entered Rome, and later the Palace, he was met by a shock of earthquake and a sound like the lowing of cattle

There followed even clearer signs: he had set apart from all the treasure a necklace made of pearls and precious stones, for the adornment of his image of Fortune at Tusculum. This on a sudden impulse he consecrated to the Capitoline Venus, thinking it worthy of a more august position. The next night Fortune appeared to him in his dreams, complaining of being robbed of the gift intended for her and threatening to take away what she had bestowed. When day came Galba hastened in terror to Tusculum to offer expiatory sacrifices because of the dream, and sent men ahead to make preparations for the ceremony. But on arrival, he found on the altar nothing but warm ashes and beside it an old man dressed in black, holding the incense in a glass dish and the wine in an earthen cup.

It was also noticed that as Galba was sacrificing on the Kalends of January, the garland fell from his head and that, as he took the auspices, the sacred chickens flew away.

As he was on the point of addressing the soldiers on the day of the adoption, his camp chair, through the forgetfulness of his attendants, was not placed on the tribunal, as is customary. In the senate his curule chair was set wrong side foremost.

19. As Galba was offering sacrifice on the morning before he was killed, a soothsayer warned him to look out for danger, since assassins were not far off.

Not long after this Galba learned that Otho had taken possession of the camp of the Praetorian Guard. When advisers recommended that Galba go there as soon as possible — for they said that he could win the day by his presence and prestige — he decided to do no more than hold his present position and strengthen it by assembling a guard of the legionaries, who were camped around Rome.

Galba did put on a linen cuirass, though he admitted it would give little protection against so many swords. But he was lured out by false reports, circulated by the conspirators, to induce him to appear in public. They assured him that the trouble was over, that the rebels had been overthrown, and that the rest were coming in a body to offer their congratulations, ready to submit to all his orders.

So Galba went out to meet them with so much confidence that when one of the soldiers boasted that he had slain Otho, he asked him, ‘On whose authority?’ and then he went on to the Forum. There the cavalry who had been bidden to slay him, spurring their horses through the streets and dispersing the crowd of civilians, caught sight of him from a distance and halted for a moment. Then they rushed upon him again and butchered him, abandoned by his followers.

20. Some say that at the beginning of the disturbance Galba cried out, ‘What mean you, fellow soldiers? I am yours and you are mine,’ and that he even promised them largess. But the more general account is that he offered them his neck without resistance, urging them to do their duty and strike, since it was their will.

It might seem surprising that none of those present tried to help their emperor, and that everyone who Galba sent for treated the summons with contempt, except for a company of German troops. These responded because of his recent kindness in showing them great indulgence when they were weakened by illness, and they ran to his help but, not knowing their way round Rome, took a roundabout way and arrived too late.

Galba was killed beside the Lake of Curtius and was left lying just as he was, until a common soldier, returning from a distribution of grain, threw down his load and cut off the head. Since there was no hair by which to grasp it, the soldier put it under his robe, but later thrust his thumb into the mouth and so carried it to Otho.

Otho handed the head over to his servants and camp-followers, who stuck it on a lance and paraded it about the camp with jeers, crying out from time to time: ‘Galba, thou Cupid, exult in thy vigour!’ The point of this joke was that the report had gone around a few days earlier that when someone had congratulated him on still looking young and vigorous, Galba had replied:

‘As yet my strength is unimpaired.’

The head was bought from these camp followers by a freedman of Patrobius Neronianus for 100 pieces of gold and thrown in the place where his patron had been executed on Galba’s orders.

At last, however, Galba’s steward, Argivus, consigned it, with the rest of the body, to the tomb in Galba’s private gardens on the Aurelian Road.

21. Galba was of average height, very bald, with blue eyes and a hooked nose. His hands and feet were so distorted by gout that he couldn’t bear to wear a shoe for long, to unroll a book, or even to hold one. The flesh on his right side too had grown out and hung down to such an extent that it could only with difficulty be held in place by a bandage.

22. It’s said that Galba was a heavy eater and in winter time used to take food even before daylight, while at dinner he helped himself so lavishly that he would have the leftovers placed in front of him to finish off before he distributed it among his attendants.

Galba was more inclined in his sexual tastes to men and, of those, vigorous and older ones. They say that when Icelus, one of his old favourites, brought him news in Spain of Nero’s death, he not only received him openly with the fondest kisses, but begged him to ‘prepare himself’ without delay and took him to one side [i.e. buggered him].

23. Galba met his end in the seventy-third year of his age and the seventh month of his reign. The senate, as soon as it was allowed to do so, voted him a statue standing on a column decorated with the beaks of ships, in the part of the Forum where he was killed. But Vespasian [after he came to power in July 69] annulled this decree, believing that Galba had sent assassins from Spain to Judaea to murder him.

[Suetonius’s Life of Galba should be read alongside Tacitus’s account of the same events in his Histories.]

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by Simon on January 6, 2023 • Permalink

Posted in Ancient history, Biography, Translation

Tagged Aemilia Lepida, Agrippina the Younger, Alexandria, Ancient history, ancient Rome, ancient world, Aquitania, Argivus, Atellan farce, Augustus, Aulus Vitellius, Britain, brotherhood of Titius, Caligula, Canus, Claudius, Clodius Macer, Corinth, Cornelius Laco, Dertosa, Domitius, emperor Caligula, emperor Galba, emperor Tiberius, Fonteius Capito, Fortune, Gaius Caesar, Gaius Julius Vindex, Galba, Gallia Lugdunensis, Germany, Gnaeus Dolabella, Gnaeus Lentulus, Halotus, Hispania, Hispania Tarraconensis, history, homosexuality, Icelus, Illyria, J. C. Rolfe, Julius Caesar, Lacus Curtius, Lake of Curtius, Life of Galba, Livia, Livia Augusta, Livia Ocellina, Livius Ocella Sulpicius Galba, Lower Germany, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus, Lucius Domitius, Lucius Mummius, Lusitania, Marcianus, Marcus Otho, Marcus Salvius Otho, Marcus Valerius Messala, Minos, Mummia Achaica, Nero, New Carthage, Nymphidius, Nymphidius Sabinus, omens, Otho, Pasiphaë, Patrobius Neronianus, Piso, Piso Frugi Licinianus, Plutarch, Portents, Praetorian Guard, Roman Empire, Roman history, Rome, Sabinus, Salvius Otho, Servius Galba, Servius Sulpicius Galba, Slavery, slaves, Suetonius, Suetonius Life of Galba, suicide, Tacitus, Tarracina, Tarraco, The Floralia, Tiberius, Tigellinus, Titus Vinius, Translation, Tusculum, Upper Germany, Vespasian, Vinius, Viriathus, Year of the Four Emperors

Posted by Simon on January 6, 2023

https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2023/01/06/the-life-of-galba-by-suetonius/

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