Part 10 (1/2)

X The business of the courts had prodigiously accumulated, partly from old law-suits which, on account of the interruption that had been given to the course of justice, still remained undecided, and partly fro out of the disorder of the times He, therefore, chose commissioners by lot to provide for the restitution of what had been seized by violence during the war, and others with extraordinary jurisdiction to decide causes belonging to the centumviri, and reduce them to as small a number as possible, for the dispatch of which, otherwise, the lives of the litigants could scarcely allow sufficient time

XI lust and luxury, frorown to an enorht He, therefore, obtained a decree of the senate, that a woman who formed an union with the slave of another person, should be considered (454) a bondwoman herself; and that usurers should not be allowed to take proceedings at law for the recovery ofmen whilst they lived in their father's family, not even after their fathers were dead

XII In other affairs, froovernreatthe obscurity of his extraction, that he frequently made ree to the founders of Reate, and a companion of Hercules 753, whose hed at them for it And he was so little fond of external and adventitious orna quite tired of the length and tediousness of the procession, he could not forbear saying, ”he was rightly served, for having in his old age been so silly as to desire a triumph; as if it was either due to his ancestors, or had ever been expected by hi time accept of the tribunitian authority, or the title of Father of his Country And in regard to the custo those who came to salute him, he dropped it even in the tireat mildness the freedom used by his friends, the satirical allusions of advocates, and the petulance of philosophers Licinius Mucianus, who had been guilty of notorious acts of lewdness, but, presureat services, treated him very rudely, he reproved only in private; and when co of his conduct to a common friend of theirs, he concluded with these words, ”However, I a the cause of a richto say, ”What is it to Caesar, if Hipparchus possesses a hundred millions of sesterces?” he commended him for it Demetrius, the Cynic philosopher 755, (455) who had been sentenced to banish to rise up or salute hie, he only called him a cur

XIV He was little disposed to keep up the memory of affronts or quarrels, nor did he harbour any resente for the daughter of his eneave her, besides, a suitable fortune and equipage Being in a great consternation after he was forbidden the court in the ti those about hio? one of those whose office it was to introduce people to the eo to Morbonia 756 But when this sa his pardon, he only vented his resent influenced by suspicion or fear to seek the destruction of any one, that, when his friends advised him to beware of Metius Pomposianus, because it was co cast, that he was destined by fate to the e for hiet the benefit conferred

XV It will scarcely be found, that so n, unless in his absence, and without his knowledge, or, at least, contrary to his inclination, and when he was ih Helvidius Priscus 757 was the only man who presumed to salute him on his return from Syria by his private name of Vespasian, and, when he came to be praetor, omitted any mark of honour to him, or even any ry, until Helvidius proceeded to inveigh against hih he did indeed banish him, and afterwards ordered hiladly have saved hiers to fetch back the executioners; and he would have saved hiht, that he had already perished He never rejoiced at the death of any h, at the just punish deservedly blameable in his character was his love ofthe imposts which had been repealed in the timented the tribute of the provinces, and doubled that of soed in a traffic, which is discreditable 758 even to a private individual, buying great quantities of goods, for the purpose of retailing thereat offices of the state to candidates, and pardons to persons under prosecution, whether they were innocent or guilty It is believed, that he advanced all the her offices, with the view of squeezing thereat wealth He was coes,” because it was his practice, as we may say, to wet them when dry, and squeeze them et It is said that he was naturally extremely covetous, and was upbraided with it by an old herds to enfranchise hiratis, which on his advancement he hued his hair, but not his nature” On the other hand, soed to his rapacious proceedings by necessity, and the extreme poverty of the treasury and exchequer, of which he took public notice in the beginning of his reign; declaring that ”no less than four hundred thousand overnment” This is the more likely to be true, because he applied to the best purposes what he procured by bad means

XVII His liberality, however, to all ranks of people, was excessive He made up to several senators the estate required (457) by law to qualify the likewise such men of consular rank as were poor, with a yearly allowance of five hundred thousand sesterces 759; and rebuilt, in a better manner than before, several cities in different parts of the eed by earthquakes or fires

XVIII He was a great encourager of learning and the liberal arts He first granted to the Latin and Greek professors of rhetoric the yearly stipend of a hundred thousand sesterces 760 each out of the exchequer He also bought the freedoratuity to the restorer of the Coan of Venus 762, and to another artist who repaired the Colossus 763 So to convey some immense columns into the Capitol at a small expense by a mechanical contrivance, he rewarded him very handsomely for his invention, but would not accept his service, saying, ”Suffer ae-scenery of (458) the theatre of Marcellus 765 was repaired, he restored the old edian, four hundred thousand sesterces, and to Terpinus and Diodorus, the harpers, two hundred thousand; to soave to any of the perforolden crowns He entertained coreat state and very sumptuously, in order to promote trade As in the Saturnalia he made presents to the men which they were to carry aith them, so did he to the wo which, he could not wipe off the disrepute of his foriness The Alexandrians called hiiven to one of their kings as sordidly avaricious Nay, at his funeral, Favo, the principal , as actors do, both his estures, asked aloud of the procurators, ”howanswered ”ten ive hiht throw his body into the Tiber, if they would”

XX He was broad-set, strong-liave the idea of ahimself In consequence, one of the city wits, upon the e himself,” facetiously answered, ”I will, when you have done relieving your bowels” 767 He enjoyed a good state of health, though he used no other means to preserve it, than repeated friction, as much (459) as he could bear, on his neck and other parts of his body, in the tennis-court attached to the baths, besides fasting one day in every month

XXI His method of life was commonly this After he became emperor, he used to rise very early, often before daybreak Having read over his letters, and the briefs of all the departovernment offices; he ad him their compliments, he would put on his own shoes, and dress himself with his own hands Then, after the dispatch of such business as was brought before hi on his couch with one of his mistresses, of who out of his private apartments, he passed to the bath, and then entered the supper-rooent than at that time: and therefore his attendants always seized that opportunity, when they had any favour to ask

XXII At supper, and, indeed, at other times, he was extremely free and jocose For he had humour, but of a low kind, and he would soirls about to be s related of hist which are the following Being once reminded by Mestrius Florus, that plaustra was a more proper expression than plostra, he the next day saluted hi to be desperately enamoured of him, he was prevailed upon to adratified her desires, he gave her 770 four hundred (460) thousand sesterces When his steward desired to knoould have the su seduced”

XXIII He used Greek verses very wittily; speaking of a tall man, who had enormous parts: Makxi bibas, kradon dolichoskion enchos; Still shaking, as he strode, his vast long spear

And of Cerylus, a freedun to pass himself off as free-born, to elude the exchequer at his decease, and assumed the name of Laches, he said: --O Lachaes, Lachaes, Epan apothanaes, authis ex archaes esae Kaerylos

Ah, Laches, Laches! when thou art no more, Thou'lt Cerylus be called, just as before

He chiefly affected wit upon his own sha money, in order to wipe off the odium by some joke, and turn it into ridicule One of hisof him a stewardshi+p for so his brother, he deferred granting him his petition, and in thesqueezed out of hiive to his friend at court, he appointed hi his application, ”You must,” said he, ”find another brother; for the one you adopted is in trutha journey, that his hted to shoe hisa person they ed in a law-suit, to speak to hi hisa share of the profit When his son titus bla a tax upon urine, he applied to his nose a piece of the money he received in the first instal no, ”And yet,” said he, ”it is derived fro coe statue, which would cost a vast sum, was ordered to be erected for him at the public expense, he told the out the hollow of his hand, and saying, ”there was a base ready for the statue” Not even when he was under the immediate apprehension and peril of death, could he forbear jesting For when, aies, thestar appeared in the heavens; one of the prodigies, he said, concerned Julia Calvina, as of the fa of the Parthians, ore his hair long And when his distemper first seized him, ”I suppose,” said he, ”I shall soon be a God” 772 XXIV In his ninth consulshi+p, being seized, while in Ca to the city, he soon afterwards went thence to Cutiliae 773, and his estates in the country about Reate, where he used constantly to spend the suh his disorder much increased, and he injured his bowels by too free use of the cold waters, he nevertheless attended to the dispatch of business, and even gave audience to a taken ill of a diarrhoea, to such a degree that he was ready to faint, he cried out, ”An e to rise, he died in the hands of those ere helping hihth of the calends of July [24th June] 774, being sixty-nine years, one reed that he had such confidence in the calculations on his own nativity and that of his sons, that, after several conspiracies against him, he told the senate, that either his sons would succeed him, or nobody It is said likewise, that he once saw in a dream a balance in the middle of the porch of the Palatine house exactly poised; in one (462) scale of which stood Claudius and Nero, in the other, himself and his sons The event corresponded to the syns of the two parties were precisely of the sauinity nor adoption, as for now become the road to the imperial throne, no person could claim a better title to that elevation than titus Flavius Vespasian He had not only served with great reputation in the wars both in Britain and Judaea, but seemed as yet untainted with any vice which could pervert his conduct in the civil administration of the empire It appears, however, that he was prompted more by the persuasion of friends, than by his own anity To render this enterprise more successful, recourse was had to a new and peculiar artifice, which, while well accommodated to the superstitious credulity of the Romans, impressed them with an idea, that Vespasian's destiny to the throne was confirmed by supernatural indications But, after his elevation, we hear no more of his miraculous achievements

The prosecution of the war in Britain, which had been suspended for some years, was resumed by Vespasian; and he sent thither Petilius Cerealis, who by his bravery extended the limits of the Roeneral, the invaders continued to ress in the reduction of the island: but the commander who finally established the doricola, not less distinguished for his ard to the civil adan his operations with the conquest of North Wales, whence passing over into the island of Anglesey, which had revolted since the tiain reduced it to subjection Then proceeding northwards with his victorious arement, took possession of all the territories in the southern parts of the island, and driving before him all who refused to submit to the Roman arms, penetrated even into the forests and acus, their leader, in a decisive battle; and fixing a line of garrisons between the friths of Clyde and Forth, he secured the Roman province from the incursions of the people who occupied the parts of the island (463) beyond that boundary Wherever he established the Rost the inhabitants, and e their affection, as well as of securing their obedience

The war in Judaea, which had been con, was continued in that of Vespasian; but he left the siege of Jerusalereat valour and military talents in the prosecution of the enterprise After an obstinate defence by the Jews, that city, so s, was finally delorious temple itself, the admiration of the world, reduced to ashes; contrary, however, to the will of titus, who exerted his utuish the flames

The manners of the Romans had now attained to an enorh the unbounded licentiousness of the tines; and, to the honour of Vespasian, he discovered great zeal in his endeavours to effect a national reforable in the ement of public affairs, and rose in the winter before day-break, to give audience to his officers of state But if we give credit to the whimsical ih opinion, either of his talents as a financier, or of the resources of the Roement of science, he displayed a liberality, of which there occurs no exaustus Pliny the elder was now in the height of reputation, as well as in great favour with Vespasian; and it was probably owing not a little to the advice of that minister, that the emperor showed himself so much the patron of literary men A writer n, was Licinius Mucianus, a Roraphy of the eastern countries Juvenal, who had begun his Satires several years before, continued to inveigh against the flagrant vices of the tis we have to notice in the present reign, is a poet of a different class

C VALERIUS FLACCUS wrote a poeonauts; a subject which, next to the wars of Thebes and Troy, was in ancient tiraphers have transn of Tiberius, before all the writers who flourished in the Augustan age were extinct He enjoyed the rays of the setting sun which had illulorious period, and he discovers the efforts of an ambition to recall its meridian splendour As the poem was left (464) incoe ieneral consistency of the fable: but thebeen executed, without any room for the censure of candid criticism, we may presume that the sequel would have been finished with an equal claience, if not to applause The traditional anecdotes relative to the Argonautic expedition are introduced with propriety, and e scenes of tenderness, this author is happily pathetic, and in the heat of coination with beautiful iive additional force to the subject We find in Flaccus a few expressions not countenanced by the authority of the eneral, is pure; but his words are perhaps not always the best that h not unifornity, which renders it superior to the production ascribed to Orpheus, or to that of Apollonius, on the same subject

titUS FLAVIUS VESPASIanus AUGUSTUS

(465)

I titus, who had the saht of ood fortune he possessed tend to conciliate the favour of all This was, indeed, extremely difficult, after he becan of his father, he lay under public odium and censure He was born upon the third of the calends of January, [30th Dec] in the year remarkable for the death of Caius [776], near the Septizonium 777, in a mean house, and a very small and dark room, which still exists, and is shown to the curious

II He was educated in the palace with Britannicus, and instructed in the sa this ti introduced by Narcissus, the freedman of Claudius, to examine the features of Britannicus 778, positively affirmed that he would never become emperor, but that titus, who stood by, would They were so faht to have tasted of the fatal potion which put an end to Britannicus's life, and to have contracted fro time In remembrance of all these circuolden statue of him in the Palatium, and dedicated to hi it in the Circensian procession, in which it is still carried to this day

(466) III While yet a boy, he was remarkable for his noble endowments both of body and mind; and as he advanced in years, they beca an equal h not tall, and somewhat corpulent Gifted with an excellent memory, and a capacity for all the arts of peace and war; he was a perfect ; very ready in the Latin and Greek tongues, both in verse and prose; and such was the facility he possessed in both, that he would harangue and versify exte and play upon the harp sweetly and scientifically I have likewise been infor short-hand, would in e with his secretaries in the i he saw, and often say, ”that he was adery”