Translated by J. C. Rolfe.
[Arkenberg Introduction]. Rolfe's annotations appear in
brackets with no attribution; mine are noted. I have also replaced
modern place names, as used by Rolfe, with those in use by the Romans
and Hellenes; thus, for example, Rolfe's "Italy" is now "Italia".
I. The empire, which
for a long time had been unsettled and, as it were, drifting, through
the usurpation and violent death of three emperors, was at last taken in
hand and given stability by the Flavian family. This house was, it is
true, obscure and without family portraits, yet it was one of which our
country had no reason whatever to be ashamed, even though it is the
general opinion that the penalty which Domitian paid for his avarice and
cruelty was fully merited. Titus Flavius Petro, a citizen of Reate and
during the civil war a centurion or a volunteer veteran on Pompeius
Magnus' side, fled from the field of Pharsalos and went home, where
after at last obtaining pardon and an honorable discharge, he carried on
the business of a collector of moneys. His son, surnamed Sabinus
(although some say that he was a centurion of the first grade, and
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 twentieth [A tax of five per cent on the value of every slave who
was set free, paid by the slave himself or by his master] in Asia.
And there existed for some time statues erected in his honor by the
cities of Asia, inscribed "To an honest tax-gatherer." Later, he carried
on a money-lending business in Helvetia 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,
even to that of emperor. Polla, who was born of an honorable family at
Nursia, had for father Vespasius Pollio, thrice tribune of the soldiers
and prefect of the camp [A position held by tried and skillful
officers, especially centurions of the first grade (primipili)]
while her brother became a senator with the rank of praetor. There is,
moreover, 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, affording strong proof of the renown and
antiquity of the house. I ought to add that some have bandied about the
report, that Petro's father came from the region beyond the Po and was a
contractor for the day-laborers 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 whatever of this, in spite of rather careful investigation.
II. 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, in
the consulate of Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus and Gaius Poppaeus Sabinus,
five years before the death of Augustus [November 14, 9 C.E.].
He was brought up under the care of his paternal grandmother Tertulla on
her estates at Cosa. Therefore, even after he became emperor, he used
constantly to visit the home of his infancy, where the manor house was
kept in its original condition, since he did not wish to miss anything
which he was wont to see there; 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 garb of manhood, he 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 finally induce him to sue for it.
She at length drove him to it, but rather by sarcasm than
by entreaties or parental authority, since she constantly taunted him
with being his brother's footman [The "anteambulo" was the client
who walked before his patron on the street and compelled people to make
way for him]. He served in Thrakia as tribune of the soldiers; as
quaestor was assigned by lot to the province of Crete and Kyrene; became
a candidate for the aedileship and then for the praetorship, attaining
the former only after one defeat and then barely landing in the sixth
place [38 C.E.], but the latter on his first canvass and among
the foremost [39 C.E.]. In his praetorship, to lose no
opportunity of winning the favor of Gaius [Arkenberg: i.e., Caligula],
who was at odds with the Senate [See Calig. xlviii-xlix], he
asked for special games because of the emperor's victory in Germania and
recommended, as an additional punishment of the conspirators [Lepidus
and Gaetulicus; see Claud. ix.1] that they be cast out unburied. He
also thanked the emperor before that illustrious body [The Senate]
because he had deigned to honor him with an invitation to dinner.
III. Meanwhile, he took
to wife Flavia Domitilla, formerly the mistress of Statilius Capella, a
Roman eques of Sabrata in Africa, a woman originally only of Latin rank,
but afterwards declared a freeborn citizen of Rome in a suit before
arbiters, brought by her father Flavius Liberalis, a native of Ferentum
and merely a quaestor's clerk. By her he had three children, Titus,
Domitian, and Domitilla. He 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, freedwoman and amanuensis of Antonia,
and formerly his mistress; and even after he became emperor he treated
her almost as a lawful wife.
IV. In the reign of
Claudius he was sent in command of a legion to Germania, through the
influence of Narcissus; from there he was transferred to Britannia [See
Claud. xvii], where he fought thirty battles with the enemy. He
reduced to subjection two powerful nations, more than twenty towns, and
the island of Vectis [The Isle of Wight], near Britannia,
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 after two priesthoods, besides the
consulship, which he held for the last two months of the year [51
C.E.]. The rest of the time up to his proconsulate he spent in rest
and retirement, through fear of Agrippina, who still had a strong
influence over her son and hated any friend of Narcissus, even after the
latter's death. The chance of the lot then gave him Africa [63 C.E.],
which he governed with great justice and high honor, save that in a riot
at Hadrumetum he was pelted with turnips. Certain it is that he came
back 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; whence he was commonly known as "the
Muleteer." He is also said to have been found guilty of squeezing two
hundred thousand 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. On the tour through Graecia, among the
companions of Nero [See Nero, xxii], he bitterly offended the
emperor by either going out often while Nero was singing, or falling
asleep, if he remained. Being in consequence banished not only from
intimacy with the emperor but even from his public receptions, 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 and established belief, that it
was fated at that time for men coming from Judaea to rule the world.
This prediction, referring to the emperor of Rome, as afterwards
appeared from the event, the people of Judaea took to themselves;
accordingly they revolted and after killing their governor, they routed
the consular ruler of Syria as well, when he came to the rescue, and
took one of his eagles. Since to put down this rebellion required a
considerable army with a leader of no little enterprise, yet one to whom
so great power could be entrusted without risk, Vespasian was chosen for
the task, both as a man of tried energy and as one in no wise to be
feared because of the obscurity of his family and name. Therefore there
were added to the forces in Judaea two legions with eight divisions of
cavalry and ten cohorts. He took his elder son as one of his lieutenants
and as soon as he reached his province he attracted the attention of the
neighboring provinces also; for he at once reformed the discipline of
the army and 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.
V. While Otho and
Vitellius were fighting for the throne after the death of Nero and Galba,
he began to cherish the hope of imperial dignity, which he had long
since conceived 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, 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 too the girl that was
born died within the year; the second was very strong and long and
portended great success, but the third was the image of a tree.
Therefore, their father Sabinus, so they say, being further encouraged
by an inspection of victims, announced to his mother that a grandson had
been born to her who would be a Caesar. But she only laughed, marveling
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 fringed 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 he was taking breakfast, a stray dog brought in a human hand from
the cross-roads and dropped it under the table [The hand was typical
of power, and "manus" is often used in the sense of "potestas"].
Again, when he was dining, an ox that was ploughing shook off its yoke,
burst into the dining-room, and after scattering the servants, fell at
the very feet of Vespasian as he reclined at table, and bowed its neck
as if suddenly tired out. A cypress tree, also, on his grandfather's
farm was torn up by the roots, without the agency of any violent storm,
and thrown down, and on the following day rose again greener and
stronger than before. He dreamed in Greece that the beginning of good
fortune for himself and his family would come as soon as Nero had a
tooth extracted; and on the next day it came to pass that a physician
walked into the hall [Of Nero's lodging], and showed him a
tooth which he had just then taken out. When he 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; and one of his highborn prisoners, Josephus by name, as he
was being put in chains, declared most confidently that he would soon be
released by the same man, who would then, however, be 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, too, 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; and on the field of Betriacum, 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.
VI. Yet he 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 Army of Hispania
which had appointed Galba, or the Praetorian Guard which had elected
Otho, or the Army of Germania 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 forthwith
inscribed his name on all their banners. At the time, however, the
movement was checked and the soldiers recalled to their allegiance for a
season. But 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, 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 [July
11; according to Tac. Hist. 2.79, it was the fifth day before the Nones,
July 3]. The enterprise was greatly forwarded by the circulation of
a copy of a letter of 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;
further, by a rumor which spread abroad that Vitellius had planned,
after his victory, to change the winter quarters of the legions and to
transfer those in Germania to the Orient, to a safer and milder service;
and finally, among the governors of provinces, by the support of
Licinius Mucianus [Governor of the neighboring province of Syria],
and among the kings, by that of Vologaesus, the Parthian. The former,
laying aside the hostility with which up to that time jealousy had
obviously inspired him, promised the Syrian army, and the latter forty
thousand bowmen.
VII. Therefore
beginning a civil war and sending ahead generals with troops to Italia,
he crossed meanwhile to Alexandria, to take possession of the key to
Egypt [The strategic importance of Egypt is shown by Tac. Ann. 2.59;
cf. Jul. xxxv.1 (at the end); Aug. xviii.2]. There 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 propitiary
offerings to the god he at length turned about, it seemed to him that
his freedman Basilides [The freedman's name, connected with the
Greek "Basileus", or "King", was an additional omen] offered him
sacred boughs, garlands and loaves, as is the custom there; and yet he
knew well that no one had let him in, and that for some time he had been
hardly able to walk by reason of rheumatism, and was besides far away.
And immediately letters came with the news that Vitellius had been
routed at Cremona and the emperor 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 he had hardly any faith that this could possibly succeed, and
therefore shrank even from making the attempt, he was at last prevailed
upon by his friends and tried both things in public before a large
crowd; and with success. 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.
VIII. Returning to Rome
under such auspices and attended by so great renown, after celebrating a
triumph over the Jews, he added eight consulships to his former one [70-72,
74-77, 78 C.E.]; 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, he 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 even
tardy 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 he revoked the appointment. When
the marines who march on foot by turns from Ostia and Puteoli to Rome [They
were stationed at Ostia and Puteoli as a fire brigade (see Claud.
xxv.2), and the various divisions were on duty now in one town, now in
the other, and again in Rome], asked that an allowance be made them
under the head of 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. He made provinces of Achaia, Lykia,
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 eques. As the city was unsightly from fires and fallen buildings,
he 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, was the first to lend a hand in clearing away the
debris, and carried some of it off on his own head. He undertook to
restore the three thousand bronze tablets which were destroyed with the
temple, making a thorough search for copies: priceless and most ancient
records of the empire, containing the decrees of the Senate and the acts
of the People almost from the foundation of the city, regarding
alliances, treaties, and special privileges granted to individuals.
IX. He 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 [The Colosseum,
known as the Flavian amphitheater until the Middle Ages] in the
heart of the city, a plan which he learned that Augustus had cherished.
He reformed the two great orders, reduced by a series of murders and
sullied by long standing neglect, and added to their numbers, holding a
review of the Senate and the equites, expelling those who least deserved
the honor 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 eques,
he rendered this decision: "Unseemly language should not be used towards
senators, but to return their insults in kind is proper and lawful" [That
is, a citizen could return the abuse of another citizen, regardless of
their respective ranks].
X. Lawsuit upon lawsuit
had accumulated in all the courts to an excessive degree, since those of
longstanding were left unsettled though the interruption of court
business [During the civil wars] and new ones had arisen
through the disorder of the times. He 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 possible number, since it was clear that the lifetime of the
litigants would not suffice for the regular proceedings
XI. Licentiousness and
extravagance had flourished without restraint; hence he induced the
Senate to vote that any woman who formed a connection with the slave of
another person should herself be treated as a bond-woman; also that
those who lend money to minors [In the legal sense; "filii
familiarum" were sons who were still under the control of their fathers,
regardless of their age; cf., Tib. xv.2] should never have a legal
right to enforce payment, that is to say, not even after the death of
the fathers.
XII. In other matters
he was unassuming and lenient from the very beginning of his reign until
its end, never trying to conceal his former lowly condition, but often
even parading 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, exhausted by the slow and tiresome procession, 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 those who came to pay their morning calls, he
gave that up before the civil war was over.
XIII. He 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, he never had the heart to criticize him except
privately and then only to the extent of adding to a complaint made to a
common friend, the significant words: "I at least am a man." When
Salvius Liberalis ventured to say, while defending a rich client, "What
is it to Caesar if Hipparchus has 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, he merely called him
"cur."
XIV. He 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 put him out and told him
to "go to Morbovia" [A made-up name from "morbus", or "illness"; the
expression is equivalent to "go to the devil."]; but 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 even made him consul, guaranteeing that he would one day
be mindful of the favor.
XV. It cannot readily
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 moreover in his praetorship left the emperor unhonored and
unmentioned in all his edicts, he did not show anger until by the
extravagance of his railing Helvidius had all but degraded him. But even
in his case, though he 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.
XVI. The only thing for
which he can fairly be censured was his love of money. For not content
with reviving the imposts 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; for
he would buy up certain commodities merely in order to distribute them
at a profit. He made no bones of selling offices to candidates and
acquittals to men under prosecution, whether innocent or guilty. He is
even believed to have had the habit of designedly advancing the most
rapacious of his procurators to higher posts, that they might he the
richer when he later condemned them; in fact, it was common talk that he
used these men as sponges, because he, so to speak, soaked them when
they were dry and squeezed them when they were wet. Some say that he was
naturally covetous and was taunted with it by an old herdsman of his,
who on being forced to pay for the freedom for which he earnestly begged
Vespasian when he became emperor cried: "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; to which he bore
witness at the very beginning of his reign by declaring that forty
thousand 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.
XVII. 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 five hundred thousand 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.
XVIII. He was the first
to establish a regular salary of a hundred thousand sesterces for Latin
and Greek teachers of rhetoric, paid from the privy purse. He also
presented eminent poets with princely largess and great rewards, and
artists, too, such as the restorer of the Venus of Cos [Doubtless
referring to the statue of Venus consecrated by Vespasian in his Temple
of Peace, the sculptor of which, according to Pliny, was unknown. The
Venus of Cos was the work of Praxiteles], and of the Colossus [The
colossal statue of Nero; see Nero, xxxi.1]. To a mechanical
engineer, who promised to transport some heavy columns to the capitol at
small expense, he gave no mean reward for his invention, but refused to
make use of it, saying: "You must let me feed my poor commons."
XIX. At the plays with
which he dedicated the new stage of the theater of Marcellus he revived
the old musical entertainments. To Apelles, the tragic actor, he gave
four hundred thousand sesterces; to Terpnus and Diodorus, the
lyre-players, two hundred thousand each; to several a hundred thousand;
while those who received least were paid forty thousands and numerous
golden crowns were awarded besides. He gave constant dinner-parties,
too, usually formally and sumptuously, to help the marketmen. He gave
gifts to women on the Kalends of March [The Matronalia, or Feast of
Married Women; see Hor. Odes, 3.8, 1], as he did to the men on the
Saturnalia. Yet even so he could not be rid of his former ill-repute for
covetousness. The Alexandrians persisted in calling him Kybiosactes [Meaning,
"dealer in square pieces of salt fish"], 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 the 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 into the
Tiber!"
XX. He 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
on him also, replied rather cleverly: "I will, when you have finished
relieving yourself." He 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 gymnasion, and to fast one day in every
month.
XXI. This was in
general his 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 had taken
several after the death of Caenis. After his nap he went to the bath and
the dining-room; and it is said that at no time was he more good-natured
or indulgent, so that the members of his household eagerly watched for
these opportunities of making requests.
XXII. Not only at
dinner but on all other occasions he was most affable, and he turned off
many matters with a jest; for he was very ready with sharp sayings,
albeit of a low and buffoonish kind, so that he did not even refrain
from obscene expressions. Yet many of his remarks are still remembered
which are full of fine wit, and among them the following. When an
ex-consul called Mestrius Florus called his attention to the fact that
the proper pronunciation was plaustra ["Plaustra" was the
original form of the word for "wagons," but there was also a plebeian
form "plostra"; see Hor. Serm. 1.6.42, and cf., Claudius, Clodius]
rather than plostra, he greeted him next day as Flaurus.
When he was importuned by a woman, who said that she was dying with love
for him, he took her to his bed and gave her four hundred thousand
sesterces for her favors. Being asked by his steward how he would have
the sum entered in his accounts, he replied: "To a passion for Vespasian."
XXIII. He 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" [Menander, Fr. 223.2]. 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 favorite 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
contriving a tax upon public toilets, he held a piece of money from the
first payment to his son's nose, asking whether its odor 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 then in apprehension of death and in extreme
danger; for when among other portents the Mausoleum [Of Augustus]
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's me. Methinks I'm turning into a god."
XXIV. In his ninth
consulship [79 C.E.] he had a slight illness in Campania, and
returning at once to the city, he left for Cutilae 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. Taken on a sudden
with such an attack of diarrhoea that he all but swooned, 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, on the
ninth day before the Kalends of July [June 23, 79 C.E.], at the
age of sixty-nine years, one month, and seven days.
XXV. 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.