|
He prevailed upon the senate to decree divine honours to his grandmother Livia,
with a chariot in the Circensian procession drawn by elephants, as had been appointed for
Augustus, and public offerings to the shades of his parents. Besides which, he instituted
Circensian games for his father, to be celebrated every year, upon his birth day, and, for
his mother, a chariot to be drawn through the circus; with the title of Augusta, which had
been refused by his grandmother. To the memory of his brother, to which, upon all
occasions, he showed a great regard, he gave a Greek comedy, to be exhibited in the public
diversions at Naples, and awarded the crown for it, according to the sentence of the
judges in that solemnity. Nor did he omit to make honourable and grateful mention of Mark
Antony; declaring by a proclamation, “That he the more earnestly insisted upon the
observation of his father Drusus's birth-day, because it was like wise that of his
grandfather Antony." He completed the marble arch near Pompey's theatre, which had
formerly been decreed by the senate in honour of Tiberius, but which had been neglected.
And though he canceled all the acts of Gaius, yet he forbade the day of his
assassination, notwithstanding it was that of his own accession to the empire, to be
reckoned amongst the festivals.
12. But with regard to his own aggrandizement, he was sparing and modest,
declining the name of emperor, and refusing all excessive honours. He celebrated the
marriage of his daughter and the birth-day of a grandson with great privacy, at home. He
recalled none of those who had been banished, without a decree of the senate: and
requested of them permission for the prefect and the military tribunes of the praetorian
guards to attend him in the senate-house; and also that they would be pleased to
bestow upon his procurators judicial authority in the provinces. He asked of the
consuls likewise the privilege of holding fairs upon his private estate. He
frequently assisted the magistrates in the trial of causes, as one of their
assessors. And when they gave public spectacles, he would rise up with the rest of
the spectators, and salute them both by words and gestures. When the tribunes of the
people came to him while he was on the tribunal, he excused himself, because, on account
of the crowd, he could not hear them unless they stood. In a short time, by this conduct,
he wrought himself so much into the favour and affection of the public, that when, upon
his going to Ostia, a report was spread in the city that he had been waylaid and slain,
the people never ceased cursing the soldiers for traitors, and the senate as parricides,
until one or two persons, and presently after several others, were brought by the
magistrates upon the rostra, who assured them that he was alive, and not far from the
city, on his way home.
13. Conspiracies, however, were formed against him, not only by individuals
separately, but by a faction; and at last his government was disturbed with a civil war. A
low fellow was found with a poniard about him, near his chamber, at midnight. Two men of
the equestrian order were discovered waiting for him in the streets, armed with a pike and
a huntsman's dagger; one of them intending to attack him as he came out of the theatre,
and the other as he was sacrificing in the temple of Mars. Gallus Asinius and Statilius
Corvinus, grandsons of the two orators, Pollio and Messala, formed a conspiracy against
him, in which they engaged many of his freedmen and slaves. Furius Camillus Scribonianus,
his legate in Dalmatia, broke into rebellion, but was reduced in the space of five days;
the legions which he had seduced from their oath of fidelity relinquishing their purpose,
upon an alarm occasioned by ill omens. For when orders were given them to march, to meet
their new emperor, the eagles could not be decorated, nor the standards pulled out of the
ground, whether it was by accident, or a divine interposition.
14. Besides his former consulship, he held the office afterwards four times; the
first two successively, but the following, after an interval of four years each; the
last for six months, the others for two; and the third, upon his being chosen in the room
of a consul who died; which had never been done by any of the emperors before him. Whether
he was consul or out of office, he constantly attended the courts for the administration
of justice, even upon such days as were solemnly observed as days of rejoicing in his
family, or by his friends; and sometimes upon the public festivals of ancient institution.
Nor did he always adhere strictly to the letter of the laws, but overruled the
rigour or lenity of many of their enactments, according to his sentiments of justice and
equity. For where persons lost their suits by insisting upon more than appeared to be
their due, before the judges of private causes, he granted them the indulgence of a second
trial. And with regard to such as were convicted of any great delinquency, he even
exceeded the punishment appointed by law, and condemned them to be exposed to wild beasts.
15. But in hearing and determining causes, he exhibited a strange inconsistency
of temper, being at one time circumspect and sagacious, at another inconsiderate and rash,
and sometimes frivolous and like one out of his mind. In correcting the roll of judges, he
struck off the name of one who, concealing the privilege his children gave him to be
excused from serving, had answered to his name, as too eager for the office. Another who
was summoned before him in a cause of his own, but alleged that the affair did not
properly come under the emperor's cognizance, but that of the ordinary judges, he ordered
to plead the cause himself immediately before him, and show in a case of his own, how
equitable a judge he would prove in that of other persons. A woman refusing to acknowledge
her own son, and there being no clear proof on either side, he obliged her to confess the
truth, by ordering her to marry the young man. He was much inclined to determine
causes in favour of the parties who appeared, against those who did not, without inquiring
whether their absence was occasioned by their own fault or by real necessity. On
proclamation of a man's being convicted of forgery, and that he ought to have his hand cut
off, he insisted that an executioner should be immediately sent for, with a Spanish sword
and a block. A person being prosecuted for falsely assuming the citizenship, and a
frivolous dispute arising between the advocates in the cause, whether he ought to make his
appearance in the Roman or Grecian dress, to show his impartiality, he commanded him to
change his clothes several times according to the character he assumed in the accusation
or defense. An anecdote is related of him, and believed to be true, that, in a particular
cause he delivered his sentence in writing thus: " I am in favour of those who have
spoken the truth." By this he so much forfeited the good opinion of the world, that
he was everywhere and openly despised. A person making an excuse for the non-appearance of
a witness whom he had sent for from the provinces, declared it was impossible for him to
appear, concealing the reason for some time: at last, after several interrogatories were
put to him on the subject, he answered, "The man is dead;" to which Claudius
replied, " I think that is a sufficient excuse." Another thanking him for
suffering a person who was prosecuted to make his defense by counsel, added, " And
yet it is no more than what is usual." I have likewise heard some old men say, that
the advocates used to abuse his patience so grossly, that they would not only call him
back, as he was quitting the tribunal, but would seize him by the hem of his toga, and
sometimes catch him by the heels, to make him stay. That such behaviour, however strange,
is not incredible, will appear from this anecdote. Some obscure Greek, who was a
litigant, had an altercation with him, in which he called out, " You are an old
fool." It is certain that a Roman knight, who was prosecuted by unscrupulous
enemies on a false charge of obscenity with women, observing that common strumpets were
summoned against him and allowed to give evidence, upbraided Claudius in very harsh and
severe terms with his folly and cruelty, and threw his style, and some books which he had
in his hands, in his face, with such violence as to wound him severely in the cheek.
16. He likewise assumed the censorship, which had been discontinued since the
time that Paulus and Plancus had jointly held it. But this also he administered very
unequally, and with a strange variety of humour and conduct. In his review of the knights,
he passed over, without any mark of disgrace, a profligate young man, only because his
father spoke of him in the highest terms; “for," said he, " his
father is his proper censor.” Another, who was infamous for debauching youths
and for adultery, he only admonished "to indulge his youthful inclinations more
sparingly, or at least more cautiously ;'' adding, "why must I know what mistress you
keep?" When, at the request of his friends, he had taken off a mark of infamy which
he had set upon one knight's name he said, “Let the blot, however, remain." He
not only struck out of the list of judges, but likewise deprived of Roman citizenship, an
illustrious man of the highest provincial rank in Greece, because he was ignorant of
the Latin language. Nor in this review did he suffer any one to give an account of his
conduct by an advocate, but obliged each man to speak for himself in the best way he
could. He disgraced many, and some that little expected it, and for a reason entirely new,
namely, for going out of Italy without his license; and one likewise, for having in his
province, been the familiar companion of a king; observing, that, in former times,
Rabirius Postumus had been prosecuted for treason, although he only went after Ptolemy to
Alexandria for the purpose of securing payment of a debt. Having tried to brand with
disgrace several others, he, to his own greater shame, found them generally innocent,
through the negligence of the persons employed to inquire into their characters; those
whom he charged with living in celibacy, with want of children, or estate, proving
themselves to be husbands, parents, and in affluent circumstances. One of the
knights who was charged with stabbing himself, laid his bosom bare, to show that there was
not the least mark of violence upon his body. The following incidents were remarkable in
his censorship. He ordered a chariot, plated with silver, and of very sumptuous
workmanship, which was exposed for sale in the Sigillaria, to be purchased, and broken in
pieces before his eyes. He published twenty proclamations in one day, in one of which he
advised the people, "Since the vintage was very plentiful, to have their casks well
secured at the bung with pitch :" and in another, he told them, “that nothing
would sooner cure the bite of a viper, than the sap of the yew-tree."
17. He undertook only one expedition, and that was of short duration. The
triumphal ornaments decreed him by the senate, he considered as beneath the imperial
dignity, and was therefore resolved to have the honour of a real triumph. For this
purpose, he selected Britain, which had never been attempted by any one since Julius
Caesar, and was then chafing with rage, because the Romans would not give up some
deserters. Accordingly, he set sail from Ostia, but was twice very near being wrecked by
the furious north-wester, upon the coast of Liguria, and near the islands called
Stoechades. Having marched by land from Marseilles to Boulogne, he thence passed over to
Britain, and part of the island submitting to him, within a few days after his arrival,
without battle or bloodshed, he returned to Rome in less than six months from the time of
his departure, and triumphed in the most solemn manner; to witness which, he not only gave
leave to governors of provinces to come to Rome, but even to some of the exiles.
Among the spoils taken from the enemy, he fixed upon the pediment of his house on the
Palatine, a naval crown, in token of his having passed, and, as it were, conquered the
Ocean, and had it suspended near the civic crown which was there before. Messalina,
his wife, followed his chariot in a covered litter. Those who had attained the honour of
triumphal ornaments in the same war, rode behind; the rest followed on foot, wearing the
robe with the broad stripes. Crassus Frugi was mounted upon a horse richly caparisoned, in
a robe embroidered with palm leaves, because this was the second time of his obtaining
that honour.
18. He paid particular attention to the care of the city, and to have it well supplied
with provisions. A dreadful fire happening in the Aemiliana, which lasted some time,
he passed two nights in the Diribitorium, and the soldiers and gladiators not being in
sufficient numbers to extinguish it, he caused the magistrates to summon the people out of
all the streets in the city, to their assistance. Placing bags of money before him, he
encouraged them to do their utmost, declaring, that he would reward every one on the spot,
according to their exertions. During a scarcity of provisions, occasioned by bad crops for
several successive years, he was stopped in the middle of the forum by the mob, who so
abused him, at the same time pelting him with fragments of bread that he had some
difficulty in escaping into the palace by a back door. He therefore used all possible
means to bring provisions to the city, even in winter. He proposed to the merchants a sure
profit, by indemnifying them against any loss that might befall them by storms at sea; and
granted great privileges to those who built ships for that traffic.
19. To a citizen of Rome he gave an exemptions from the penalty of
the Papia-Poppaean law to one who had only the Latin rights of citizenship, and to women
the rights which by law belonged to those who had four children: which enactments are in
force to this day.
20. He completed some important public works which, though, not
numerous, were very useful. The principal were an aqueduct, which had been begun by
Gaius; an outlet for the discharge of the waters of the Fucine lake, and the harbour of
Ostia; although he knew that Augustus had refused to comply with the repeated application
of the Marsians for one of these, and that the other had been several times intended by
Julius Caesar, but as often abandoned on account of the difficulty of its execution. He
brought to the city the cool and plentiful springs of the Claudian water, one of which is
called Caeruleus, and the other Curtius and Albudignus, as likewise the river of the New
Anio, in a stone canal; and distributed them into many magnificent reservoirs. The canal
from the Fucine lake was undertaken as much for the sake of profit, as for the honour of
the enterprise; for there were parties who offered to drain it at their own expense, on
condition of their having a grant of the land laid dry. With great difficulty he completed
a canal three miles in length, partly by cutting through, and partly by tunneling, a
mountain; thirty thousand men being constantly employed in the work for eleven years.
He formed the harbour at Ostia, by carrying out circular piers on the right and on
the left, with a mole protecting, in deep water, the entrance of the port. To secure
the foundation of this mole, he sunk the vessel in which the great obelisk had been
brought from Egypt; and built upon piles a very lofty tower, in imitation of the
Pharos at Alexandria, on which lights were burnt to direct mariners in the night.
|
