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32. He gave entertainments as frequent as they were splendid, and generally
when there was such ample room, that very often six hundred guests sat down together. At a
feast he gave on the banks of the canal for draining the Fucine Lake, he narrowly escaped
being drowned, the water at its discharge rushing out with such violence, that it
overflowed the conduit. At supper he had always his own children, with those of several of
the nobility, who, according to an ancient custom, sat at the feet of the couches. One of
his guests having been suspected of purloining a golden cup, he invited him again the next
day, but served him with a porcelain jug. It is said, too, that he intended to publish an
edict, " allowing to all people the liberty of giving vent at table to any distention
occasioned by flatulence," upon hearing of a person whose modesty, when under
restraint, had nearly cost him his life.
33. He was always ready to eat and drink at any time or in any place. One day, as
he was hearing causes in the forum of Augustus, he smelt the dinner which was preparing
for the Salii in the temple of Mars adjoining, whereupon he quitted the tribunal, and went
to partake of the feast with the priests. He scarcely ever left the table until he had
thoroughly crammed himself and drank to intoxication; and then he would immediately fall
asleep, lying upon his back with his mouth open. While in this condition, a feather was
put down his throat, to make him throw up the contents of his stomach. Upon composing
himself to rest, his sleep was short, and he usually awoke before midnight; but he would
sometimes sleep in the daytime, and that, even, when he was upon the tribunal; so that the
advocates often found it difficult to wake him, though they raised their voices for that
purpose. He set no bounds to his libidinous intercourse with women, but never betrayed any
unnatural desires for the other sex. He was fond of gaming, and published a book upon the
subject. He even used to play as he rode in his chariot, having the tables so fitted, that
the game was not disturbed by the motion of the carriage.
34. His cruel and sanguinary disposition was exhibited upon great as well as
trifling occasions When any person was to be put to the torture, or criminal punished for
parricide, he was impatient for the execution, and would have it performed in his own
presence. When he was at Tibur, being desirous of seeing an example of the old way of
putting malefactors to death, some were immediately bound to a stake for the purpose; but
there being no executioner to be had at the place, he sent for one from Rome, and waited
for his coming until night. In any exhibition of gladiators, presented either by himself
or others, if any of the combatants chanced to fall, he ordered them to be butchered,
especially the Retiarii, that he might see their faces in the agonies of death. Two
gladiators happening to kill each other, he immediately ordered some little knives to be
made of their swords for his own use. He took great pleasure in seeing men engage with
wild beasts, and the combatants who appeared on the stage at noon. He would therefore come
to the theatre by break of day, and at noon, dismissing the people to dinner, continued
sitting himself; and besides those who were devoted to that sanguinary fate, he would
match others with the beasts, upon slight or sudden occasions; as, for instance, the
carpenters and their assistants, and people of that sort, if a machine, or any piece of
work in which they had been employed about the theatre did not answer the purpose for
which it had been intended. To this desperate kind of encounter he forced one of his
nomenclators, even encumbered as he was by wearing the toga.
35. But the characteristics most predominant in him were fear and distrust. In
the beginning of his reign, though he much affected a modest and humble appearance, as has
been already observed, yet he durst not venture himself at an entertainment without being
attended by a guard of spearmen, and made soldiers wait upon him at table instead of
servants. He never visited a sick person, until the chamber had been first searched, and
the bed and bedding thoroughly examined. At other times, all persons who came to pay their
court to him were strictly searched by officers appointed for that purpose; nor was it
until after a long time, and with much difficulty, that he was prevailed upon to excuse
women, boys, and girls from such rude handling, or suffer their attendants or
writing-masters to retain their cases for pens and styles. When Camillus formed his plot
against him, not doubting but his timidity might be worked upon without a war, he wrote to
him a scurrilous, petulant, and threatening letter, desiring him to resign the government,
and betake himself to a life of privacy. Upon receiving this requisition, he had
some thoughts of complying with it, and summoned together the principal men of the city,
to consult with them on the subject.
36. Having heard some loose reports of conspiracies formed against him, he was so
much alarmed that he thought of immediately abdicating the government. And when, as I have
before related, a man armed with a dagger was discovered near him while he was
sacrificing, he instantly ordered the heralds to convoke the senate, and with tears and
dismal exclamations, lamented that such was his condition, that he was safe nowhere; and
for a long time afterwards he abstained from appearing in public. He smothered his
ardent love for Messalina, not so much on account of her infamous conduct, as from
apprehension of danger; believing that she aspired to share with Silius, her partner in
adultery, the imperial dignity. Upon this occasion he ran in a great fright, and a very
shameful manner, to the camp, asking all the way he went, ''if the empire were indeed
safely his."
37. No suspicion was too trifling, no person on whom it rested too contemptible,
to throw him into a panic, and induce him to take precautions for his safety, and meditate
revenge. A man engaged in a litigation before his tribunal, having saluted him, drew him
aside, and told him he had dreamt that he saw him murdered; and shortly afterwards, when
his adversary came to deliver his plea to the emperor, the plaintiff, pretending to have
discovered the murderer, pointed to him as the man he had seen in his dream; whereupon, as
if he had been taken in the act, he was hurried away to execution. We are informed, that
Appius Silanus was got rid of in the same manner, by a contrivance betwixt Messalina and
Narcissus, in which they had their several parts assigned them. Narcissus therefore burst
into his lord's chamber before daylight, apparently in great fright, and told him that he
had dreamt that Appius Silanus had murdered him. The empress, upon this, affecting great
surprise, declared she had the like dream for several nights successively. Presently
afterwards, word was brought, as it had been agreed on, that Appius was come, he having,
indeed, received orders the preceding day to be there at that time; and, as if the truth
of the dream was sufficiently confirmed by his appearance at that juncture, he was
immediately ordered to be prosecuted and put to death. The day following, Claudius related
the whole affair to the senate, and acknowledged his great obligation to his freedmen for
watching over him even in his sleep.
38. Sensible of his being subject to passion and resentment, he excused himself in both
instances by a proclamation, assuring the public that " the former should be short
and harmless, and the latter never without good cause." After severely reprimanding
the people of Ostia for not sending some boats to meet him upon his entering the mouth of
the Tiber, in terms which might expose them to the public resentment, he wrote to Rome
that he had been treated as a private person; yet immediately afterwards he pardoned them,
and that in a way which had the appearance of making them satisfaction, or begging pardon
for some injury he had done them. Some people who addressed him unseasonably in public, he
pushed away with his own hand. He likewise banished a person who had been secretary to a
quaestor, and even a senator who had filled the office of praetor, without a hearing, and
although they were innocent; the former only because he had treated him with rudeness
while he was in a private station, and the other, because in his aedileship he had fined
some tenants of his, for selling some cooked victuals contrary to law, and ordered his
steward, who interfered, to be whipped. On this account, likewise, he took from the
aediles the jurisdiction they had over cook-shops. He did not scruple to speak of
his own absurdities, and declared in some short speeches which he published, that he had
only feigned imbecility in the reign of Gaius, because otherwise it would have been
impossible for him to have escaped and arrived at the station he had then attained. He
could not, however, gain credit for this assertion; for a short time afterwards, a book
was published under the title of "The Resurrection of Fools," the design of
which was to show "that nobody ever counterfeited folly."
39. Amongst other things, people admired in him his indifference and unconcern;
or, to
express it in Greek, his meteoria and ablepsia . Placing himself at table a
little after Messalina's execution, he enquired, " Why the empress did not come
?" Many of those whom he had condemned to death, he ordered the day after to be
invited to his table, and to game with him, and sent to reprimand them as sluggish fellows
for not making greater haste. When he was meditating his incestuous marriage with
Agrippina, he was perpetually calling her, " My daughter, my nursling, born and
brought up upon my lap." And when he was going to adopt Nero, as if there was little
cause for censure in his adopting a son-in-law, when he had a son of his own arrived at
years of maturity; he continually gave out in public, " that no one had ever been
admitted by adoption into the Claudian family.”
40. He frequently appeared so careless in what he said, and so inattentive to
circumstances, that it was believed he never reflected who he himself was, or amongst
whom, or at what time, or in what place, he spoke. In the debate in the senate relative to
the butchers and vintners, he cried out, " I ask you, who can live without a
snack" And mentioned the great plenty of old taverns, from which he himself used
formerly to have his wine. Among other reasons for his supporting a certain person who was
candidate for the quaestorship, he gave this: " His father," said he, "once
gave me, at just the right time, a draught of cold water when I was sick." Upon his
bringing a woman as a witness in some cause before the senate, he said, " This woman
was my mother's freedwoman and dresser, but she always considered me as her master; and
this I say, because there are some still in my family that do not look upon me as
such." The people of Ostia addressing him in open court with a petition, he flew into
a rage at them, and said, " There is no reason why I should oblige you: if any one
else is free to act as he pleases, surely I am." The following expressions he had in
his mouth every day, and at all hours and seasons: " What , do you take me for a
Telegenius ?" And in Greek, “Speak, but do not touch me;” besides
many other familiar sentences, below the dignity of a private person, much more of an
emperor, who was not deficient either in eloquence or learning, as having applied himself
very closely to the liberal sciences.
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