Tiberius

12 Caesars: vol 3, Tiberius

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V3 #3 in our series by C. Suetonious Tranquillus
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Title: The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Volume 3. [TIBERIUS]
Author: C. Suetonius Tranquillus
Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6388] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on December 3,
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF
THE CAESARS, SUETONIUS, V3 ***

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THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS
By C. Suetonius Tranquillus;
To which are added,
HIS LIVES OF THE GRAMMARIANS, RHETORICIANS, AND
POETS.
The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D.
revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M.

(192)
TIBERIUS NERO CAESAR.
I. The patrician family of the Claudii (for there was a plebeian family
of the same name, no way inferior to the other either in power or
dignity) came originally from Regilli, a town of the Sabines. They
removed thence to Rome soon after the building of the city, with a
great body of their dependants, under Titus Tatius, who reigned jointly
with Romulus in the kingdom; or, perhaps, what is related upon better
authority, under Atta Claudius, the head of the family, who was
admitted by the senate into the patrician order six years after the
expulsion of the Tarquins. They likewise received from the state, lands
beyond the Anio for their followers, and a burying-place for themselves
near the capitol [284]. After this period, in process of time, the family
had the honour of twenty-eight consulships, five dictatorships, seven
censorships, seven triumphs, and two ovations. Their descendants were
distinguished by various praenomina and cognomina [285], but rejected
by common consent the praenomen of (193) Lucius, when, of the two
races who bore it, one individual had been convicted of robbery, and
another of murder. Amongst other cognomina, they assumed that of

Nero, which in the Sabine language signifies strong and valiant.
II. It appears from record, that many of the Claudii have performed
signal services to the state, as well as committed acts of delinquency.
To mention the most remarkable only, Appius Caecus dissuaded the
senate from agreeing to an alliance with Pyrrhus, as prejudicial to the
republic [286]. Claudius Candex first passed the straits of Sicily with a
fleet, and drove the Carthaginians out of the island [287]. Claudius
Nero cut off Hasdrubal with a vast army upon his arrival in Italy from
Spain, before he could form a junction with his brother Hannibal [288].
On the other hand, Claudius Appius Regillanus, one of the Decemvirs,
made a violent attempt to have a free virgin, of whom he was
enamoured, adjudged a slave; which caused the people to secede a
second time from the senate [289]. Claudius Drusus erected a statue of
himself wearing a crown at Appii Forum [290], and endeavoured, by
means of his dependants, to make himself master of Italy. Claudius
Pulcher, when, off the coast of Sicily [291], the pullets used for taking
augury would not eat, in contempt of the omen threw them overboard,
as if they should drink at least, if they would not eat; and then engaging
the enemy, was routed. After his defeat, when he (194) was ordered by
the senate to name a dictator, making a sort of jest of the public disaster,
he named Glycias, his apparitor.
The women of this family, likewise, exhibited characters equally
opposed to each other. For both the Claudias belonged to it; she, who,
when the ship freighted with things sacred to the Idaean Mother of the
Gods [292], stuck fast in the shallows of the Tiber, got it off, by
praying to the Goddess with a loud voice, "Follow me, if I am chaste;"
and she also, who, contrary to the usual practice in the case of women,
was