Vespasian | Page 8

and dress himself with
his own hands. Then, after the dispatch of such business as was brought
before him, he rode out, and afterwards retired to repose, lying on his
couch with one of his mistresses, of whom he kept several after the
death of Caenis [768]. Coming out of his private apartments, he passed
to the bath, and then entered the supper-room. They say that he was
never more good-humoured and indulgent 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 sometimes
use indecent language, such as is addressed to young girls about to be
married. Yet there are some things related of him not void of ingenious
pleasantry; amongst which are the following. Being once reminded by
Mestrius Florus, that plaustra was a more proper expression than
plostra, he the next day saluted him by the name of Flaurus [769]. A
certain lady pretending to be desperately enamoured of him, he was
prevailed upon to admit her to his bed; and after he had gratified her
desires, he gave her [770] four hundred (460) thousand sesterces. When
his steward desired to know how he would have the sum entered in his
accounts, he replied, "For Vespasian's being 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 freedman, who being very rich, had begun 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 shameful means of raising money,
in order to wipe off the odium by some joke, and turn it into ridicule.
One of his ministers, who was much in his favour, requesting of him a
stewardship for some person, under pretence of his being his brother,
he deferred granting him his petition, and in the meantime sent for the
candidate, and having squeezed out of him as much money as he had
agreed to give to his friend at court, he appointed him immediately to

the office. The minister soon after renewing his application, "You
must," said he, "find another brother; for the one you adopted is in truth
mine."
Suspecting once, during a journey, that his mule-driver had alighted to
shoe his mules, only in order to have an opportunity for allowing a
person they met, who was engaged in a law-suit, to speak to him, he
asked him, "how much he got for shoeing his mules?" and insisted on
having a share of the profit. When his son Titus blamed him for even
laying a tax upon urine, he applied to his nose a piece of the money he
received in the first instalment, and asked him, "if it stunk?" And he
replying no, "And yet," said he, "it is derived from urine."
Some deputies having come to acquaint him that a large statue, which
would cost a vast sum, was ordered to be erected for him at the public
expense, he told them to pay it down immediately, (461) holding 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, among other
prodigies, the mausoleum of the Caesars suddenly flew open, and a
blazing star appeared in the heavens; one of the prodigies, he said,
concerned Julia Calvina, who was of the family of Augustus [771]; and
the other, the king of the Parthians, who wore 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 consulship, being seized, while in Campania, with a
slight indisposition, and immediately returning 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 summer. Here,
though 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 ambassadors in bed. At last, being
taken ill of a diarrhoea, to such a degree that he was ready to faint, he
cried out, "An emperor ought to die standing upright." In endeavouring
to rise, he died in the hands of those