Tiberius

Suetonius

Suetonius. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. Thomson, Alexander, M.D, translator; Reed, J.E., editor. Philadelphia: Gebbie, 1883.

He was besides guilty of many barbarous actions, under the pretence of strictness and reformation of manners, but more to gratify his own savage disposition. Some verses were published, which displayed the present calamities of his reign, and anticipated the future.[*](The verses were probably anonymous.)

  1. Asper et immitis, breviter vis omnia dicam?
  2. Dispeream si te mater amare potest.
  3. Non es eques, quare? non sunt tibi millia centum?
  4. Omnia si quaras, et Rhodos exsilium est.
  5. Aurea mutasti Saturni saecula, Caesar:
  6. Incolumi nam te, ferrea semper erunt.
  7. Fastidit vinum, quia jam sitit iste cruorem:
  8. Tam bibit hunc avide, quam bibit ante merum.
  9. Adspice felicem sibi, non tibi, Romule, Sullam:
  10. Et Marium, si vis, adspice, sed reducem.
  11. Nec non Antoni civilia bella moventis
  12. Nec semel infectas adspice cada manus,
  13. Et dic, Roma perit: regnabit sanguine multo,
  14. Ad regnum quisquis venit ab exsilio.
  1. Obdurate wretch! too fierce, too fell to move
  2. The least kind yearnings of a mother's love!
  3. No knight thou art, as having no estate;
  4. Long suffered'st thou in Rhodes an exile's fate,
  5. No more the happy Golden Age we see;
  6. The Iron's come, and sure to last with thee.
  7. Instead of wine he thirsted for before,
  8. He wallows now in floods of human gore.
  9. Reflect, ye Romans, on the dreadful times,
  10. Made such by Marius, and by Sylla's crimes.
  11. Reflect how Antony's ambitious rage
  12. Twice scar'd with horror a distracted age.
  13. And say, Alas! Rome's blood in streams will flow,
  14. When banish'd miscreants rule this world below.
At first he would have it understood, that these satirical verses were drawn forth by the resentment of those who were impatient under the discipline of reformation, rather than that they spoke,their real sentiments; and he would frequently say, "Let them hate me, so long as they do but approve my conduct."[*](Oderint dum probent: Caligula used a similar expression; Oderint dum metuant.) At length, however, his behaviour showed that he was sensible they were too well founded.

A few days after his arrival at Capri, a fisherman coming up to him unexpectedly, when he was desirous of privacy, and presenting him with a large mullet, he ordered the man's face to be scrubbed with the fish; being terrified with the thought of his having been able to creep upon him from the back of the island, over such rugged and steep rocks. The man, while undergoing the punishment, expressing his joy that he had not likewise offered him a large crab which he had also taken, he ordered his face to be farther lacerated with its claws. He put to death one of the pretorian guards, for having stolen a peacock out of his orchard. In one of his journeys, his litter being obstructed by some bushes, he ordered the officer whose duty it was to ride on and examine the road, a centurion of the first cohorts, to be laid on his face upon the ground, and scourged almost to death.