The Twelve Caesars

Quotes

1. A few months before the murder [of Domitian] a raven perched on the Capitol and croaked out the words: "All will be well!" – a portent which some wag explained in the following verse:

   There was a raven, strange to tell,

   Perched upon Jove's own gable, whence

   He tried to tell us "All is well!" –

   But had to use the future tense.

2. 

   No one was allowed to leave the theatre during his recitals, however pressing the reason. We read of women in the audience giving birth, and of men being so bored with listening and applauding that they furtively dropped down from the wall at the rear, since the gates were kept barred, or shammed dead and were carried away for burial.

3. 

   That he had love-affairs in the provinces, too, is suggested by another of the ribald verses sung during the Gallic triumph:

   Home we bring our bald whoremonger;

   Romans, lock your wives away!

   All the bags of gold you lent him

   Went his Gallic tarts to pay.

4. 

   Caesar exclaimed: "Let us accept this as a sign from the Gods, and follow where they beckon, in vengeance on our double-dealing enemies. The die is cast."

5. 

   And to emphasize the bad name Caesar had won alike for unnatural and natural vice, I may here record that the Elder Curio referred to him in a speech as: "Every woman's man and every man's woman."

6. 

   Titus complained of the tax which Vespasian had imposed on the contents of the city urinals. Vespasian handed him a coin which had been part of the first day's proceeds: "Does it smell bad?" he asked. And when Titus said "No" he went on: "Yet it comes from urine."

7. 

   His wastefulness showed most of all in the architectural projects. He built a palace, stretching from the Palatine to the Esquiline, which he called…"The Golden House". The following details will give some notion of its size and magnificence. The entrance-hall was large enough to contain a huge statue of himself, 120 feet high…Parts of the house were overlaid with gold and studded with precious stones and mother-of pearl. All the dining-rooms had ceilings of fretted ivory, the panels of which could slide back and let a rain of flowers, or of perfume from hidden sprinklers, shower upon his guests. The main dining-room was circular, and its roof revolved, day and night, in time with the sky. Sea water, or sulphur water, was always on tap in the baths. When the palace had been decorated throughout in this lavish style, Nero dedicated it, and condescended to remark: "Good, now I can at last begin to live like a human being!"

8. 

   On one occasion the people cheered the team he opposed; he cried angrily: "I wish all you Romans had only one neck!"

9. 

   To prevent Incitatus, his favourite horse, from being disturbed he always picketed the neighbourhood with troops on the day before the races, ordering them to enforce absolute silence. Incitatus owned a marble stable, an ivory stall, purple blankets, and a jewelled collar; also a house, a team of slaves, and furniture – to provide suitable entertainment for guests whom Gaius invited in its name. It is said that he even planned to award Incitatus a consulship.

10. 

    A remarkably modest statement of his is recorded in the Proceedings of the Senate: "If So-and-so challenges me, I shall lay before you a careful account of what I have said and done; if he should continue, I shall reciprocate his dislike of me."

11. 

    Several victims were then sacrificed, and despite consistently unfavourable omens, he entered the House, deriding Spurinna as a false prophet. "The Ides of March have come," he said. "Yes, they have come," replied Spurinna, "but they have not yet gone."

12. 

    The courtiers tried every trick to lure or force him into making complaints against Tiberius; always, however, without success. He not only failed to show any interest in the murder of his relatives, but affected an amazing indifference to his own ill-treatment, behaving so obsequiously to his adoptive grandfather and to the entire household, that someone said of him, very neatly: "Never was there a better slave, or a worse master!"

13. 

    When [his son] Drusus died Tiberius was not greatly concerned, and went back to his usual business almost as soon as the funeral ended, cutting short the period of official mourning; in fact, when a Trojan delegation arrived with condolences somewhat belatedly, Tiberius grinned, having apparently got over his loss, and replied: "May I condole with you, in return, on the death of your eminent fellow-citizen Hector?"

14. 

    Twenty-three dagger thrusts went home as he stood there. Caesar did not utter a sound after Casca's blow had drawn a groan from him; though some say that when he saw Marcus Brutus about to deliver the second blow, he reproached him in Greek with: "You, too, my child?"

15. 

    Because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from the city.

16. 

    Aware that the city was architecturally unworthy of her position as capital of the Roman Empire, besides being vulnerable to fire and river floods, Augustus so improved her appearance that he could justifiably boast: "I found Rome built of bricks; I leave her clothed in marble."

17. 

    The method of execution he preferred was to inflict numerous small wounds; and his familiar order: "Make him feel that he is dying!" soon became proverbial.

18. 

    Dead! And so great an artist!

19. 

    He answered some governors who had written to recommend an increase in the burden of provincial taxation, with: "A good shepherd shears his flock; he does not flay them."

20. 

    However, he had a particular bent for mythology and carried his researches in it to such a ridiculous point that he would test professors of Greek literature – whose society, as I have already mentioned, he cultivated above all others – by asking them questions like: "Who was Hecuba's mother?" – "What name did Achilles assume when he was among the girls?" – "What song did the Sirens sing?"

21. 

    Once a woman declared that she was desperately in love with him, and he took her to bed with him. "How shall I enter that item in your expense ledger?" asked his accountant later, on learning that she had got 4,000 gold pieces out of him; and Vespasian replied, "Just put it down to 'passion for Vespasian'".

22. 

    Some characteristic expressions he used rather frequently in everyday speech can be seen in letters in his own hand, in which he sometimes writes, when he wants to say that certain men will never pay: "they'll pay on the Greek Kalends." And when he wants to encourage his addressee to put up with present circumstances whatever they are, he says: "Let us be satisfied with the Cato we have."

23. 

    Again, during a sacrifice, the augur Spurinna warned Caesar that the danger threatening him would not come later than the Ides of March.

24. 

    Nero watched the conflagration from the Tower of Maecenas, enraptured by what he called "the beauty of the flames"; then put on his tragedian's costume and sang The Sack of Ilium from beginning to end.

25. 

    In the Pontic triumph one of the decorated wagons, instead of a stage-set representing scenes from the war, like the rest, carried a simple three-word inscription: I CAME, I SAW, I CONQUERED! This referred not to the events of the war [against Pontus], like the other inscriptions, but to the speed with which it had been won.

26. 

    One evening at dinner, realizing that he had done nobody any favour throughout the entire day, he spoke these memorable words: "My friends, I have wasted a day."

27. 

    Caesar overtook his advanced guard at the river Rubicon, which formed the frontier between Gaul and Italy. Well aware how critical a decision confronted him, he turned to his staff, remarking: "We may still draw back but, once across that little bridge, we shall have to fight it out."

That’s all the quotes.

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