The Twelve Caesars

The Twelve Caesars

The Lives of the Roman Emperors

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillis

Red and Black Publishers, St Petersburg, Florida

Suetonius: The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, translated by J. C. Rolfe in 1907

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Suetonius, ca. 69-ca. 122.

[De vita Caesarum. English]

The twelve Caesars : the lives of the Roman emperors / Gaius

Suetonius Tranquillis ; [translated by J.C. Rolfe].

p. cm.

Rolfe's translation originally published: 1907.

ISBN 978-1-934941-19-5

1. Emperors--Rome--Biography--Early works to 1800. 2.

Rome--History--Julio-Claudians, 30 B.C.-68 A.D. 3. Rome--History--Flavians, 69-96.

I. Rolfe, John Carew, 1859-1943. II. Title.

DG277.S83 2008

937'.070922--dc22

2008013588

Red and Black Publishers, PO Box 7542, St Petersburg, Florida, 33734

Printed and manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Introduction to the Red and Black edition 5

The Life of Julius Caesar 9

The Deified Augustus 41

The Life of Tiberius 85

The Life of Gaius Caligula 115

The Life of Claudius 141

The Life of Nero 163

The Life of Galba 189

The Life of Otho 199

The Life of Vitellius 205

The Life of Vespasian 215

The Life of Titus 227

The Life of Domitian 233

Maps 246

Introduction

The collapse of the Roman Republic and the rise of the autocratic Empire took place between 45 and 27 BCE, but the roots of that collapse go back much earlier.

According to legend, a Trojan prince named Aeneas escaped the fall of Troy and sailed to Italy, where he founded the city of Lavinium. Aeneas’s son, Iulus, founded a dynasty in Alba Longa. In 753 BCE, according to tradition, the twins Romulus and Remus, descendents of Aeneas and Iulus, founded the city of Rome. Rome was then ruled by a series of monarchs until 509 BCE. At that time, according to legend, Sextus Tarquinius, the son of the king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, raped Lucretia, a member of the prominent family of the aristocracy, who then killed herself. In revenge, the aristocratic families banded together and overthrew the monarchy, establishing the Roman Republic.

To prevent the centralization of political power, the new Republic set up a number of assemblies, each with separate powers. The two most important were the Plebian Assembly, which represented the interests of the poor landless “plebians” of Roman society, and the Roman Senate, which represented the interests of the wealthy landholding “patrician” aristocracy. In theory, laws could be voted into effect by either body.

A number of governmental offices were introduced to adminstrate the Roman state. Each official, known as a magistrate, was elected for a one-year term. The highest office was the consul. Two consuls were elected every year, each with independent powers to serve as a check on the other. Beneath the consuls were the praetors. The number of praetors increased as the size of the Republic’s conquests increased – at the time of Julius Caesar there were 8 praetors elected each year; by the time of Augustus this had increased to 16. Beneath the praetors were the quaestors. In Caesar’s time there were 20 quaestors, who each held office for one year. The office of tribune was elected by the Plebian Assembly. At the time of Julius Caesar, there were 10 tribunes elected annually. The tribunes had the power of veto (“I forbid”) over any action made by any official of the Republic.

Each magistrate was attended by a number of lictors, who served as bodyguards and assistants. Each lictor carried a bundle of rods known as a fasces, which symbolized his authority to, at the request of the magistrate, arrest and punish any Roman citizen.

Most Roman politicians began their career as an aedile. The aediles were in charge of maintaining public buildings and organizing the public festivals.

Since the Senate was the only body that could authorize state expenditures of money, most governmental power in the Republic fell to it. For the most part, the Senate was made up of members from the wealthy landowning class. During the early Republic, soldiers of the legions were expected to provide their own armor and weapons, and only relatively well-off people could afford to join the military. As the middle-class farm-owners died in battle, however, their farms fell into debt and were bought up by the larger landowners. This process led to an extremely lopsided distribution of wealth, with a small number of land-owning aristocratic families gaining a disproportionate share of farmland and, through the Senate, most of the political power. This disparity was a constant source of friction.

By 133 BCE, one of the tribunes elected by the plebians, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, attempted to introduce a land reform that would take large amounts of state-owned land (most of which was in fact being used by the wealthy aristocracy) and redistribute it to small farmers. Although the “Gracchi Reforms” were wildly popular among the plebians, they were bitterly resisted by the patrician aristocracy and the Senate. Gracchus, in turn, bypassed the Senate entirely and tried to pass his reforms through a binding vote in the Plebian Assembly – a legal practice which had not been used for centuries. The Senate responded by bribing another tribune to veto the reforms, and Gracchus swiftly passed another law removing that tribune from office. When the reforms were passed by plebescite, the Senate refused to appropriate any money to carry them out. Gracchus then diverted tax money from some of the Roman provinces in Asia to fund the reforms, and announced that he would run for re-election as tribune to carry them out. Fearful of this unprecedented challenge to their wealth and political power, the aristocracy formed a mob that attacked Gracchus, killing him and 300 of his followers.

A decade later, Gracchus’s younger brother Gaius attempted to introduce similar reforms, and once again the patricians responded with violence, killing Gaius and 3,000 of his supporters.

As a result of the Gracchi Reforms, Roman politicians became divided into two groups. The Optimates sought to preserve the power of the Senate and the patrician aristocracy. The Populares sought to bypass the Senate and use the Plebian Assembly to pass reforms. The most divisive issue was the distribution of wealth, with the patricians seeking to keep their concentrated wealth, and the plebians attempting to redistribute land and wealth more equitably.

In 107 BC, the consul Gaius Marius passed a series of reforms that had far-reaching consequences for Rome. Previously, military service was only possible for Roman citizens who had at least 3,000 sesterces worth of property and who could afford to provide their own armor and weapons. Marius discarded this, and opened up military service to any free Roman citizen, declaring that armor, weapons and military equipment would now be provided for them at state expense. The Legions were also reorganized into a standard system of “cohorts” and “centuries”. To reduce the baggage train and make the army more mobile, each soldier was required to carry some 60 pounds of equipment, including his armor, weapons and 15 days’ rations. The heavily-laden troops soon began referring to themselves as “Marius’s Mules”. In another important reform, after 16 years of service (later changed to 25 years), each soldier became eligible for a retirement benefit, consisting of a cash payment and a piece of land from one of the conquered territories. These retirement benefits were administrated by the general who was in charge of the Legion.

The effect of the Marian Reforms was to turn the Roman Legion into a fulltime professional army. It also introduced a back-door land reform, by providing land to the plebians who enlisted in the army. Most importantly, it changed the loyalty of the Legion from the Roman Republic to the individual General who commanded the Legion (and who provided the pension benefits at retirement). The Senate, recognizing that the Reforms were a direct challenge to the power of the patrician aristocracy, opposed Marius at every turn, but he was so popular that he was elected to an unprecedented six straight terms as consul before retiring in 100 BCE.

In 91 BCE, when tribune Marcus Livius Drusus tried to pass a law granting full Roman citizenship to all the subordinate Italian provinces, he was killed (at the behest of the patricians and the Senate, it was widely thought), and the Italian provinces launched a rebellion that became known as the Social War. Marius came out of retirement to lead the Roman armies in northern Italy, in cooperation with Legions in southern Italy under the command of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. After the rebellion was defeated in 88 BCE, Sulla was elected consul.

A bitter political rivalry broke out between Marius and Sulla, with each using the military power of his legions to oppose the other. When King Mithridates, a longtime opponent of Roman power in Asia, invaded some Roman possessions, Sulla was appointed by the Senate to lead the army against him. In quick succession, Marius bribed the Plebian Assembly to give him command of Sulla’s legions instead, and Sulla responded by marching on Rome and seizing the city, forcing Marius to escape to Africa. Shortly afterwards, when Sulla left Rome to fight Mithridates, Marius returned, seized Rome, appointed himself Consul, and executed thousands of Sulla’s political supporters before himself dying suddenly of a stroke. Sulla and his legions once again entered Rome in 83 BCE.

Sulla had the Senate appoint him as “dictator”, a political position that could only be invoked in times of emergency – for a period of six months, the dictator could rule unilaterally by decree. Sulla used his powers to devastate his political opponents, posting long lists of names at the Roman Forum. Each person on the “proscription” list was legally stripped of all property and citizenship, and a bounty was set for their death. Over the next two years, Sulla had thousands of Romans killed by proscription. With his opposition eliminated, Sulla then issued a number of declarations which returned full political control to the Senate (and the aristocracy); the Senate gained the right of veto over any actions taken by the Plebian Assembly, the political power of the tribunes was sharply reduced, and the Senate was doubled in size. In 80 BCE, with the Senate firmly in power, Sulla resigned as dictator, retired to his estates, and died a few years later.

Sulla’s unilateral transfer of power to the Senate did not, however, end the underlying economic and political schisms within the Republic. In 78 BCE, one of the consuls, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, tried to pass laws that would have undone some of the Sulla reforms and restore some of the lands that Sulla had seized. When this attempt failed, Lepidus was sent to the Cisalpine Gaul province, where he raised an army and marched on Rome. He was defeated by one of Sulla’s generals, Pompey.

In 64 BCE, Lucius Sergius Catilina ran for consul, promising to cancel all the debts owed by plebians to patricians. After bitter opposition by the aristocracy, Catilina lost, and instead plotted with a number of Senators to arm the city’s slaves, seize power, and have himself declared dictator. The consul Cicero discovered the plan, exposed it to the Senate, and was granted absolute authority to crush the conspirators. The Catiline conspirators in Rome were executed without trial, and Catilina was killed with his army outside of Rome.

The next challenge to the Roman aristocracy (and the Senate) came from Gaius Julius Caesar. Through deft political maneuvering, Caesar managed to have himself appointed “dictator for life”, and concentrated nearly all political power in his hands. It is apparent that he intended to reverse the actions of the previous dictator, Sulla, by breaking the hold of the aristocracy (and the Senate) and returning power to the Plebian Assembly. How much of this was due to honest political ideology, and how much was just a cynical attempt to curry popular support and gain unprecedented personal power for himself, is unclear. There is no doubt, however, that the Senate’s response to Caesar led, ultimately, to the collapse of the Roman Republic, and the rise of the Roman Emperors.

Editor, Red and Black Publishers

November 2007

1. In the course of his sixteenth year he lost his father. In the next consulate, having previously been nominated priest of Jupiter, he broke his engagement with Cossutia, a lady of only equestrian rank, but very wealthy, who had been betrothed to him before he assumed the gown of manhood, and married Cornelia, daughter of that Cinna who was four times consul, by whom he afterwards had a daughter Julia; and the dictator Sulla could by no means force him to put away his wife. Therefore besides being punished by the loss of his priesthood, his wife’s dowry, and his family inheritances, Caesar was held to be one of the opposite party. He was accordingly forced to go into hiding, and though suffering from a severe attack of quartan ague, to change from one covert to another almost every night, and save himself from Sulla’s detectives by bribes. But at last, through the good offices of the Vestal virgins and of his near kinsmen, Mamercus Aemilius and Aurelius Cotta, he obtained forgiveness. Everyone knows that when Sulla had long held out against the most devoted and eminent men of his party who interceded for Caesar, and they obstinately persisted, he at last gave way and cried, either by divine inspiration or a shrewd forecast: “Have your way and take him; only bear in mind that the man you are so eager to save will one day deal the death blow to the cause of the aristocracy, which you have joined with me in upholding; for in this Caesar there is more than one Marius.”

2. He served his first campaign in Asia on the personal staff of Marcus Thermus, governor of the province. Being sent by Thermus to Bithynia, to fetch a fleet, he dawdled so long at the court of Nicomedes that he was suspected of improper relations with the king; and he lent colour to this scandal by going back to Bithynia a few days after his return, with the alleged purpose of collecting a debt for a freedman, one of his dependents. During the rest of the campaign he enjoyed a better reputation, and at the storming of Mytilene Thermus awarded him the civic crown.

3. He served too under Servilius Isauricus in Cilicia, but only for a short time; for learning of the death of Sulla, and at the same time hoping to profit by a counter revolution which Marcus Lepidus was setting on foot, he hurriedly returned to Rome. But he did not make common cause with Lepidus, although he was offered highly favourable terms, through lack of confidence both in that leader’s capacity and in the outlook, which he found less promising than he had expected.

4. Then, after the civil disturbance had been quieted, he brought a charge of extortion against Cornelius Dolabella, an ex-consul who had been honoured with a triumph. On the acquittal of Dolabella Caesar determined to withdraw to Rhodes, to escape from the ill-will which he had incurred, and at the same time to rest and have leisure to study under Apollonius Molo, the most eminent teacher of oratory of that time. While crossing to Rhodes, after the winter season had already begun, he was taken by pirates near the island of Pharmacussa and remained in their custody for nearly forty days in a state of intense vexation, attended only by a single physician and two body-servants; for he had sent off his travelling companions and the rest of his attendants at the outset, to raise money for his ransom. Once he was set on shore on payment of fifty talents, he did not delay then and there to launch a fleet and pursue the departing pirates, and the moment they were in his power to inflict on them the punishment which he had often threatened when joking with them. He then proceeded to Rhodes, but as Mithridates was devastating the neighbouring regions, he crossed over into Asia, to avoid the appearance of inaction when the allies of the Roman people were in danger. There he levied a band of auxiliaries and drove the king’s prefect from the province, thus holding the wavering and irresolute states to their allegiance.

5. While serving as military tribune, the first office which was conferred on him by vote of the people after his return to Rome, he ardently supported the leaders in the attempt to re-establish the authority of the tribunes of the commons, the extent of which Sulla had curtailed. Furthermore, through a bill proposed by one Plotius, he effected the recall of his wife’s brother Lucius Cinna, as well as of the others who had taken part with Lepidus in his revolution and after the consul’s death had fled to Sertorius; and he personally spoke in favour of the measure.

6. When quaestor, he pronounced the customary orations from the rostra in praise of his aunt Julia and his wife Cornelia, who had both died. And in the eulogy of his aunt he spoke in the following terms of her paternal and maternal ancestry and that of his own father: “The family of my aunt Julia is descended by her mother from the kings, and on her father’s side is akin to the immortal Gods; for the Marcii Reges (her mother’s family name) go back to Ancus Marcius, and the Julii, the family of which ours is a branch, to Venus. Our stock therefore has at once the sanctity of kings, whose power is supreme among mortal men, and the claim to reverence which attaches to the Gods, who hold sway over kings themselves.”