The Historians' History of the World 06 [The Early Roman Empire]

He applied himself with great diligence to the liberal arts, both Greek and Latin. In his Latin style, he affected to imitate Messalla Corvinus, a respectable old man, whose company he had much frequented in his youth. But he rendered his style obscure by excess of affectation and niceness; so that he was thought to talk better extempore, than in a premeditated discourse. He composed likewise a lyric ode, under the title of A Lamentation upon the Death of L. Cæsar, as also some Greek poems in imitation of Euphorion, Rhianus, and Parthenius. These poets he greatly admired, and set up their works and statues in the public libraries, amongst the eminent authors of antiquity. On this account, most of the learned men of the time vied with each other in publishing observations upon them, which they addressed to him. What he chiefly attended to was the knowledge of the fabulous history; and this he prosecuted with a zeal that might justly be deemed ridiculous. For he used to try the grammarians, a class of people which I have already observed he much affected, with such questions as these: “Who was Hecuba’s mother? What had been Achilles’ name amongst the young women? What song were the Sirens used to sing?” And the first day that he entered the senate house, after the death of Augustus, as if he intended to pay a respect both to the memory of his father and the gods, in imitation of Minos upon the death of his son, he made an offering of frankincense and wine, but without any music.

Though he was ready and conversant with the Greek tongue, yet he did not use it everywhere, but chiefly declined it in the senate house; insomuch that having occasion to use the word monopolium (monopoly), he first begged pardon for being obliged to trouble the house with a foreign word. And when in a decree of the senate, the word emblema (emblem) was read, he advised to have it changed, and that a Latin word should be substituted in its room; or if no proper one could be found, to express the thing in a circumlocutory manner. A soldier who was examined, as a witness upon a trial, in Greek, he would not allow to make any answer but in Latin.

The people rejoiced so much at his death, that, upon the first news of it, they ran up and down the city, some crying out, “Away with Tiberius into the Tiber”; others exclaiming, “May the earth, the common mother of mankind, and the infernal gods, allow no place for the dead, but amongst the wicked.” Others threatened his body with the hook and the scalæ gemoniæ, their indignation at his former cruelty being increased by a recent instance of the same kind. It had been provided by an act of the senate, that the punishment of persons condemned to die should always be deferred until the tenth day after the sentence. Now it happened that the day on which the news of Tiberius’ death arrived, was the time fixed by law for the execution of some persons that had been sentenced to die. These poor creatures implored the protection of all about them; but because Caius was not in town, and there was none else to whom application could be made in their behalf, the men who were charged with the care of their execution, from a dread of offending against that law, strangled them, and threw them down the scalæ gemoniæ. This excited in the minds of the people a still greater abhorrence of the tyrant’s memory, since his cruelty subsisted even after his death. As soon as his corpse began to move from Misenum, many cried out for its being carried to Atella, and broiled there in the amphitheatre. It was however brought to Rome, and burned with the usual ceremony.c