The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete eBook

(294) The profusion of this emperor, during his short reign of three years and ten months, is unexampled in history.  In the midst of profound peace, without any extraordinary charges either civil or military, he expended, in less than one year, besides the current revenue of the empire, the sum of 21,796,875 pounds sterling, which had been left by Tiberius at his death.  To supply the extravagance of future years, new and exorbitant taxes were imposed upon the people, and those too on the necessaries of life.  There existed now amongst the Romans every motive that could excite a general indignation against the government; yet such was still the dread of imperial power, though vested in the hands of so weak and despicable a sovereign, that no insurrection was attempted, nor any extensive conspiracy formed; but the obnoxious emperor fell at last a sacrifice to a few centurions of his own guard.

This reign was of too short duration to afford any new productions in literature; but, had it been extended to a much longer period, the effects would probably have been the same.  Polite learning never could flourish under an emperor who entertained a design of destroying the writings of Virgil and Livy.  It is fortunate that these, and other valuable productions of antiquity, were too widely diffused over the world, and too carefully preserved, to be in danger of perishing through the frenzy of this capricious barbarian.

TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS CAESAR. [465]

(295)

I. Livia, having married Augustus when she was pregnant, was within three months afterwards delivered of Drusus, the father of Claudius Caesar, who had at first the praenomen of Decimus, but afterwards that of Nero; and it was suspected that he was begotten in adultery by his father-in-law.  The following verse, however, was immediately in every one’s mouth: 

    Tois eutychousi kai primaena paidia.

    Nine months for common births the fates decree;
    But, for the great, reduce the term to three.

This Drusus, during the time of his being quaestor and praetor, commanded in the Rhaetian and German wars, and was the first of all the Roman generals who navigated the Northern Ocean [466].  He made likewise some prodigious trenches beyond the Rhine [467], which to this day are called by his name.  He overthrew the enemy in several battles, and drove them far back into the depths of the desert.  Nor did he desist from pursuing them, until an apparition, in the form of a barbarian woman, of more than human size, appeared to him, and, in the Latin tongue, forbad him to proceed any farther.  For these achievements he had the honour of an ovation, and the triumphal ornaments.  After his praetorship, he immediately entered on the office of consul, and returning again to Germany, died of disease, in the summer encampment, which thence obtained the name of “The Unlucky