He applied himself with great diligence to the liberal arts, both Greek and
					Latin. In his Latin style, he affected to imitate the Messala Corvinus, He is mentioned before in the Life of AUGUSTUS, c. lviii,
						and also by Horace, Cicero, and Tacitus. a venerable man, to whom he
					had paid much respect in his own early years. But he rendered his style obscure
					by excessive affectation and abstruseness, so that he was thought to speak
					better extempore, than in a premeditated discourse. He composed likewise a lyric
					ode, under the title of " A Lamentation upon the Death of Lucius Caesar; " and
					also some Greek poems, in imitation of Euphorion, Rhianus, and Parthenius. Obscure Greek poets, whose writings were either full of
						fabulous stories, or of an amatory kind. These poets he greatly
					admired, and placed 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. His principal study, however, was the history of the fabulous
					ages, inquiring even into its trifling details in a ridiculous manner; for he
					used to try the grammarians, a class of men which, as I have already observed,
					he much affected, with such questions as these: "Who was Hecuba's mother? What
					name did Achilles assume among the virgins? What was it that 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 respect at once to his father's memory and to
					the gods, he made an offering of frankincense and wine, but without any music,
					in imitation of Minos, upon the death of his son. Though he was ready and conversant with the Greek tongue, yet he did not use it
					everywhere; but chiefly he avoided it in the senate-house, insomuch that having
					occasion to employ the word monopolium (monopoly), he first begged pardon for
					being obliged to adopt a foreign word. And when, in a decree of the senate, the
					word ἔμβλημα (emblem) was read, he
					proposed 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 by
					circumlocution. A soldier who was examined as a witness upon a trial, in
						Greek, It is suggested that the text should be amended,
						so that the sentence should read-"A Greek soldier;" for of what use could it
						have been to examine a man in Greek, and not allow him to give his replies
						in the same language? he would not allow to reply, except in
					Latin.