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. During the whole time of his seclusion at Capri , twice only he made an effort to visit Rome . Once he came in a galley as far as the
					gardens near the Naumachia, but placed guards along the banks of the Tiber , to keep off all who should offer to
					come to meet him. The second time he travelled on the Appian way, So called from Appius Claudius, the Censor, one of
						Tiberius's ancestors, who constructed it. It took a direction southward from
							 Rome , through Campania to ' Brundusium , starting from what is
						the present Porta di San
						Sebastiano , from which the road to Naples takes its departure. as far as the seventh
					mile-stone from the city, but he immediately returned, without entering it,
					having only taken a view of the walls at a distance. For what reason he did not
					disembark in his first excursion, is uncertain; but in the last, he was deterred
					from entering the city by a prodigy. He was in the habit of diverting himself
					with a snake, and upon going to feed it with his own hand, according to custom,
					he found it devoured by ants: from which he was advised to beware of the fury of
					the mob. On this account, returning in all haste to Campania , he fell ill at Astura ; A small town on the coast of
							 Latium , and the present
							 Nettuno . It was here that
						Cicero was slain by the satellites of Antony. but recovering a
					little, went on to Circeii . A town on a promontory of the same dreary coast, between
							 Antium and Terracina , built on a promontory
						surrounded by the sea and the marsh still called Circello. And to
					obviate any suspicion of his being in a bad state of health, he was not only
					present at the sports in the camp, but encountered, with javelins, a wild boar,
					which was let loose in the arena. Being immediately seized with a pain in the
					side, and catching cold upon his overheating himself in the exercise, he
					relapsed into a worse condition than he was before. He held out, however, for
					some time; and sailing as far as Misenum , Misenum , a promontory to which Aeneas is said to have given
						its name from one of his followers. (Aen. ii. 234.) It is now called Capo di
						Misino, and shelters the harbour of Mola di Galeta, belonging to Naples . This was one of the stations of
						the Roman fleet. omitted no thing in his usual mode of life, not
					even in his entertainments, and other gratifications, partly from an
					ungovernable appetite, and partly to conceal his condition. For Charicles, a
					physician, having obtained leave of absence, on his rising from table, took his
					hand to kiss it; upon which Tiberius, supposing he did it to feel his pulse,
					desired him to stay and resume his place, and continued the entertainment longer
					than usual. Nor did he omit his usual custom of taking his station in the centre
					of the apartment, a lictor standing by him, while he took leave of each of the
					party by name. Meanwhile, finding, upon looking over the acts of the senate, "that some person
					under prosecution had been discharged, without being brought to a hearing," for
					he had only written cursorily that they had been denounced by an informer; he
					complained in a great rage that he was treated with contempt, and resolved at
					all hazards to return to Capri ; not
					daring to attempt any thing until he found himself in a place of security. But
					being detained by storms, and the increasing violence of his disorder, he died
					shortly afterwards, at a villa formerly belonging to Lucullus, in the
					seventy-eighth year of his age, Tacitus agrees with
						Suetonius as to the age of Tiberius at the time of his death. Dio states it
						more precisely, as being seventy-seven years, four months, and nine days.
					 and the twenty-third of his reign, upon the seventeenth of the calends
					of April [i6th March], in the consulship of Cneius Acerronius Proculus and Caius
					Pontius Niger. Some think that a slow-consuming poison was given him by Caius.
						 Caius Caligula, who became his successor. 
					Others say that during the interval of the intermittent fever with which he
					happened to be seized, upon asking for food, it was denied him. Others report,
					that he was stifled by a pillow thrown upon him, Tacitus
						and Dio add that he was smothered under a heap of heavy clothes. 
					when, on his recovering from a swoon, he called for his ring, which had been
					taken from him in the fit. Seneca 
					writes, "That finding himself dying, he took his signet ring off his finger, and
					held it a while, as if he would deliver it to somebody; but put it again upon
					his finger, and lay for some time, with his left hand clenched, and without
					stirring; when suddenly summoning his attendants, and no one answering the call,
					he rose; but his strength failing him, he fell down at a short distance from his
					bed." Upon his last birth-day, he had brought a full-sized statue of the Timenian
					Apollo from Syracuse , a work of
					exquisite art, intending to place it in the library of the new temple; In the temple of the Palatine Apollo. See AUGUSTUS, c. xxix.
					 but he dreamt that the god appeared to him in the night, and assured him
					"that his statue could not be erected by him." A few days before he died, the
					Pharos at Capri was thrown down by an
					earthquake. And at Misenum , some embers
					and live coals, which were brought in to warm his apartment, went out, and after
					being quite cold, burst out into a flame again towards evening, and continued
					burning very brightly for several hours. The people were so much elated at his death, that when they first heard the news,
					they ran up and down the city, some, crying out "Away with Tiberius to the
						 Tiber ;" others exclaiming, "May the
					earth, the common mother of mankind, and the infernal gods, allow him no abode
					in death, but amongst the wicked." Others threatened his body with the hook and
					the Gemonian stairs, their indignation at his former cruelty being increased by
					a recent atrocity. It had been provided by an act of the senate, that the
					execution of condemned criminals should always be deferred until the tenth day
					after the sentence. Now this fell on the very day when the news of Tiberius's
					death arrived, and in consequence of which the unhappy men implored a reprieve,
					for mercy's sake; but. as Caius had not yet arrived, and there was no one else
					to whom application could be made on their behalf, their guards, apprehensive of
					violating the law, strangled them, and threw them down the Gemonian stairs. This
					roused the people to a still greater abhorrence of the tyrant's memory, since
					his cruelty continued in use even after he was dead. As soon as his corpse was
					begun to be moved from Misenum ,
					many cried out for its being carried to Atella , Atella , a town between Capua and Naples ,
						now called San Arpino, where there was an amphitheatre. The people seem to
						have raised the shout in derision, referring, perhaps, to the Atellan
						fables, mentioned in c. xiv.; and in their fury they proposed that his body
						should only be grilled, as those of malefactors were, instead of being
						reduced to ashes. and being half burnt there in the amphitheatre. It
					was, however, brought to Rome , and
					burnt with the usual ceremony.