Having thus established himself in power, his first obect was to abolish all
					remembrance of the two preceding days, in which a revolution in the state had
					been canvassed. Accordingly, he passed an act of perpetual oblivion and pardon
					for everything said or done during that time; and this he faithfully observed,
					with the exception only of putting to death a few tribunes and centurions
					concerned in the conspiracy against Caius, both as an example, and because he
					understood that they had also planned his own death. He now turned his own
					thoughts towards paying respect to the memory of his relations. His most solemn
					and unusual oath was "By Augustus." He prevailed upon the senate to decree
					divine honours to his grandmother Livia, with a chariot in the Circensian procession drawn by
					elephants, as had been appointed for Augustus, See
						AUGUSTUS, cc. xliii., xlv. and public offerings to the shades of his
					parents. Besides which, he instituted Circensian games for his father, to be
					celebrated every year, upon his birthday, and, for his mother, a chariot to be
					drawn through the circus; with the title of Augusta, which had been refused by his grandmother. Ib. c. xcix. To the memory of his brother, Germanicus. to which, upon all occasions, he showed
					a great regard, he gave a Greek comedy, to be exhibited in the public diversions
					at Naples , Naples and other cities on
						that coast were Greek colonies. and awarded the crown for it,
					according to the sentence of the judges in that solemnity. Nor did he omit to
					make honourable and grateful mention of Mark Antony; declaring by a
					proclamation, "That he the more earnestly insisted upon the observation of his
					father Drusus's birth-day, because it was likewise that of his grandfather
					Antony." He completed the marble arch near Pompey's theatre, which had formerly
					been decreed by the senate in honour of Tiberius, but which had been
						neglected. This arch was erected in memory of the
						standards (the eagles) lost by Varus, in Germany , having been recovered by Germanicus under the
						auspices of Tiberius. See his Life, c. xlvii.; and Tacit. Annal. ii. 41. It
						seems to have stood at the foot of the Capitol, on the side of the Forum,
						near the temple of Concord; but there are no remains of it. And
					though he cancelled all the acts of Caius, yet he forbad the day of his
					assassination, notwithstanding it was that of his own accession to the empire,
					to be reckoned amongst the festivals. But with regard to his own aggrandisement, he was sparing and modest, declining
					the title of emperor, an irefusing all excessive honours. He celebrated the
					marriage of his daughter and the birth-day of a grandson with great privacy, at
					home. He recalled none of those who had been banished, without a decree of the
					senate: and requested of them permission for the prefect of the military
					tribunes and pretorian guards to attend him in the senate-house; Tacitus informs us that the same application had been made
						by Tiberius. Annal. iii. The prefect of the pretorian guards, high and
						important as his office had now become, was not allowed to enter the
						senate-house, unless he belonged to the equestrian order. and also
					that they would be pleased to bestow upon his procurators judicial authority in
					the provinces. The procurators had the administration of
						some of the less important provinces, with rank and authority inferior to
						that of the pro-consuls and prefects. Frequent mention of these officers is
						made by Josephus; and Pontius Pilate, who sentenced our Lord to crucifixion,
						held that office in Judaea , under
						Tiberius. He asked of the consuls likewise the privilege of holding
					fairs upon his private estate. He frequently assisted the magistrates in the
					trial of causes, as one of their assessors. And when they gave public
					spectacles, he would rise up with the rest of the spectators, and salute them
					both by words and gestures. When the tribunes of the people came to him while he
					was on the tribunal, he excused himself, because, on account of the crowd, he
					could not hear them unless they stood. In a short time, by this conduct, he
					wrought himself so much into the favour and affection of the public, that when,
					upon his going to Ostia , a report was
					spread in the city that he had been waylaid and slain, the people never ceased
					cursing the soldiers for traitors, and the senate as parricides, until one or
					two persons, and presently after several others, were brought by the magistrates
					upon the rostra, who assured them that he was alive, and not far from the city,
					on his way home. Conspiracies, however, were formed against him, not only by individuals
					separately, but by a faction; and at last his government was disturbed with a
					civil war. A low fellow was found with a poniard about him, near his chamber, at
					midnight. Two men of the equestrian order were discovered waiting for him in the
					streets, armed with a tuck and a huntsman's dagger; one of them intending to
					attack him as he came out of the theatre, and the other as he was sacrificing in
					the temple of Mars. Gallus Asinius and Statilius Corvinus, grandsons of the two
					orators, Pollio and Messala, Pollio and Messala were
						distinguished orators, who flourished under the Caesars Julius and Augustus.
					 formed a conspiracy against him, in which they engaged many of his
					freedmen and slaves. Furius Camillus Scribonianus, his lieutenant in Dalmatia , broke into rebellion, but was
					reduced in the space of five days; the legions which he had seduced from their
					oath of fidelity relinquishing their purpose, upon an alarm occasioned by ill
					omens. For when orders were given them to march, to meet their new emperor, the
					eagles could not be decorated, nor the standards pulled out of the ground,
					whether it was by accident, or a divine interposition. Besides his former consulship, he held the office afterwards four times; the
					first two successively, A. U. C. 795, 796. but the
					following, after an interval of four years each; A.U.C.
						800, 804 the last for six months, the others for two; and the third,
					upon his being chosen in the room of a consul who died; which had never been
					done by any of the emperors before him. Whether he was consul or out of office
					he constantly attended the courts for the administration of justice, even upon
					such days as were solemnly observed as days of rejoicing in his family, or by
					his friends; and sometimes upon the public festivals of ancient institution. Nor
					did he always adhere strictly to the letter of the laws, but overruled the
					rigour or lenity of many of their enactments, according to his sentiments of
					justice and equity. For where persons lost their suits by insisting upon more
					than appeared to be their due, before the judges of private causes, he granted
					them the indulgence of a second trial. And with regard to such as were convicted
					of any great delinquency, he even exceeded the punishment appointed by law, and
					condemned them to be exposed to wild beasts. "Ad bestias"
						had become a new and frequent sentence for malefactors. It will be
						recollected, that it was the most usual form of martyrdom for the primitive
						Christians. Polycarp was brought all the way from Smyrna to be exposed to it in the
						amphitheatre at Rome . But in hearing and determining causes, he exhibited a strange inconsistency of
					temper, being at one time circumspect and sagacious, at another inconsiderate
					and rash, and sometimes frivolous and like one out of his mind. In correcting
					the roll of judges, he struck off the name of one who, concealing the privilege
					his children gave him to be excused from serving, had answered to his name, as
					too eager for the office. Another who was summoned before him in a cause of his
					own, but alleged that the affair did not properly come under the emperor's
					cognizance, but that of the ordinary judges, he ordered to plead the cause
					himself immediately before him, and show in a case of his own, how equitable a
					judge he would prove in that of other persons. A woman refusing to acknowledge
					her own son, and there being no clear proof on either side, he obliged her to
					confess the truth, by ordering her to marry the young man. This reminds us of the decision of Solomon in the case of the two mothers,
						who each claimed a child as their own, 1 Kings iii. 22-27. He was
					much inclined to determine causes in favour of the parties who appeared, against
					those who did not, without inquiring whether their absence was occasioned by
					their own fault, or by real necessity. On proclamation of a man's being
					convicted of forgery, and that he ought to have his hand cut off, he insisted
					that an executioner should be immediately sent for, with a Spanish sword and a
					block. A person being prosecuted for falsely assuming the freedom of Rome , and a frivolous dispute arising between
					the advocates in the cause, whether he ought to make his appearance in the Roman
					or Grecian dress, to show his impartiality, he commanded him to change his
					clothes several times according to the character he assumed in the accusation or
					defence. An anecdote is related of him, and believed to be true, that, in a
					particular cause, he delivered his sentence in writing thus: "I am in favour of
					those who have spoken the truth." A most absurd judicial
						conclusion, the business of the judge or court being to decide, on weighing
						the evidence, on which side the truth preponderated. By this he so
					much forfeited the good opinion of the world, that he was everywhere and openly
					despised. A person making an excuse for the non-appearance of a witness whom he
					had sent for from the provinces, declared it was impossible for him to appear,
					concealing the reason for some time: at last, after several interrogatories were
					put to him on the subject, he answered, "The man is dead;" to which Claudius
					replied, "I think that is a sufficient excuse." Another thanking him for
					suffering a person who was prosecuted to make his defence by counsel, added,
					"And yet it is no more than what is usual." I have likewise heard some old men
					say, See the note in CALIGULA, c. xix., as to Suetonius's
						sources of information from persons cotemporary with the occurrences he
						relates. that the advocates used to abuse his patience so grossly,
					that they would not only call him back, as he was quitting the tribunal, but
					would seize him by the lap of his coat, and sometimes catch him by the heels, to
					make him stay. That such behaviour, however strange, is not incredible, will
					appear from this anecdote. Some obscure Greek, who was a litigant, had an
					altercation with him, in which he called out, "You are an old fool." The insult was conveyed in Greek, which seems, from
						Suetonius, to have been in very common use at Rome : καί σὺ γέρων εἶ, καὶ It is certain that a Roman knight, who was
					prosecuted by an impotent device of his enemies on a false charge of abominable
					obscenity with women, observing that common strumpets were summoned against him
					and allowed to give evidence, upbraided Claudius in very harsh and severe terms
					with his folly and cruelty, and threw his style, and some books which he had in
					his hands, in his face, with such violence as to wound him severely in the
					cheek.