Vespasian (21-25)

His method of life was commonly this. After he became emperor, he used to rise very early, often before day-break. Having read over his letters, and the briefs of all the departments of the government offices, he admitted his friends; and while they were paying him their compliments, he would put on his own shoes, and dress himself with his own hands. Then, after the dispatch of such business as was brought before him, he rode out, and afterwards retired to repose, lying on his couch with one of his mistresses, of whom he kept several after the death of Caenis.[*] Coming out of his private apartments, he passed to the Bath," 'and then entered the supper-room. They say that he was never more good-humoured and indulgent than at that time: and therefore his attendants always seized that opportunity, when they had any favour to ask.

At supper, and, indeed, at other times, he was extremely free and jocose. For he had humour, but of a low kind, and he would sometimes use indecent language, such as is addressed to ygung girls about to be married. Yet there are some things related of him not void of ingenious pleasantry; amongst which are the following. Being once reminded by Mestrius Florus, that plaustra was a more proper expression than plostra, he the next day saluted him by the name of Flaurus.[*] A certain lady pretending to be desperately enamoured of him, he was prevailed upon to admit her to his bed: and after he had gratified her desires, he gave her[*] four hundred thousand sesterces. When his steward desired to know how he would have the sum entered in his accounts, he replied, "For Vespasian's being seduced."

He used Greek verses very wittily; speaking of a tall man:

μακρὰ ζίζασ κραδάων δολλιχώσκιον ἔγχοσ

ὦ Λάχης, Λάχησ

ἔπαν ἀποθάνης, αὐθίσ ἐξ ἀρχῆσ ἔση Κήρυλοσ

Ah, Laches, Laches ! when thou art no more,

Thou'lt Cerylus be called, just as before.

Suspecting once, during a journey, that his mule-driver had alighted to shoe his mules, only in order to have an opportunity for allowing a person they met, who was engaged in a law-suit, to speak to him, he asked him, " how much he got for shoeing his mules?" and insisted on having a share of the profit. When his son Titus blamed him for even laying a tax upon urine, he applied to his nose a piece of the money he received in the first instalment, and asked him, " if it stunk?" And he replying no, "And yet," said he, it is derived from urine." Some deputies having come to acquaint him that a large statue, which would cost a vast sum, was ordered to be erected for him at the public expense, he told them to pay it down immediately, holding out the hollow of his hand, and saying, " there was a base ready for the statue." Not even when he was under the immediate apprehension and peril of death, could he forbear jesting. For when, among other prodigies, the mausoleum of the Caesars suddenly flew open, and a blazing star appeared in the heavens; one of the prodigies, he said, concerned Julia Calvina, who was of the family of Augustus,[*] and the other, the king of the Parthians, who wore his hair long. And when his distemper first seized him, "I suppose." he said, "I shall soon be a god." [*]

In his ninth consulship, being seized, while in Campania, with a slight indisposition, and immediately returning to the city, he soon afterwards went thence to Cutiliae,[*] and his estates in the country about Reate, where he used constantly to spend the summer. Here, though his disorder much increased, and he injured his bowels by too free use of the cold waters, he nevertheless attended to the dispatch of business, and even gave audience to ambassadors in bed. At last, being taken ill of a diarrhoea, to such a degree that he was ready to faint, he cried out, "An emperor ought to die standing upright." In endeavouring to rise, he died in the hands of those who were helping him up, upon the eighth of the calends of July[*] [24th June], being sixty-nine years, one month, and seven days old.

All are agreed that he had such confidence in the calculations of his own nativity and that of his sons, that, after several conspiracies against him, he told the senate, that either his sons would succeed him, or nobody. It is said likewise, that he once saw in a dream a balance in the middle of the porch of the Palatine house exactly poised; in one scale of which stood Claudius and Nero, and in the other, himself and his sons. The event corresponded to the symbol; for the reigns of the two parties were precisely of the same duration.[*]