He undertook several expeditions, some from choice, and some from necessity. That
					against the Catti See VESPASIAN, c. xiv. was
					unprovoked, but that against the Sarmatians was necessary; an entire legion,
					with its commander, having been cut off by them. He sent two expeditions against
					the Dacians; the first upon the defeat of Oppius Sabinus. a man of consular
					rank; and the other, upon that of Cornelius Fuscus, prefect of the pretorian
					cohorts, to whom he had entrusted the conduct of that war. After several battles
					with the Catti and Daci, he celebrated a double triumph. But for his successes
					against the Sarmatians, he only bore in procession the laurel crown to Jupiter
					Capitolinus. The civil war, begun by Lucius Antonius, governor of Upper Germany,
					he quelled, without being obliged to be personally present at it, with
					remarkable good fortune. For, at the very moment of joining battle, the Rhine
					suddenly thawing. the troops of the barbarians which were ready to join L.
					Antonius, were prevented from crossing the river. Of this victory he had notice
					by some presages, before the messengers who brought the news of it arrived. For
					upon the very day the battle was fought, a splendid eagle spread his wings round
					his statue at Rome, making most joyful cries. And shortly after, a rumour became
					common, that Antonius was slain; nay, many positively affirmed, that they saw
					his head brought to the city. He made many innovations in common practices. He abolished the Sportula, See NERO, c. xvi. and revived the old practice of
					regular suppers. To the four former parties in the Circensian games, he added
					two new, who wore gold and scarlet. He prohibited the players from acting in the
					theatre, but permitted them the practice of their art in private houses. He
					forbad the castration of males; and reduced the price of the eunuchs who were
					still left in the hands of the dealers in slaves. On the occasion of a great
					abundance of wine, accompanied by a scarcity of corn, supposing that the tillage
					of the ground was neglected for the sake of attending too much to the
					cultivation of vineyards, he published a proclamation forbidding the planting of
					any new vines in Italy, and ordered the vines in the provinces to be cut down,
					nowhere permitting more than one half of them to remain. This absurd edict was speedily revoked. See afterwards c. xiv. But
					he did not persist in the execution of this project. Some of the greatest
					offices he conferred upon his freedmen and soldiers. He forbad two legions to be
					quartered in the same camp, and more than a thousand sesterces to be deposited
					by any soldier with the standards; because it was thought that Lucius Antonius
					had been encouraged in his late project by the large sum deposited in the
					military chest by the two legions which he had in the same winterquarters. He
					made an addition to the soldiers' pay, of three gold pieces a year. In the administration of justice he was diligent and assiduous; and frequently
					sat in the forum out of course, to cancel the judgments of the court of The One
					Hundred, which had been procured through favour, or interest. He occasionally
					cautioned the judges of the court of recovery to beware of being too ready to
					admit claims for freedom brought before them. He set a mark of infamy upon
					judges who were convicted of taking bribes, as well as upon their assessors. He
					likewise instigated the tribunes of the people to prosecute a corrupt aedile for
					extortion, and to desire the senate to appoint judges for his trial. He likewise
					took such effectual care in punishing magistrates of the city, and governors of
					provinces, guilty of malversation, that they never were at any time more
					moderate or more just. Most of these, since his reign, we have seen prosecuted
					for crimes of various kinds. Having taken upon himself the reformation of the
					public manners, he restrained the licence of the populace in sitting
					promiscuously with the knights in the theatre. Scandalous libels, published to
					defame persons of rank, of either sex, "he suppressed, and inflicted upon their
					authors a mark of infamy. He expelled a man of quaestorian rank from the senate,
					for practicing mimicry and dancing. He debarred infamous women the use of
					litters; as also the right of receiving legacies, or inheriting estates. He
					struck out of the list of judges a Roman knight for taking again his wife whom
					he had divorced and prosecuted for adultery. He condemned several men of the
					senatorian and equestrian orders, upon the Scantinian law. This was an ancient law levelled against adultery and other pollutions,
						named from its author Caius Scatinius, a tribune of the people. There was a
						Julian law, with the same object. See AUGUSTUS, c. xxxiv. The
					lewdness of the Vestal Virgins, which had been overlooked by his father and
					brother, he punished severely, but in different ways; viz. offences committed
					before his reign, with death, and those since its commencement, according to
					ancient custom. For to the two sisters called Ocellatae, he gave liberty to
					choose the mode of death which they preferred, and banished their paramours. But
					Cornelia, the president of the Vestals, who had formerly been acquitted upon a
					charge of incontinence, being a long time after again prosecuted and condemned,
					he ordered to be buried alive; and her gallants to be whipped to death with rods
					in the Comitium; excepting only a man of praetorian rank, to whom, because he
					confessed the fact, while the case was dubious, and it was not established
					against him, though the witnesses had been put to the torture, he granted the
					favour of banishment. And to preserve pure and undefiled the reverence due to
					the gods, he ordered the soldiers to demolish a tomb, which one of his freedmen
					had erected for his son out of the stones designed for the temple of Jupiter
					Capitolinus, and to sink in the sea the bones and relics buried in it. Upon his first succeeding to power, he felt such an abhorrence for the shedding
					of blood, that, before his father's arrival in Rome, calling to mind the verse
					of Virgil, Impia quam caesis gens est epulata
							juvencis G. ii.537 
					 Ere impious man, restrain'd from blood in vain, Began to feast on flesh of bullocks slain he designed to have
					published a proclamation, "to forbid the sacrifice of oxen." Before his
					accession to the imperial authority, and during some time afterwards, he
					scarcely ever gave the least grounds for being suspected of covetousness or
					avarice; but, on the contrary, he often afforded proofs, not only of his
					justice, but his liberality. To all about him he was generous even to profusion,
					and recommended nothing more earnestly to them than to avoid doing anything
					mean. He would not accept the property left him by those who had children. He
					also set aside a legacy bequeathed by the will of Ruscus Caepio, who had ordered
					"his heir to make a present yearly to each of the senators upon their first
					assembling." He exonerated all those who had been under prosecution from the
					treasury for above five years before; and would not suffer suits to be renewed,
					unless it was done within a year, and on condition, that the prosecutor should
					be banished, if he could not make good his cause. The secretaries of the
					quaestors having engaged in trade, according to custom, but contrary to the
					Clodian law, See Livy, xxi. 63, and Cicero against Verres,
						v. i8. he pardoned them for what was past. Such portions of land as
					had been left when it was divided amongst the veteran soldiers, he granted to
					the ancient possessors, as belonging to them by prescription. He put a stop to
					false prosecutions in the exchequer, by severely punishing the prosecutors; and
					this saying of his was much taken notice of: " that a prince who does not punish
					informers, encourages them." But he did not long persevere in this course of clemency and justice, although he
					sooner fell into cruelty than into avarice. He put to death a scholar of Paris,
					the pantomimic, See VESPASIAN, C. iii. though a
					minor, and then sick, only because, both in person and the practice of his art,
					he resembled his master; as he did likewise Hermogenes of Tarsus for some
					oblique reflections in his History; crucifying, besides, the scribes who had
					copied the work. One who was master of a band of gladiators, happening to say,
					"that a Thrax was a match for a Marmillo, Cant names for
						gladiators. but not so for the exhibitor of the games," he ordered
					him to be dragged from the benches into the arena, and exposed to the dogs, with
					this label upon him, "A Parmularian The faction which
						favoured the "Thrax" party. guilty of talking impiously." He put to
					death many senators, and amongst them several men of consular rank. In this
					number were, Civica Cerealis, when he was proconsul in Africa, Salvidienus
					Orfitus, and Acilius Glabrio in exile, under the pretence of their planning to
					revolt against him. The rest he punished upon very trivial occasions; as iElius
					Lamia for some jocular expressions, which were of old date, and perfectly
					harmless; because, upon his commending his voice after he had taken his wife
					from him, DOMITIAN, C. i. he replied, "Alas! I hold
					my tongue." And when Titus advised him to take another wife, he answered him
					thus: 'What! have you a mind to marry?" Salvius Cocceianus was condemned to
					death for keeping the birth-day of his uncle Otho, the emperor: Metius
					Pomposianus, because he was commonly reported to have an imperial nativity, See VESPASIAN, C. xiv. and to carry about with him a
					map of the world upon vellum, with the speeches of kings and generals extracted
					out of Titus Livius; and for giving his slaves the names of Mago and Annibal;
					Sallustius Lucullus, lieutenant in Britain, for suffering some lances of a new
					invention to be called " Lucullean;" and Junius Rusticus, for publishing a
					treatise in praise of Patus Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus, and calling them both
					"most upright men." Upon this occasion; he likewise banished all the
					philosophers from the city and Italy He put to death the younger Helvidius, for
					writing a farce, in which, under the character of Paris and Oenone, he reflected
					upon his having divorced his wife; and also Flavius Sabinus, one of his cousins,
					because, upon his being chosen at the consular election to that office, the
					public crier had, by a blunder, proclaimed him to the people not consul, but
					emperor. Becoming still more savage after his success in the civil war, he
					employed the utmost industry to discover those of the adverse party who
					absconded: many of them he racked with a newinvented torture, inserting fire
					through their private parts; and from some he cut off their hands. It is
					certain, that only two of any note were pardoned, a tribune who wore the narrow
					stripe, and a centurion; who, to clear themselves from the charge of being
					concerned in any rebellious project, proved themselves to have been incapable of
					exercising any influence either over the general or the soldiers.