Lives of The Caesars, VIII
nonagenarius senex, an circumsectus esset.
3Ab iuventa minime civilis animi, confidens etiam et cum verbis tum rebus immodicus, Caenidi patris concubinae ex Histria reversae osculumque, ut assuerat, offerenti manum praebuit; generum fratris indigne ferens albatos et ipsum ministros habere, proclamavit:
oὐκ ἀγαθὸν πoλυκoιρανίη.
XIII. Principatum vero adeptus neque in senatu iactare dubitavit et patri se et fratri imperium dedisse, illos sibi reddidisse, neque in reducenda post divortium uxore edicere revocatam67 eam in pulvinar suum. Adclamari etiam in amphitheatro epuli die libenter audiit: “Domino et dominae feliciter!” Sed et Capitolino certamine cunctos ingenti consensu precantis, ut Palfurium Suram restitueret pulsum olim senatu ac tunc de oratoribus coronatum, nullo responso dignatus tacere tantum modo iussit voce praeconis. 2 Pari arrogantia, cum procuratorum suorum nomine formalem dictaret epistulam, sic coepit: “Dominus et deus noster hoc fieri iubet.” Unde institutum posthac, ut ne scripto quidem ac sermone cuiusquam appellaretur aliter. Statuas sibi in Capitolio non nisi aureas et argenteas poni permisit ac ponderis certi. Ianos arcusque cum quadrigis et insignibus triumphorum per regiones urbis tantos ac tot
Domitian
the procurator and a very crowded court, to see whether he was circumcised.
From his youth he was far from being of an affable disposition, but was on the contrary presumptuous and unbridled both in act and in word. When his father’s concubine Caenis131 returned from Histria and offered to kiss him as usual, he held out his hand to her. He was vexed that his brother’s son-in-law had attendants clad in white, as well as he, and uttered the words:
“Not good is a number of rulers.”132
XIII. When he became emperor, he did not hesitate to boast in the senate that he had conferred their power on both his father and his brother, and that they had but returned him his own; nor on taking back his wife after their divorce, that he had “recalled her to his divine couch.”133 He delighted to hear the people in the amphitheatre shout on his feast day:134 “Good Fortune attend our Lord135 and Mistress.” Even more, in the Capitoline competition,136 when all the people begged him with great unanimity to restore Palfurius Sura, who had been banished some time before from the senate, and on that occasion received the prize for oratory, he deigned no reply, but merely had a crier bid them be silent. With no less arrogance he began as follows in issuing a circular letter in the name of his procurators, “Our Master and our God bids that this be done.” And so the custom arose henceforth of addressing him in no other way even in writing or in conversation. He suffered no statues to be set up in his honour in the Capitol, except of gold and silver and of a fixed weight. He erected so many and such huge vaulted passage-ways and arches in the various regions of the city, adorned with chariots