Produced by Tapio Riikonen and David Widger
By
C. Suetonius Tranquillus;
To which are added,
The Translation of
Alexander Thomson, M.D.
revised and corrected by
T.Forester, Esq., A.M.
(400)
I. The race of the Caesars became extinct in Nero; an eventprognosticated by various signs, two of which were particularlysignificant. Formerly, when Livia, after her marriage with Augustus, wasmaking a visit to her villa at Veii [639], an eagle flying by, let dropupon her lap a hen, with a sprig of laurel in her mouth, just as she hadseized it. Livia gave orders to have the hen taken care of, and thesprig of laurel set; and the hen reared such a numerous brood ofchickens, that the villa, to this day, is called the Villa of the Hens[640]. The laurel groves flourished so much, that the Caesars procuredthence the boughs and crowns they bore at their triumphs. It was alsotheir constant custom to plant others on the same spot, immediately aftera triumph; and it was observed that, a little before the death of eachprince, the tree which had been set by him died away. But in the lastyear of Nero, the whole plantation of laurels perished to the very roots,and the hens all died. About the same time, the temple of the Caesars[641] being struck with lightning, the heads of all the statues in itfell off at once; and Augustus's sceptre was dashed from his hands.
II. Nero was succeeded by Galba [642], who was not in the remotestdegree allied to the family of the Caesars, but, without doubt, of verynoble extraction, being descended from a great and ancient family; for healways used to put amongst his other titles, upon the bases of hisstatues, his being great-grandson to Q. Catulus Capitolinus. And when hecame to (401) be emperor, he set up the images of his ancestors in thehall [643] of the palace; according to the inscriptions on which, hecarried up his pedigree on the father's side to Jupiter; and by themother's to Pasiphae, the wife of Minos.
III. To give even a short account of the whole family, would be tedious.I shall, therefore, only slightly notice that branch of it from which hewas descended. Why, or whence, the first of the Sulpicii who had thecognomen of Galba, was so called, is uncertain. Some are of opinion,that it was because he set fire to a city in Spain, after he had a longtime attacked it to no purpose, with torches dipped in the gum calledGalbanum: others said he was so named, because, in a lingering disease,he made use of it as a remedy, wrapped up in wool: others, on account ofhis being prodigiously corpulent, such a one being called, in thelanguage of the Gauls, Galba; or, on the contrary, because he was of aslender habit of body, like those insects which breed in a sort of oak,and are called Galbae. Sergius Galba, a person of consular rank [644],and the most eloquent man of his time, gave a lustre to the family.History relates, that, when he was pro-praetor of Spain, he perfidiouslyput to the sword thirty thousand Lusitanians, and by that means gaveoccasion to the war of Viriatus [645]. His grandson being incensedagainst Julius Caesar, whose lieutenant he had been in Ga