The Historians' History of the World 06

His grandmother Antonia desiring a private conference with him, he denied the request, unless Macro, commander of the guards, might be present. By affronts of this kind, and ill usage, he was the occasion of her death; but, as some think, not without giving her a dose of poison. He paid not the smallest respect to her memory after her death; and gratified himself at beholding, from his parlour, her funeral pile on fire. His brother Tiberius, who had no expectation of any violence, he despatched, by suddenly sending to him a military tribune for that purpose. He forced Silanus his father-in-law to kill himself, by cutting his throat with a razor. The pretext he alleged for these murders was, that the latter had not followed him upon putting to sea in stormy weather, but stayed behind with the view of seizing the city, if he should have been lost in the voyage. The other, he said, smelt of an antidote, which he had taken to prevent his being poisoned by him; whereas Silanus was only afraid of being seasick, and of the trouble of the voyage; and Tiberius had only made use of a medicine for a habitual cough, which was constantly increasing upon him. As to his successor Claudius, he only saved him to make sport with.

He lived in the habit of incest with all his sisters; when one of them, Drusilla, was married to Cassius Longinus, a man of consular rank, he took her from him, and kept her openly as his wife. In a fit of sickness, he by his will appointed her heiress of his estate, and the empire likewise. After her death, he ordered a public mourning for her; during which it was capital for any person to laugh, use the bath, or sup with parents, wife, or children. Being inconsolable under his affliction, he went hastily, and in the night-time, from the city, going through Campania to Syracuse; and then suddenly he returned without shaving his beard, or trimming his hair all that time. Nor did he ever after, in matters of the greatest importance, not even in the assemblies of the people and soldiers, swear any otherwise, than “By the divinity of Drusilla.”

He never but once in his life concerned himself with military affairs, and then not deliberately, but in his journey to Mevania, to see the grove and river of Clitumnus. Being put in mind of recruiting his company of Batavians, which he had about him, he resolved upon an expedition into Germany. Immediately he drew together several legions and auxiliary forces from all quarters, and made everywhere new levies with the utmost rigour. Laying in provisions of all kinds, beyond what had ever been done upon the like occasion, he set out on his march; and pursued it with so much haste and hurry sometimes, that the guards were obliged, contrary to custom, to lay their standards upon the backs of horses or mules, and so follow him. At other times, he would march with such slowness and delicacy, that he would be carried in a chair by eight men; ordering the roads to be swept by the people of the neighbouring towns, and sprinkled with water to lay the dust.

Upon arriving in the camp, to show himself an active general, and severe disciplinarian, he cashiered the lieutenant-generals that came up late with the auxiliary forces from different parts. In reviewing the army, he took their companies from most of the centurions of the first rank, who had now served their legal time in the wars, and from some but a few days before their time would have expired; alleging against them their great age and infirmity; and railing at the covetous disposition of the rest of them, he reduced the premiums due to such as had served out their time to the sum of six thousand sesterces. Though he only received the submission of Adminius, the son of Cinobelinus a British prince, who being forced from his native country by his father, came over to him with a small body of troops; yet, as if the whole island had been surrendered to him, he despatched magnificent letters to Rome upon the occasion, ordering the bearers to proceed in their chaise directly up to the Forum and the senate house, and not to deliver the letters but to the consuls in the temple of Mars, and in the presence of a full assembly of the senators.

Roman Soldier’s Method of fording a River, carrying his Arms and Clothing on his Shield