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.
(337)
I. Two celebrated families, the Calvini and Aenobarbi, sprung from therace of the Domitii. The Aenobarbi derive both their extraction andtheir cognomen from one Lucius Domitius, of whom we have this tradition:—As he was returning out of the country to Rome, he was met by two youngmen of a most august appearance, who desired him to announce to thesenate and people a victory, of which no certain intelligence had yetreached the city. To prove that they were more than mortals, theystroked his cheeks, and thus changed his hair, which was black, to abright colour, resembling that of brass; which mark of distinctiondescended to his posterity, for they had generally red beards. Thisfamily had the honour of seven consulships [548], one triumph [549], andtwo censorships [550]; and being admitted into the patrician order, theycontinued the use of the same cognomen, with no other praenomina [551]than those of Cneius and Lucius. These, however, they assumed withsingular irregularity; three persons in succession sometimes adhering toone of them, and then they were changed alternately. For the first,second, and third of the Aenobarbi had the praenomen of Lucius, and againthe three following, successively, that of Cneius, while those who cameafter were called, by turns, one, Lucius, and the other, Cneius. Itappears to me proper to give a short account of several of the family, toshow that Nero so far degenerated from the noble qualities of hisancestors, that he retained only their vices; as if those alone had beentransmitted to him by his descent.
II. To begin, therefore, at a remote period, his great-grandfather'sgrandfather, Cneius Domitius, when he was tribune of the people, beingoffended with the high priests for electing another than himself in theroom of his father, obtained the (338) transfer of the right of electionfrom the colleges of the priests to the people. In his consulship [552],having conquered the Allobroges and the Arverni [553], he made a progressthrough the province, mounted upon an elephant, with a body of soldiersattending him, in a sort of triumphal pomp. Of this person the oratorLicinius Crassus said, "It was no wonder he had a brazen beard, who had aface of iron, and a heart of lead." His son, during his praetorship[554], proposed that Cneius Caesar, upon the expiration of hisconsulship, should be called to account before the senate for hisadministration of that office, which was supposed to be contrary both tothe omens and the laws. Afterwards, when he was consul himself [555], hetried to deprive Cneius of the command of the army, and having been, byintrigue and cabal, appointed his successor, he was made prisoner atCorsinium, in the beginning of the civil war. Being set at liberty, hewent to Marseilles, which was then besieged; where having, by hispresence, animated the people to hold out, he suddenly deserted them, andat last was slain in the battle of Pharsalia. He was a man of littlecon