Julius Caesar | Page 2

the number. Critics of the highest rank have devoted themselves to the
task of correcting and commenting on the text, and the work has been
translated into most European languages. Of the English translations,
that of Dr. Alexander Thomson, published in 1796, has been made the
basis of the present. He informs us in his Preface, that a version of
Suetonius was with him only a secondary object, his principal design
being to form a just estimate of Roman literature, and to elucidate the
state of government, and the manners of the times; for which the work
of Suetonius seemed a fitting vehicle. Dr. Thomson's remarks appended
to each successive reign, are reprinted nearly verbatim in the present
edition. His translation, however, was very diffuse, and retained most
of the inaccuracies of that of Clarke, on which it was founded;
considerable care therefore has been bestowed in correcting it, with the
view of producing, as far as possible, a literal and faithful version.
To render the works of Suetonius, as far as they are extant, complete,
his Lives of eminent Grammarians, Rhetoricians, and Poets, of which a
translation has not before appeared in English, are added. These Lives
abound with anecdote and curious information connected with learning
and literary men during the period of which the author treats. T. F.
CONTENTS
I. LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS 1. Julius Caesar 2. Augustus
3. Tiberius 4. Caligula 5. Claudius 6. Nero 7. Galba 8. Otho 9. Vitellius
10. Vespasian 11. Titus 12. Domitian II. LIVES OF THE
GRAMMARIANS AND THE HISTORIANS III. LIVES OF THE
POETS Terence Juvenal Persius Horace Lucan Pliny FOOTNOTES
INDEX

(1)
THE TWELVE CAESARS.
CAIUS JULIUS CAESAR.
I. Julius Caesar, the Divine [3], lost his father [4] when he was in the
sixteenth year of his age [5]; and the year following, being nominated
to the office of high-priest of Jupiter [6], he repudiated Cossutia, who
was very wealthy, although her family belonged only to the equestrian
order, and to whom he had been contracted when he was a mere boy.
He then married (2) Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, who was four
times consul; and had by her, shortly afterwards, a daughter named
Julia. Resisting all the efforts of the dictator Sylla to induce him to
divorce Cornelia, he suffered the penalty of being stripped of his
sacerdotal office, his wife's dowry, and his own patrimonial estates; and,
being identified with the adverse faction [7], was compelled to
withdraw from Rome. After changing his place of concealment nearly
every night [8], although he was suffering from a quartan ague, and
having effected his release by bribing the officers who had tracked his
footsteps, he at length obtained a pardon through the intercession of the
vestal virgins, and of Mamercus Aemilius and Aurelius Cotta, his near
relatives. We are assured that when Sylla, having withstood for a while
the entreaties of his own best friends, persons of distinguished rank, at
last yielded to their importunity, he exclaimed--either by a divine
impulse, or from a shrewd conjecture: "Your suit is granted, and you
may take him among you; but know," he added, "that this man, for
whose safety you are so extremely anxious, will, some day or other, be
the ruin of the party of the nobles, in defence of which you are leagued
with me; for in this one Caesar, you will find many a Marius."
II. His first campaign was served in Asia, on the staff of the praetor, M.
Thermus; and being dispatched into Bithynia [9], to bring thence a fleet,
he loitered so long at the court of Nicomedes, as to give occasion to
reports of a criminal intercourse between him and that prince; which
received additional credit from his hasty return to Bithynia, under the

pretext of recovering a debt due to a freed-man, his client. The rest of
his service was more favourable to his reputation; and (3) when
Mitylene [10] was taken by storm, he was presented by Thermus with
the civic crown. [11]
III. He served also in Cilicia [12], under Servilius Isauricus, but only
for a short time; as upon receiving intelligence of Sylla's death, he
returned with all speed to Rome, in expectation of what might follow
from a fresh agitation set on foot by Marcus Lepidus. Distrusting,
however, the abilities of this leader, and finding the times less
favourable for the execution of this project than he had at first imagined,
he abandoned all thoughts of joining Lepidus, although he received the
most tempting offers.
IV. Soon after this civil discord was composed, he preferred a charge of
extortion against Cornelius Dolabella, a man of consular dignity, who
had obtained the honour of a triumph. On the acquittal of the accused,
he resolved to retire to Rhodes [13], with