Divus Claudius
Choose a text
id="mobileReaderAuthor" class="mobile-reader-author" href="/authors/suetonius" aria-label="More works by Suetonius">
—
⋯
Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
25.p25
25.p25
His military organization of the equestrian order was this. After having the command of a cohort, they were promoted to a wing of auxiliary horse, and subsequently received the commission of tribune of a legion. He raised a body of militia, who were called Supernumeraries, who, though they were a sort of soldiers, and kept in reserve, yet received pay. He procured an act of the senate to prohibit all soldiers from attending senators at their houses, in the way of respect and compliment. He confiscated the estates of all freedmen who presumed to take upon themselves the equestrian rank. Such of them as were ungrateful to their patrons, and were complained of by them, he reduced to their former condition of slavery; and declared to their advocates, that he would always give judgment against the freedmen, in any suit at law which the masters might happen to have with them. Some persons having exposed their sick slaves, in a languishing condition, on the island of Aesculapius,
25.p25
1
25.p25
because of the tediousness of their cure; he declared all who were so exposed perfectly free, never more to return, if they should recover, to their former servitude; and that if any one chose to kill at once, rather than expose, a slave, he should be liable for murder. He published a proclamation, forbidding all travellers to pass through the towns of
25.p25
Italy
25.p25
any otherwise than on foot, or in a litter or chair.
25.p25
2
25.p25
He quartered a cohort of soldiers at
25.p25
Puteoli
25.p25
, and another at
25.p25
Ostia
25.p25
, to be in readiness against any accidents from fire. He prohibited foreigners from adopting Roman names, especially those which belonged to families.
25.p25
3
25.p25
Those who falsely pretended to the freedom of
25.p25
Rome
25.p25
, he beheaded on the
25.p25
Esquiline
25.p25
. He gave up to the senate the provinces of
25.p25
Achaia
25.p25
and
25.p25
Macedonia
25.p25
, which Tiberius had transferred to his own administration. He deprived the Lycians of their liberties, as a punishment for their fatal dissensions; but restored to the Rhodians their freedom, upon their repenting of their former misdemeanors. He exonerated for ever the people of
25.p25
Ilium
25.p25
from the payment of taxes, as being the founders of the Roman race; reciting upon the occasion a letter in Greek, from the senate and people of
25.p25
Rome
25.p25
to king Seleucus,
25.p25
4
25.p25
on which they promised him their friendship and alliance, provided that he would grant their kinsmen the Iliensians immunity from all burdens.
25.p26
25.p26
He banished from
25.p26
Rome
25.p26
all the Jews, who were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus.
25.p26
1
25.p26
He allowed the ambassadors of the
25.p26
Germans
25.p26
to sit at the public spectacles in the seats assigned to the senators, being induced to grant them favours by their frank and honourable conduct. For, having been seated in the rows of benches which were common to the people, on observing the Parthian and Armenian ambassadors sitting among the senators, they took upon themselves to cross over into the same seats, as being, they said, no way inferior to the others, in point either of merit or rank. The religious rites of the Druids, solemnized with such horrid cruelties, which had only been forbidden the citizens of
25.p26
Rome
25.p26
during the reign of Augustus, he utterly abolished among the Gauls.
25.p26
2
25.p26
On the other hand, he attempted to transfer the Eleusinian mysteries from
25.p26
Attica
25.p26
to
25.p26
Rome
25.p26
.
25.p26
3
25.p26
He likewise ordered the temple of Venus Erycina in
25.p26
Sicily
25.p26
, which was old and in a ruinous condition, to be repaired at the expense of the Roman people. He concluded treaties with foreign princes in the forum, with the sacrifice of a sow and the form of words used by the heralds in former times. But in these and other things, and indeed the greater part of his administration, he was directed not so much by his own judgment, as by the influence of his wives and freedmen; for the most part acting in conformity to what their interests or fancies dictated.