ce when the senators
evinced a desire to have a penalty imposed by law upon those guilty of
lewd living he would make no such ruling, explaining that it is better to
correct them privately in some way or other instead of laying them open
to a public punishment. Under existing conditions, he said, there was a
chance of bringing some of them to moderation through fear of disgrace,
and they might endeavor to escape discovery; but if the law should once
be overcome by nature, no one would pay any further heed to it. Not a
few men also were wearing quantities of purple clothing (though this had
formerly been forbidden); of these no one was either rebuked or fined:
but when a rain came up on a certain festival the emperor put on a dark
woolen cloak. After this none of them dared any longer to assume any
different kind of garb.

This is the way he behaved under all conditions so long as Germanicus
lived. Subsequent to that event he changed many of his ways. Perhaps he
had been minded from the first as he later appeared to feel, and had been
merely shamming as long as Germanicus existed because he saw that he
was lying in wait for the leadership; or perhaps he was excellent by
nature but drifted into vice when he was deprived of his rival. [-14-] I
shall notice also separate events,--all those, at least that deserve
mention,--each in its proper place.

[A.D. 15 (_a. u._ 768)]

In the consulship of Drusus his son and of Gaius Norbanus he presented
to the people the bequests made by Augustus: this was after some one had
approached a corpse that was being carried out through the Forum for
burial and bending down had whispered something in its ear; when the
spectators asked what he had said, he stated that he had commissioned
the dead to tell Augustus that they had got nothing as yet. This man the
emperor immediately despatched, in order (as he jokingly said) that he
might carry his own message to Augustus; with the rest he settled after a
little, distributing sixty-five denarii apiece. Some say this payment was
made the previous year.

At this time certain knights desired to enter a championship contest in
the games which Drusus had arranged for his own celebration and that of
Germanicus; Tiberius did not view their combat, and when one of them was
killed he forbade the other to fight as a gladiator again. Still other
conflicts took place in connection with the horse-race that was in honor
of Augustus's birthday; indeed, a few