n which learning was at a low
ebb. Besides history, Suetonius informs us that he wrote a Defence of
Cicero against the Charges of Asinius Gallus. This appears to be the
only tribute of esteem or approbation paid to the character of Cicero,
from the time of Livy the historian, to the extinction of the race of the
Caesars. Asinius Gallus was the son of Asinius Pollio, the orator.
Marrying Vipsania after she had been divorced by Tiberius, he incurred
the displeasure of that emperor, and died of famine, either voluntarily,
or by order of the tyrant. He wrote a comparison between his father and
Cicero, in which, with more filial partiality than justice, he gave the
preference to the former.

NERO CLAUDIUS CAESAR.

(337)

I. Two celebrated families, the Calvini and Aenobarbi, sprung from the
race of the Domitii. The Aenobarbi derive both their extraction and
their 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 young
men of a most august appearance, who desired him to announce to the
senate and people a victory, of which no certain intelligence had yet
reached the city. To prove that they were more than mortals, they
stroked his cheeks, and thus changed his hair, which was black, to a
bright colour, resembling that of brass; which mark of distinction
descended to his posterity, for they had generally red beards. This
family had the honour of seven consulships [548], one triumph [549], and
two censorships [550]; and being admitted into the patrician order, they
continued the use of the same cognomen, with no other praenomina [551]
than those of Cneius and Lucius. These, however, they assumed with
singular irregularity; three persons in succession sometimes adhering to
one of them, and then they were changed alternately. For the first,
second, and third of the Aenobarbi had the praenomen of Lucius, and again
the three following, successively, that of Cneius, while those who came
after were called, by turns, one, Lucius, and the other, Cneius. It
appears to me proper to give a short account of several of the family, to
show that Nero so far degenerated from the noble qualities of his
ancestors, that he retained only their vices; as if those alone had been
transmitted to him by his descent.

II. To begin, therefore, at a remote period, his great-grandfather's
grandfather, Cneius Domitius, when he was tribune of the peopl