of the profit. When his son Titus blamed him for even laying a tax
upon urine, he applied to his nose a piece of the money he received in
the first instalment, and asked him, "if it stunk?" And he replying no,
"And yet," said he, "it is derived from urine."

Some deputies having come to acquaint him that a large statue, which
would cost a vast sum, was ordered to be erected for him at the public
expense, he told them to pay it down immediately, (461) holding out the
hollow of his hand, and saying, "there was a base ready for the statue."
Not even when he was under the immediate apprehension and peril of death,
could he forbear jesting. For when, among other prodigies, the mausoleum
of the Caesars suddenly flew open, and a blazing star appeared in the
heavens; one of the prodigies, he said, concerned Julia Calvina, who was
of the family of Augustus [771]; and the other, the king of the
Parthians, who wore his hair long. And when his distemper first seized
him, "I suppose," said he, "I shall soon be a god." [772]

XXIV. In his ninth consulship, being seized, while in Campania, with a
slight indisposition, and immediately returning to the city, he soon
afterwards went thence to Cutiliae [773], and his estates in the country
about Reate, where he used constantly to spend the summer. Here, though
his disorder much increased, and he injured his bowels by too free use of
the cold waters, he nevertheless attended to the dispatch of business,
and even gave audience to ambassadors in bed. At last, being taken ill
of a diarrhoea, to such a degree that he was ready to faint, he cried
out, "An emperor ought to die standing upright." In endeavouring to
rise, he died in the hands of those who were helping him up, upon the
eighth of the calends of July [24th June] [774], being sixty-nine years,
one month, and seven days old.

XXV. All are agreed that he had such confidence in the calculations on
his own nativity and that of his sons, that, after several conspiracies
against him, he told the senate, that either his sons would succeed him,
or nobody. It is said likewise, that he once saw in a dream a balance in
the middle of the porch of the Palatine house exactly poised; in one
(462) scale of which stood Claudius and Nero, in the other, himself and
his sons. The event corresponded to the symbol; for the reigns of the
two parties were precisely of the same duration. [775]

* * * * * *

Neither con