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Fifteen hundred of the emperor’s largest horses, each about four inches and a half high, were employed to draw me towards the metropolis, which, as I said, was half a mile distant.
He told me, “he had for many years been commander of a ship; and in the sea fight at Actium had the good fortune to break through the enemy’s great line of battle, sink three of their capital ships, and take a fourth, which was the sole cause of Antony’s flight, and of the victory that ensued; that the youth standing by him, his only son, was killed in the action.” He added, “that upon the confidence of some merit, the war being at an end, he went to Rome, and solicited at the court of Augustus to be preferred to a greater ship, whose commander had been killed; but, without any regard to his pretensions, it was given to a boy who had never seen the sea, the son of Libertina, who waited on one of the emperor’s mistresses.
The emperor’s person and habit described. Learned men appointed to teach the author their language. He gains favour by his mild disposition. His pockets are searched, and his sword and pistols taken from him. When I found myself on my feet, I looked about me, and must confess I never beheld a more entertaining prospect.
She took her station in front of the Roman standard, when Caractacus, the conquered British chief, was brought in chains to the emperor’s tribunal. She caused the dismissal of the imperial officers who incurred her displeasure. She exercised a paramount sway over her husband, and virtually ruled the empire. She distracted the palace with discords, cabals, and jealousies.
The region between the Danube and the Alps was peopled by various tribes, of different names, who gave perpetual trouble to the Romans; but they were now apparently subdued, and the waves of barbaric conquest were stayed for three hundred years. Vindelicea and Rhætia were added to the empire, in a single campaign, by Tiberius and Drusus, the sons of Livia—the emperor’s beloved wife.
Pius IX. insisted on the Emperor’s solemn pledges so recently given at Rome. Maximilian was deaf to the counsels, the complaints, the earnest prayers of the Holy Father.
My greatest apprehension was for mine eyes, which I should have infallibly lost, if I had not suddenly thought of an expedient. I kept, among other little necessaries, a pair of spectacles in a private pocket, which, as I observed before, had escaped the emperor’s searchers.
As the court had ordered that all the wishes of the emperor’s officers should be gratified, this seemingly innocent request was granted. But in place of conscripts the best men of the regiments were sent, and these were gradually increased in numbers until in the end they overpowered the Spanish garrisons and admitted the French.
Claudius also was governed by his favorites, generally men of low birth—freedmen who usurped the place of statesmen. Narcissus and Pallus were the most confidential of the emperor’s advisers, who, in consequence, became enormously rich, for favors flowed through them, and received the great offices of State.
"It does not become so great a monarch to remain disarmed in the presence of one of the emperor’s subjects." The lack of prudence in Francis had proved serious not only to himself, but to his troops, ten thousand of whom fell, among them many distinguished nobles who preferred death to dishonor. Numbers of high rank were taken prisoners, among them the king of Navarre.
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