favours and a hearty affection for him. And what was left him by such as had children, he used to restore to the latter, either immediately, or if they were under age, upon the day of their assuming the manly habit, or of their marriage, with interest. As a patron and master, his behaviour in general was mild and conciliating; but when occasion required it, he could be severe. He employed many of his freedmen in considerable posts about him, as Licinius, Enceladus, and others. And when his slave Cosmus had reflected bitterly upon him, he resented the injury no further than by putting him in fetters. When his steward Diomedes, as they were walking together, left him exposed to a wild boar, which came suddenly upon them, he chose rather to charge him with cowardice than any ill design, and turned an incident of no small hazard to his person into a jest, because it had proceeded from no treachery. Proculus, who was one of his greatest favourites amongst all his freedmen, he put to death, for maintaining a criminal commerce with other men’s wives. He broke the legs of his secretary Thallus, for taking a bribe of five hundred denarii to discover the contents of a letter of his. And his son Caius’ tutor, and other attendants, upon the occasion of his sickness and death behaving with great insolence, and committing acts of rapaciousness, he tied great weights about their necks and threw them into a river. In his youth he lay under the infamy of various aspersions. Sextus Pompeius reproached him as an effeminate fellow; and M. Antony, that he had earned his adoption from his uncle by prostitution. L. Antony likewise upbraids him with the same; and that he had, for a gratification of three hundred thousand sesterces, submitted to A. Hirtius in the same way, in Spain; adding, that he used to singe his legs with the flame of nutshells, to make the hair become softer. That he was guilty of various acts of adultery is not denied even by his friends; but they allege in excuse for it that he engaged in those intrigues not from lewdness but policy, to discover more easily the designs of his enemies by their wives.