The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 02: AugustusSuetonius
History
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 02: Augustus
Suetonius
Emperors -- Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-284 A.D.
CI. He had made a will a year and four months before his death, upon the
third of the nones of April [the 11th of April], in the consulship of
Lucius Plancus, and Caius Silius. It consisted of two skins of
parchment, written partly in his own hand, and partly by his freedmen
Polybius and Hilarian; and had been committed to the custody of the
Vestal Virgins, by whom it was now produced, with three codicils under
seal, as well as the will: all these were opened and read in the senate.
He appointed as his direct heirs, Tiberius for two (147) thirds of his
estate, and Livia for the other third, both of whom he desired to assume
his name. The heirs in remainder were Drusus, Tiberius's son, for one
third, and Germanicus with his three sons for the residue. In the third
place, failing them, were his relations, and several of his friends. He
left in legacies to the Roman people forty millions of sesterces; to the
tribes [263] three millions five hundred thousand; to the pretorian
troops a thousand each man; to the city cohorts five hundred; and to the
legions and soldiers three hundred each; which several sums he ordered to
be paid immediately after his death, having taken due care that the money
should be ready in his exchequer. For the rest he ordered different
times of payment. In some of his bequests he went as far as twenty
thousand sesterces, for the payment of which he allowed a twelvemonth;
alleging for this procrastination the scantiness of his estate; and
declaring that not more than a hundred and fifty millions of sesterces
would come to his heirs: notwithstanding that during the twenty preceding
years, he had received, in legacies from his friends, the sum of fourteen
hundred millions; almost the whole of which, with his two paternal
estates [264], and others which had been left him, he had spent in the
service of the state. He left orders that the two Julias, his daughter
and grand-daughter, if anything happened to them, should not be buried in
his tomb [265]. With regard to the three codicils before-mentioned, in
one of them he gave orders about his funeral; another contained a summary
of his acts, which he intended should be inscribed on brazen plates, and
placed in front of his mausoleum; in the third he had drawn up a concise
account of the state of the empire; the number of troops enrolled, what
money there was in the treasury, the revenue, and arrears of taxes; to
which were added the names of the freedmen and slaves from whom the
several accounts might be taken.
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