Walks in RomeHare, Augustus J. C. (Augustus John Cuthbert)
History
Walks in Rome
Hare, Augustus J. C. (Augustus John Cuthbert)
Rome (Italy) -- Description and travel
The first funeral here was that of Marcellus, son of Octavia, the sister
of Augustus, and first husband of his daughter Julia, who died of
malaria at Baiæ, B.C. 23.
"Quantos ille virûm magnam Mavortis ad urbem
Campus aget gemitus! vel quæ, Tiberine, videbis
Funera, cum tumulum præterlabere recentem!
Nec puer Iliacâ quisquam de gente Latinos
In tantum spe tollet avos; nec Romula quondam
Ullo se tantum tellus jactabit alumno.
Heu pietas, heu prisca fides, invictaque bello
Dextera! non illi se quisquam impune tulisset
Obvius armato, seu quum pedes iret in hostem,
Seu spumantis equi foderet calcaribus armos.
Heu, miserande puer! si qua fata aspera rumpas,
Tu Marcellus eris."
_Æneid_, vi. 873.
The next member of the family buried here was Agrippa, the second
husband of Julia, ob. 12 B.C. Then came Octavia, sister of the emperor
and widow of Antony, honoured by a public funeral, at which orations
were delivered by Augustus himself, and Drusus, son of the empress
Livia. Her body was carried to the tomb by Tiberius (afterwards
emperor) and Drusus, the two sons of the empress. Drusus (B.C. 9) died
in a German campaign by a fall from his horse, and was brought back
hither for interment. In A.D. 14 the great Augustus died at Nola, and
his body was burnt here on a funeral pile so gigantic, that the widowed
Livia, dishevelled and ungirt, with bare feet, attended by the principal
Roman senators, had to watch it for five days and nights, before it
cooled sufficiently for them to collect the ashes of the emperor. At the
moment of its being lighted an eagle was let loose from the summit of
the pyre, under which form a senator, named Numerius Atticus, was
induced, by a gift from Livia equivalent to 250,000 francs, to swear
that he saw the spirit of Augustus fly away to heaven. Then came
Germanicus, son of the first Drusus, and nephew of Tiberius, ob. A.D.
19, at Antioch, where he was believed to have been poisoned by Piso and
his wife Plancina. Then, in A.D. 23, Drusus, son of Tiberius, poisoned
by his wife, Livilla, and her lover, Sejanus: then the empress, Livia,
who died A.D. 29, at the age of 86. Agrippina, widow of Germanicus (ob.
A.D. 33), starved to death, and her two sons, Nero and Drusus, also
murdered by Tiberius, were long excluded from the family sepulchre, but
were eventually brought hither by the youngest brother Caius, afterwards
the emperor Caligula. Tiberius, who died A.D. 37, at the villa of
Lucullus at Misenum, was brought here for burial. The ashes of Caligula,
murdered A.D. 41, and first buried in the Horti Lamiani on the
Esquiline, were transferred here by his sisters. In his reign, Antonia,
the widow of Drusus, and mother of Germanicus, had died, and her ashes
were laid up here. The Emperor Claudius, A.D. 54, murdered by Agrippina;
his son, Britannicus, A.D. 55, murdered by Nero; and the Emperor Nerva,
A.D. 98, were the latest inmates of the mausoleum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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