le to that of his brother, and made no
scruple of saying frequently, "that he had been left his partner in the
empire, but that his father's will had been fraudulently set aside."
From that time forward, he was constantly engaged in plots against his
brother, both publicly and privately; until, falling dangerously ill, he
ordered all his attendants to (481) leave him, under pretence of his
being dead, before he really was so; and, at his decease, paid him no
other honour than that of enrolling him amongst the gods; and he often,
both in speeches and edicts, carped at his memory by sneers and
insinuations.

III. In the beginning of his reign, he used to spend daily an hour by
himself in private, during which time he did nothing else but catch
flies, and stick them through the body with a sharp pin. When some one
therefore inquired, "whether any one was with the emperor," it was
significantly answered by Vibius Crispus, "Not so much as a fly." Soon
after his advancement, his wife Domitia, by whom he had a son in his
second consulship, and whom the year following he complimented with the
title of Augusta, being desperately in love with Paris, the actor, he put
her away; but within a short time afterwards, being unable to bear the
separation, he took her again, under pretence of complying with the
people's importunity. During some time, there was in his administration
a strange mixture of virtue and vice, until at last his virtues
themselves degenerated into vices; being, as we may reasonably conjecture
concerning his character, inclined to avarice through want, and to
cruelty through fear.

IV. He frequently entertained the people with most magnificent and
costly shows, not only in the amphitheatre, but the circus; where,
besides the usual races with chariots drawn by two or four horses
a-breast, he exhibited the representation of an engagement between both
horse and foot, and a sea-fight in the amphitheatre. The people were
also entertained with the chase of wild beasts and the combat of
gladiators, even in the night-time, by torch-light. Nor did men only
fight in these spectacles, but women also. He constantly attended at the
games given by the quaestors, which had been disused for some time, but
were revived by him; and upon those occasions, always gave the people the
liberty of demanding two pair of gladiators out of his own school, who
appeared last in court uniforms. Whenever he attended the shows of
gladi