uity. On this account, most of the learned men of the time vied
with each other in publishing observations upon them, which they
addressed to him. His principal study, however, was the history of the
fabulous ages, inquiring even into its trifling details in a ridiculous
manner; for he used to try the grammarians, a class of men which, as I
have already observed, he much affected, with such questions as these:
"Who was Hecuba's mother? What name did Achilles assume among the
virgins? What was it that the Sirens used to sing?" And the first day
that he entered the senate-house, after the death of Augustus, as if he
intended to pay respect at once to his father's memory and to the gods,
he made an offering of frankincense and wine, but without any music, in
imitation of Minos, upon the death of his son.

LXXI. Though he was ready and conversant with the Greek tongue, yet he
did not use it everywhere; but chiefly he avoided it in the senate-house,
insomuch that having occasion to employ the word monopolium (monopoly),
he first begged pardon for being obliged to adopt a foreign word. And
when, in a decree of the senate, the word emblaema (emblem) was read, he
proposed to have it changed, and that a Latin word should be substituted
in its room; or, if no proper one could be found, to express the thing by
circumlocution. A soldier (236) who was examined as a witness upon a
trial, in Greek [366], he would not allow to reply, except in Latin.

LXXII. During the whole time of his seclusion at Capri, twice only he
made an effort to visit Rome. Once he came in a galley as far as the
gardens near the Naumachia, but placed guards along the banks of the
Tiber, to keep off all who should offer to come to meet him. The second
time he travelled on the Appian Way [367], as far as the seventh
mile-stone from the city, but he immediately returned, without entering it,
having only taken a view of the walls at a distance. For what reason he
did not disembark in his first excursion, is uncertain; but in the last,
he was deterred from entering the city by a prodigy. He was in the habit
of diverting himself with a snake, and upon going to feed it with his own
hand, according to custom, he found it devoured by ants: from which he
was advised to beware of the fury of the mob. On this account, returning
in all haste to Campania, he fell ill at Astura [368]; but recovering a
little, went on to Circeii [369]. And to obviate any suspici