ed to him, being a man of great integrity and industry.
But he lessened his character not a little, by his passionate fondness
for an abandoned freedwoman, with whose spittle, mixed with honey, he
used to anoint his throat and jaws, by way of remedy for some complaint,
not privately nor seldom, but daily and publicly. Being extravagantly
prone to flattery, it was he who gave rise to the worship of Caius Caesar
as a god, when, upon his return from Syria, he would not presume to
accost him any otherwise than with his head covered, turning himself
round, and then prostrating himself upon the earth. And to leave no
artifice untried to secure the favour of Claudius, who was entirely
governed by his wives and freedmen, he requested as the greatest favour
from Messalina, that she would be pleased to let him take off her shoes;
which, when he had done, he took her right shoe, and wore it constantly
betwixt his toga and his tunic, and from time to time covered it with
kisses. He likewise worshipped golden images of Narcissus and Pallas
among his household gods. It was he, too, who, when Claudius exhibited
the secular games, in his compliments to him upon that occasion, used
this expression, "May you often do the same."

III. He died of palsy, the day after his seizure with it, leaving behind
him two sons, whom he had by a most excellent and respectable wife,
Sextilia. He had lived to see them both consuls, the same year and
during the whole year also; the younger succeeding the elder for the last
six months [699]. The senate honoured him after his decease with a
funeral at the public expense, and with a statue in the Rostra, which had
this inscription upon the base: "One who was steadfast in his loyalty to
his prince." The emperor Aulus Vitellius, the son of this Lucius, was born
upon the eighth of the calends of October [24th September], or, as some
say, upon the seventh of the ides of September [7th September], in the
consulship of Drusus Caesar and Norbanus Flaccus [700]. His parents were
so (430) terrified with the predictions of astrologers upon the
calculation of his nativity, that his father used his utmost endeavours
to prevent his being sent governor into any of the provinces, whilst he
was alive. His mother, upon his being sent to the legions [701], and
also upon his being proclaimed emperor, immediately lamented him as
utterly ruined. He spent his youth amongst the catamites of Tiberius at
Capri, was himself