ballei; [632]
The noise of swift-heel'd steeds assails my ears;

he drove a dagger into his throat, being assisted in the act by
Epaphroditus, his secretary. A centurion bursting in just as he was
half-dead, and applying his cloak to the wound, pretending that he was
come to his assistance, he made no other reply but this, "'Tis too late;"
and "Is this your loyalty?" Immediately after pronouncing these words,
he expired, with his eyes fixed and starting out of his head, to the
terror of all who beheld him. He had requested of his attendants, as the
most essential favour, that they would let no one have his head, but that
by all means his body might be burnt entire. And this, Icelus, Galba's
freedman, granted. He had but a little before been discharged from the
prison into which he had been thrown, when the disturbances first broke
out.

L. The expenses of his funeral amounted to two hundred thousand
sesterces; the bed upon which his body was carried to the pile and burnt,
being covered with the white robes, interwoven with gold, which he had
worn upon the calends of January preceding. His nurses, Ecloge and
Alexandra, with his concubine Acte, deposited his remains in the tomb
belonging (379) to the family of the Domitii, which stands upon the top
of the Hill of the Gardens [633], and is to be seen from the Campus
Martius. In that monument, a coffin of porphyry, with an altar of marble
of Luna over it, is enclosed by a wall built of stone brought from
Thasos. [634]

LI. In stature he was a little below the common height; his skin was
foul and spotted; his hair inclined to yellow; his features were
agreeable, rather than handsome; his eyes grey and dull, his neck was
thick, his belly prominent, his legs very slender, his constitution
sound. For, though excessively luxurious in his mode of living, he had,
in the course of fourteen years, only three fits of sickness; which were
so slight, that he neither forbore the use of wine, nor made any
alteration in his usual diet. In his dress, and the care of his person,
he was so careless, that he had his hair cut in rings, one above another;
and when in Achaia, he let it grow long behind; and he generally appeared
in public in the loose dress which he used at table, with a handkerchief
about his neck, and without either a girdle or shoes.

LII. He was instructed, when a boy, in the rudiments of almost all the
liberal sciences; but his mother diverted him from